AHPC XIII update

So, no second post yet, but good progress on overloading my table with many, many projects! Part of my strategy is to always have a lot on the go, in part so that I am not waiting for things to dry, also it keeps me from getting board with one topic. 

So 'on my table' right now are:

• 1 unit of 20 Empire pike [100]
  
• 1 unit of 20 Empire halberds [100]
  
• 1 large 28mm Indiana Jones tank [20]
  
• 1 unit of 12 FPW French cuirassiers [120]
  
• 1 unit of 12 FPW Prussian lancers [120]
  
• 1 unit of 12 ECW cuirassiers [120]
  
• 12 or so assorted pulp figures [60]
  
• 1 group of 4 film crew [20]
  
• 1 TV camera operator [10]
• 10 'Greek' skeletons [50]
  
• 2 large VSF robots  [20]
• 1 really large pulp robot [?]
  

So potential of about 720 points 

Squirrels 8

Cod piece challenge 40 figures

On the back burner:

• 12 mounted Norman knights [120]
  
• 20 gladiators [100]
  
• 20 skeletons [100]
  
• 30 Argonauts [150]
  
• 3 ladies pushing carriages [15]
• 1 guy with wheelbarrow [5]
  
• 1 large palanquin [50]
  
• 1 small palanquin [15]
  
• 2 more 20 man empire foot units [200]

So another possible 755 points

AHPC XIII first entry, a small one to start

 

 So a meager 45 points to start off with, 20 points for the under construction theme and 25 points for the 28mm figures. Last year my first post was around 145 points, but was not posted until December 28th, so I am ahead of last year for posting. I do have a number of projects that I am working on for later this week and now that Christmas has come and gone maybe I can get some of them done.

I gotta say, that is one creepy baby.

The theme comes from the idea of completing some project (an impossible thing), in my case it was painting up aunt Lucy (the lady with the cane) to 'complete' the road gang of Bob, Bing and Dorothy. I kind of thought she looked like Bob Hope in drag when he was the spirit of aunt Lucy.

 

 

My colourized version of the AHPC XIII studio map

  

Since I will have to go through four (4) green studios before moving on to the blue studios and then four(4) blue studios to get to the red directors chair I figured colour coding the various studios might be in order, so here it is, pretty crudely done, but done.

Did this while feeling ill, fighting off a cold no strength to prime anything or do much more prep work, but this I could sort of focus on... Might go back and fix the lettering it kind of gets lost in the colours.

 

 

AHPC XIII Alphabet challenge

 To be filled in as the challenge progresses.

So, a few ideas, some carried over from last year, some new ideas. X is a tough one but thankfully I have more aliens to paint this year. I did not paint zombies last year so that's okay, but A, B, D, R, T and U are repeats, I would prefer to be original, but then I also would prefer to complete this task.

Top secret plans for Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII [AHPC XIII]

The bonus theme has been revealed for this years challenge and it is centered around a massive movie studio with smaller individual studios and Sarah's limo service. A limo ride will cost me one painted female figure and the limo will take me to any studio for which I have a pass. Each small studio grants  me 20 bonus points when I have completed the challenge associated with the studio. 

 

Now the map has not yet been coloured but when it is it will show blue and green studios. I will need to complete 4 green studio in order to get a blue pass so that I can enter the blue studios. Once 4 blue studios have been completed I will receive a red pass that grants me access to the big cheese who will then assign me a final challenge. 

So, what will I paint for this challenge? I have set a target of 3000 points which will be a challenge as I will miss at least 1 week due to a trip and I expect other interruptions since we are not in quarantine and therefore I suspect I will encounter social activities. 

Bonus round plans (in no order) and possible items to paint

• Westerns                      Lots of these
  
• Historical drama          Rome vs Germans
  
• Fantasy                        Dragons
  
• World cinema             
  
• Casting couch              Pulp figures
  
• Art house                   
  
• Sword and sandal         Gladiators
  
• High adventure             Far north adventurers           
  
• 1980's                           UNIT, spies, Dr Who
  
• Superhero                     Lots of those
  
• Sci fi                             AQMF, 15mm Sci fi, aliens and marines
  
• Black and white            Space marine bust
  
• Books                            Frankenstein/Dracula  
  
• Under construction       
  

As for the limo rides, well after painting 107 female figures last year I still have, maybe at least, double that left not painted, so that will not be a problem.

Just a rough outline for now, more clarity once the challenge starts!

The Analogue Paintng Challenge XIII

I am in again for another year!

I can hardly wait for it to begin as apparently, it is the only way that I can move through my mountain of stuff. I have set a low bar, in comparison to last years results, of 6000+ points as, this year, I hope to get 3000+ points. While I have an aspirational goal in mind of 4000 points I do not hold out much hope of  achieving that target. 

Several obstacles threaten to derail my painting this year.

First off, this year finds me mired in apathy and quite frankly a little down regarding the hobby. I am also fairly directionless as to what projects to work on (typical). The painting table is surrounded by WW2 20mm British and American vehicles. They all sit there with highlights applied, but no signs of ever being completed. They have too much paint on them to qualify for the challenge so could be an impediment if I do not clear them off, or if I should become inspired to work on them during the challenge. I also have a fair amount of 28mm pulp figures loitering nearby, again in various states beyond merely primed.

Next we are no longer in lock down, which means that social interaction may well intrude on my painting time. Last year I embraced the isolation, it granted me plenty of time to get stuck in to the hobby. This year online RPG and in person miniature gaming are likely to disrupt my efforts.

Vacation! For some inexplicable reason, I am going on a 1 week vacation at the end of February. This will certainly derail my production schedule.

WIP WW 2 projects taking shape, slowly and a new tool for basing.

 

The AA tank on the right has an integral base, all others had bases added by me.

The new tool a device to cut corners, to round them off.

Finally making some progress on my 20mm WW2 stuff assisted by this tool.

WWII Germans painted for What a Tanker!

 

So we are eventually going to test out the rules for anti tank guns and man portable anti tank weapons, therefore I needed some German panzerfaust troops (I also need to crew my antitank guns).

For the panzerfaust teams I decided to paint up the Germans that came with Italeri anti tank weapons box set, The set is of debatable value, feel free to check out the review at plastic soldier review. The two poses are kind of odd, but I was in a hurry so I decided to just go for it. Well once I started painting them my disappoint in them grew. 

Note the standing figure, look at his left arm there is a lot of dead space from the front view and check out how long he left arm is in the side view. Also where does that weapon go, it seems to disappear into his torso.  As for the kneeling guy, what is he doing, where is he aiming? Must be quite a crest that the enemy is coming over! He too has quite the long left arm.

Also note the 'details' of the figures equipment. It is all pretty splotchy looking.

In the end despite all the challenges the figures came out ok. The agrax earth shade wash certainly went a log way towards saving these guys. Prior to the wash, with only base paints applied the figures looked pretty pathetic. Now they are passable and will work for WaT.

Terminator Genisys 17 Resistance soldiers

 

So, I got these done in time for tomorrows first game of Terminator Genisys. (Hopefully this gets played) They are fairly dull looking figures but they are supposed to be in combat camouflage! The figure in front is Kyle Reese, it is metal, the rest are plastic miniatures. The plastic figures came with separate arms that snapped onto a one piece torso/head/legs. I tried to mix up the 'poses' but there is only so much you can do.

Terminator Genisys finally got some figures fully painted up!

 

So, 30 Terminators and 15 'crawlers' painted up and ready for action. The pictures do not capture the many layers of metal paints that went on these guys or the many grey paints used on the bases. 

Can't see the forest for the...

 

 Trees!

Finally getting around to working on some scenery. In this case I am trying to fix up some already built forests, while also building some new forest bases, and some forest 'outlines'. The Mod Podge actually is not being used for this, it just happens to be on the table. The old forests are on the left side, the trees on these are fixed in place, but I plan to pry them off and place magnets where they used to be. This should allow me to better store these bits of terrain as the tress can be stored separately from the bases (that can be stacked for easy storage.

On the far right you can see the forest outlines that I am working on, these can be used with individually mounted trees. The idea is that when troops enter the woods one can remove the trees but keep the outline on the table to delineate the footprint of the woods.

None of this is all that innovative but it is a project that is long overdue to be done, just like the corn fields that have sat in storage for a few years.

 

 

Fantastic Battles inspired work on my old Undead stuff

Time to resurrect my old Undead army in time for this weekends game. It was supposed to be last weekend but illness interfered with those plans. Most of this stuff was painted decades ago back when I sort of knew, or started to learn how to paint better. They certainly are not as bad as some of my dwarfs were but they do need some help. 

More on the movement trays - how I do them

 

 Almost all prepped for Sunday! 

I did fail to mention what I did to texture the trays, so here it is if anyone is interested. Once the bases were assembled I covered them with my homemade concoction of basing goo. 

The goo is: 

• Liquitex flexible modeling paste
• White glue
• Woodland scenic fine ballast
• Craft paint burnt umber
• Wall paint texturing powder 

No precise measurements here, just a dash of this and a splash of that whatever 'looks' right. I try to keep it from being too runny, really just a nice paste. I do also try to make it so that when I run a spatula across the surface I can see a pebbly streak effect. The wall paint powder is something I bought years ago, is very very fine (actually dangerously fine as it can get airborne and breathed in all to easily) but it does add texture and bulk to the goo. I use a spatula and old paint brush to apply it to the trays.

I store this goo in a dollar store sandwich plastic container that is fairly air tight.

Paints used

• Apple barrel Territorial Beige
• Craftsmart Golden Brown
• Ceramcoat Khaki
• Vallejo Sepia wash/dip
  

Once dried I apply a dry brush territorial beige. Once dry then add a dry brushing of golden brown. Once this has dried I apply a wash, then as it dries I randomly dab a bit of paper towel to vary the amount of wash. Finally once the wash has dried I do a very light dry brush of khaki to pick out some highlights.

The tray on top is after the wash has been applied

 

Then it is a simple matter to brush on some white glue in semi random patterns, followed by either dunking the tray into my vat of green flock, or sprinkling the flock over the base by hand.

 

On the left are my old style bases while the right better shows how I will be doing bases

So the next task is to re-base my figures as the basing has gotten real old. I shall be ordering some pre-cut MDF bases and then apply my goo to the bases to blend in with the trays. Of course you never know, maybe I will like Fantastic Battles so much that I will just convert to larger bases...

Fantastic Battles, prep work for club game to be played June 26th.

Inspiration (courtesy of the Fantastic Battles game) and a deadline has got me working on some of my fantasy figures. We had recently played a game of Warhammer 6th (WH) edition which was very fun, but, ultimately, very slow to play. So we decided that we would try another game system. Now Fantastic Battles (FB) makes use of preset movement bases, each company is 60mm by 60mm. One to four companies can be grouped together as a unit. The challenge was to take my existing Warhammer figures and set them up onto these universal bases.

Now most of my infantry are based two to a base that is 25mm deep and either 20mm or 25mm wide, depending on WH basing conventions. My cavalry are either 25mm by 50mm or 50mm by 50mm. The depth of the infantry stand comes from the fact that I use 1" wide balsa wood strips as bases. So, most gamers use individually based troops so the spreading out of these figures on a base may not be so bad, a little dispersed but not too bad. My troops do not spread out so much. 

So I decided to do a bit of texturing to the FB bases to try and have my existing figures blend in better with the base. Initially I just took some thick cardboard cut it into squares and applied some filler. I used some scrap balsa to provide a guide for the filler. It worked but maybe there was a better solution.

So back to the drawing board. I went looking through my pile of wood products to see if anything might help. I found some stir strips that I bought back before 1999. So I cut and glued these strips onto the 60mm by 60mm bases carefully measured to the troops that would be used on them. This gave a much firmer frame for the troops to fit into. 

 

I then also came up with another thought, a way to bulk out my units. As it stands the companies, especially when formed into multi company units, look kind of sparse.

 

Now the FB rules allow units to assume three different formations, line, column and square. For the most part, judging by various AAR troops tend to stay in line formation, only occasionally going into column, and almost never going into square. So I started to rethink things a bit. As mentioned units can be anything from 1-4 companies which in line would be 60mm/120mm/180mm/240mm wide.  So as an experiment I have cut out bases that equal those widths. This allows me to have more figures on the base and less gaps. On the multi company bases the gaps appear on the ends of the units not in between companies.

Only a play through of the rules will show us if this will work out. I do have arrow markers that can be used, should troops assume a column, to indicate the direction of movement. I have also focused on 2 company and 3 company bases over 4 company bases. I can always double up a 2 company base for troops deployed as 4 companies. Having unit bases, somehow, really drives home just how unwieldy large units van be.  But it also will speed up the movement of troops. I will, of course, need to mark the bases every 60mm to delineate where each base 'ends'.

Of note I have not affixed my troop stands to these bases. While I have added some thin double sided tape to the bases, lifting these troops by the figures is not a good idea! 

So far the bases have proven to be resilient, they do not flex, but time will tell...  

The Mountain!

 

It is done!

 

 

The 'Great' mountain build of 2022 part 3 the end