Analogue Painting Challenge XIV I'm in!

 

So, contrary to what I said to my spouse, I have decided to enter this years Analogue painting challenge. It was a last minute decision to enter but, thankfully, made the same day that entries were being accepted. So I got in with a commitment of 2000 points. The challenge was filled very very quickly,  maybe 36 hours and done that was quick!

So why did I not want to participate and why am I? Well this will be my third go at it and quite frankly last years event just drained me. You see, I have a bit of a bad competitive streak in me, something that I try to keep suppressed, because, well, I am a bit of a bastard when I get in that mode. For the painting challenge it meant that I basically tortured myself in an attempt to max out my painting production and in so doing maxing out gained points. I leveraged the score sheet to drive me forward, not entirely to 'beat' other painters (after all this is not a competition) but striving to reach the top meant that I was painting a lot of stuff, reducing that mountain of primed stuff. This might make me sound like a dick, I hope not. My best analogy is that when I play squash I cannot just rally, we have to keep track of the score. Without that scoring I will not give it my all, I will not race across court to make crazy shots etc. But, once the game is over I do not remember the score and when we have finished playing for the day I have not knowledge of how many games I played or what the score was in any given game. It was only important at the time, in the game, as a motivator to make me try harder. Same thing goes for the challenge.

First year that I participated (challenge XII) my goal was 1500 points I achieved 6072 points. For challenge XIII my target was 3000 and I was able to reach 4778. I am actually hoping that this year I will stay closer to my target, it would be less stressful. My first two challenges meant many late nights/early mornings and long grueling painting sessions. They were killers. 

However this year I have found some more people to game with, which should have an impact on my painting availability. Then again gaming also inspires me to paint more stuff. It may be an interesting three months.

This years theme is a library which should offer lots of squirrel opportunities although I have a couple of 'big' projects that I would like to focus on, namely Never mind the Billhooks (28mm) and a Halfling army for Fantastic Battles. Both will need lots of prepping so I better go off and start building those Perry and Max Mini figures.

WIP on some Chinese buildings for Pulp Alley China Station campaign

 

These are Warbases models from their 55 Days range. They are very easy to build and have some nice character. I did pimp them out with a bit of Liquitex flexible modeling paste to give the impression of a stucco like appearance. For the building on the right (with red door) I taped off all the areas where the cross beams would be placed. I then applied the paste with a brush and then as it was drying I took another brush to dab the paste to create a more nuanced look. It worked out very well as it left a clear area to glue the crossbeams onto. The paste dried a pale white almost clear in places and as a result the 'plaster' took on an off white hue. To aid in the appearance I used some off white paint, dabbed on, followed by some slightly whiter shade very lightly applied as a highlight. 

 

For the other two buildings I dispensed with the taping and instead was just careful in applying the paste, this worked and saved time. For the building on the left I added some embossed brick paper to break up the monotony of painted MDF.

 All the roofs were painted black and dry brushed a dark grey and light grey. Then I used Vallejo environmental paint to add streaks of green, light green, brown and yellow.

 

I still have one more building to complete and three more on order.

Return to Dystopian Wars?

I decided to lay out some of my painted Dystopian Wars stuff in an attempt to jump start me into painting more of my collection.

I had painted some stuff for the Analogue painting challenge but that was but a drop in the ocean. There is another local gamer that has some naval forces so I am going to try and get some naval stuff done, some FSA ships to begin with.

So, well, today I built some globy blobs!!!

 

Inspired by this post by doctor merkury I built upon the ideas presented and made use of some items not used by the original creator. For the most part I followed the good doctors instructions using decorative red gems as the core of the blob, but I mounted them on clear acrylic bases. 

Then I applied generous amounts of hot glue all over sometimes as blobs, sometimes as strings. But unlike the doctor (I believe) I used a silicon sheet for this process. This allowed me to go over the edges to create thin tails or pools of liquid blob. Then just like the doctor I applied red ink washes (a mix of  various manufactures) and some orange ink to the entire 'figure'. I seem to have gone darker and less translucent with these, that may be okay, time will tell.

They took practically no time to build and paint and I have plenty of spare red gems so I suppose I will try out some more colour combinations.

A while ago I started some troops in hazmat suits that oddly will fit right in fighting these things. I only got so far with them, but now with an invading horde of these I will have to find time to finish them off.

Pulp Pacific preparations

 

So, prep work has finally started on some required elements for a new PULP alley campaign, China Station. The gunship is by Sarissa with Pulp Figures hardware and figures. The two junks are 3D Russian 'puzzles' that I bought many, many years ago. 

AHPC XIII wrap up and week 7 post that never got posted to this blog.

Total production from this years challenge

 

 

So, I have been remiss during the last weeks of the challenge and failed to post any production photos. Above you can see almost everything that I painted in the winter months (a few items somehow missed this photo session) Fairly eclectic in scope, shows my normal amount of unfocused hobbying. I find myself rather happy to have finished certain items, most of all, all the vehicles, the forests and the Dwarf legionnaire figures. My only disappointment was not getting started on the GW plastic fortresses, they were all primed, but I just ran out of time.

6th post to the AHPC XIII [358 points]

 

Mostly GW figures, maybe Ral Partha figures Will Scarlett

Mix of Gorillas

Pulp Figures island of Dr Moreau

Mix of Nuns on the run

The Flying Squad

GW forest

So this week I finished off 31 x 28mm figures and 4 GW forests, not much. I do have a lot of stuff nearing completion, maybe for post 7. None of these figures needed to be done this week, beyond fulfillment of studio and limo requirements. They were for the most part just a random grab.

5th AHPC XIII post 445 points Gladiators, Supers and Rockettes

 

 

Mighty Fortress, possible AHPC XIII entry

 

 So, inspired by a fellow challenger and his wall project, I have been poking around the garage for some old GW stuff. On the painting table right now are 4 forests terrain features. They might be ready for this Saturday. But, the item I was looking for in the garage was the mighty fortress, three in fact. I found them.

 

I think this may become a background project to be worked on during the course of the challenge. Three mighty fortress consist of 13 wall sections (including gate sections) for a total length of 390cm roughly 192". There are also 8 towers roughly 5.5" square.

The points calculation

Each 6" square cube counts as 20 points.

The 4 wall sections when placed side by side form a square roughly 12" by 13". 

So that would be 4 x 20 = 80 points per fortress, x3 for a total of  = 240 points. 

Four towers make a square roughly 11" by 11" so 20 x 4 = 80 per fort x3 = 240 points. 

My admittedly poor math skills suggests that this may well net 480 points for the 3 fortresses. Then add in 20 points for the lone extra wall section (1/4 of 80 points) and this would bring the total to 500 points. This would be nice to go out on.

4th post to AHPC XIII A regular cornucopia of stuff [635 points]

 

 So, first up some French cuirassiers for Mars/VSF.

Next we have some Empire foot

Third post to AHPC XIII (production line picking up speed) ECW cavalry/Ancient Germans/Sisters of Sigmar/Assorted monsters [308 points]

 

An eclectic mix this time, maybe a bit more so than usual. Some miscellaneous monsters, all but the big green guy are Reaper miniatures, the big green guy is from Flying Frog games. 

 

The Bull is about 4 layers of bronze paints, 3 GW and on Vallejo. 

 

The skeletal creatures were primed black, base coated brown, over brushed bone, washed with GW Contrast skeleton horde them touched up with Army painter bone and Game colour bone.

 

The Minotaur was primed black then about 3-4 layers of brown before being hit with GW Reikland flesh wash. The wash made it a bit darker than I was aiming for and I may eventually go back and highlight it a bit.

The big green guy was primed white, then contrast Plague Bearer flesh, then dry brushed dead flesh and rotting flesh before being hit by a mix wash od Vallejo sepia wash and Vallejo light green slime. The tongue/tentacles were any and all shades of pink that I happened to have with a pin wash of GW Carroburg crimson to try and separate the tentacles.

 

Sisters of Sigmar painted with contrast Space wolves grey, Fleshtearers red and Guilliman flesh. As usual, some touch ups were required (still need some more touch ups)

Foundry wailing German women, based for Infamy Infamy! Ultimately not the best figures (or paint job) They are a little clunky in places, low detail in some spots. Also had difficulty figuring out the stole on their shoulders.

Warlord ECW metal riders and plastic horses. Painted as Royalist, sort of, but might be better as Parliamentarian. This is the first of 11 cavalry regiment that I have to paint, right now there is only one in the cue. I had fun painting the horses, tried to highlight the flesh, need more practice on that. I do like the flowers!

New aquisition, Vallejo Express color

 

So, this just arrived at my local hobby shop, Hobby House. Thankfully the owner was kind enough to give me a call when they arrived and put aside one of each bottle for me! Vallejo is the latest paint company to throw their hat into the quick paint system arena. The initial release consists of 23 colours and a mix medium. I got all 24 bottles. 

I have made use of GW's contrast paints and Army painter speed paints so why not another one? Well many reason why not, I suspect. Cost, too many paints already, possibly not good paints just to name a few. 

Cost for 18ml bottle.

1. $4.99 Vallejo Express color
2. $5.95 Army painter speed paints 
3. $8.95 GW Contrast paints
   

So cost is not bad by comparison.

Too many paints?

Well yes that is a good point and a good reason not to buy more paint, but what can a paint addict do?

Quality of the paints?

Well on that point, the jury is still out. I just bought them yesterday and I have not had a chance to test all of them out. The colours that I have tested are pretty good. They are a matt finish as promised by the company, and they flow just like the other paints of this style. Like the others they have a nice capillary action that see the paint flow easily over the miniature surface and settles nicely into crevices.

So far some of the paints seem to be more intense than others. The black has a distinctive blue hue to it and comes out very light. The dwaf (sic) flesh is a much lighter and welcomed flesh wash and compliments the other flesh colours by the other companies. So far none of the colors have the same blotchy quality of the GW contrast paints. One could almost get away with just using express paints to paint a figure.

As I said they are too new a purchase so I have not done a proper test. However, I am in the middle of a painting challenge, so I am confident that they will get a full test real soon.