From TeemuL - All Creatures Big and Small (40 Points)

This is a strange compilation of models, which I have painted during this week. I was somewhat prepared for the Challenge, I prepared and base coated some models beforehand so I wouldn't waste time on that. Well, all the base coated are now painted as well as couple of others. One of the problems was of course the time, I would have prepared more, if I'd had time. Also, I had no idea what I would like to paint in February, when it was early December. Third, as I was just back in the painting after couple of years pause, I had no real idea how fast I could paint, nor how much time I would have for painting.

So there was I, pretty much all the prepared models painted, no big picture of what to do next and some of the busiest time outside painting. Well, first one was quite simple, the second Shoggoth for the Mansions of Madness. I tried to finish it for the Myth bonus round, but I had not enough time. So here it is, more or less a counter colored version of the first one. At least the eyes are easier to recognize as eyes, the first one had black eyes with dark green pupils. Paintwork is a little bit neater, too, I think.

It is the last of the monsters of the game, the investigators need to be painted at some point, but they are surprisingly not base coated...

Before Christmas I was buying some movement trays and bases, War-bases.co.uk was said to be a good choice. It was also mentioned, that some MDF buildings should be bought at the same time, because they were good and the more you buy the less postage per item... So I bought some of them just to see the quality. They are still unpainted, but look quite good. While I was browsing, I noticed they have some metal figurines as well. They are quite unlike everything I have ever seen before, they are not warriors, not even civilians in the middle of conflict, but wild and farm animals. And they were quite cheap (at least because they sold in small numbers, the price looks small). So I decided to buy some of them in order to see, what they are. The bloodhound looked tempting, so I bought one. And painted.

I'm not an expert, so I tried to follow the "Black and tan saddle type" color type. I think I did it rather well, at least it's recognizable.

One is not of course enough for good testing, so I bought four Mouflon Sheeps and based them as two pairs.

I thought that sheep are either white or black, but these apparently are quite brown. So I painted them brown with a trademark black line on the back.

And three pheasants to complete my test buy.

One of them is male, second one is a female and third one is baby female. It's quite tricky to paint them at this size.

They are all based on 24mm washers, Warbases say that they are 28mm, but they look rather small. One thing my fellow participants of this Challenge probably know, but it is not very easy to paint multiple models glued on the same base... I have troubles with my nerves, when I paint a horse on 28mm scale - guess how difficult it is to paint all the legs of the Mouflon Sheeps, when there are two of tiny animals, both glued on the same base?

As I said, they were a test buy. So was the test successful? Well, there were no mistakes, I got what was promised, there not much flash or anything. I think they are little bit small, but may be the base fools the eye. The details are rather soft at times, but I'm happy with them. I don't know if there are other providers for pheasants and Mouflon sheep anyway. When I buy more bases from there, I will buy some figures as well.

I tried a new (to me) basing with these animals. I thought that the basing material (I got it as an extra while I bought something else second-hand, so I don't know what it really is) would have been a little bit rougher, but it was not. The bases of the animals are clearly visible, something to remember when I work with these kind of models in the future. That makes a good question, another good question is, what I'm going to do with these? They look rather small to me, so do I need to start some army/game/system in smaller scale? I don't have any figures in any other scale than 28 (save some 1:72 German Paratroopers from Revell, which came with a tank set). They might work as objectives (or even as sentries) in some scenarios, but they would be totally out of place in the battles of Warhammer FB or 40K. May be in the Lord of the Rings...?

...Which brings me to the next (and last) entry of this week. In addition of painting couple of LotR figures during this challenge, I have played one game of LotR during this challenge! The latest play before that was some seven years ago... Now I played with Moria Goblins and beat the Dwarfs. I hope to play more, and in order to have more variety in my troops I decided to buy some Good forces and especially some special characters for them. We were (and hopefully will be) using the Warband rules, meaning that for each 12 warriors you need to have a named character or a a generic captain from the same force, so I decided to buy a captain and a standard bearer for my High Elfs. I have Elrond and Gil-Galad, but they cost lots of points and are not perhaps balanced for small games.

Here they are, they were quite fast to paint. I had one trouble, back in the days I used to paint the armor with Mithril Silver and then give it a Flesh Wash wash. Well, as noted before, I have run out of Flesh Wash years ago. I wanted them to match the old Elfs, so I needed to try something else. I tried Leadbelcher over white base coat, then Shining Gold (yes, I still have some older paints). The gold was quite quick, I was not trying to get all the recesses and that. The final touch was Reikland Fleshshade which I painted heavily over the paint. The first try was quite good.

Here are all the models I painted during this week, I hope my title makes sense now.

And the points... Well, 10 points for the Elves. All the rest are 28mm scale models as well, but larger or smaller than regular humans... I hope Curt can make some estimations of the size based on the picture. There are some Shoggoths on the Myth round, so their point value can be copied there. The animals are something new, I'm happy for any points I get from them. :)