From ByronM - Challenge 15 sign off post

 Well, I made it to the end of yet another Painting Challenge, even if I didn't meet my target points.  This year was a lot of fun, and I finally felt good about my painting again now that I got some better glasses and light in my paint area, so that is a win.  Also, I could have hit my points goal, but made the concious choice to go work on some other projects that I really needed to for my company (NorthernLightsTerrain.com), which I will show off later in the post.

First up, the obligatory group shot of myself and all the models I painted, and even though I missed my goal by a little, I am really happy with how much I got done and the quality of most of it.

Next up is a shot of my still in disaster mode painting table...  I still have a ton of odds and ends kicking around that I never got to.

I also realized I never got back to post a group shot of all of my Burrows & Badgers stuff (which I did not get everything done, so there will be a lot more next challenge).  I love how these came out, as the sculpts are awesome with lots of detail, but not too much that you are left painting little bits forever.

And lastly, for the last few weeks of the challenge, I got sidetracked on getting a set of trenches and bunkers ready for sale on NorthernLightsTerrain.com for use with Trench Crusade, which we have been playing a lot of around here.  While I know you can make trenches easily out of foam and stir sticks, foam tends to break down over time, and is harder to pack as it is always the one size.  So, learning from my stacking basic Infinity buildings I made a bunch of stacking boxes with wood texture sides and flat tops that pack up easily for storage.  I sell them like that, but recommend people use whatever modelling compound they want for the tops to give more character, plus glue some random bits and bobs all over and it looks pretty sweet.

Textured and base painted trenches

20 Trench boxes stacked for storage

Unpainted and no top texture added

I also did two style of bunkers to go with them, which gives a complete set for Trench Crusade or any other WW1 style setting.  Are they perfect, no, as it's hard to create angled sections with MDF and a laser, but they work pretty well!

Well, that's it for this year!  

Thanks again to Curt and all the Minions for all the hard work, see you all again next year!

ByronM - Two Foxy Fellows [14 points]

After last weeks big submission I am down to a two model submission this week, made up of 2 foxy brothers for Burrows & Badgers.  These two should make a nice addition to my outlaw (rogue) faction once I have enough games in with the faction to earn enough pennies to hire them.

These two brothers will be called Todd and Robin, some pretty obvious childhood references, but hey you can't always be cryptic with references.  I painted them up to match each other, so they are in mainly the same colours, and in dark forest green cloaks and jackets to help hide in the woods as they lay in wait for the Royalists to come by so they can rob their carriages.

Nothing fancy about the paint jobs on these two, I just tried to keep nice clean colours to match the brighter than normal cartoony style I am going for with my Burrows & Badgers figures to make sure they pop from table top viewing distance.  To that end, I am not doing any blending or subtle work on any of these figures, they get a base coat of the normal colour, a wash to add shadows, then a highlight with the base colour again and an extra highlight when needed.  That's it, plain and simple, but I think it really works with these figures as while they have detail, they tend to be a bit simplistic with fine details (I think to keep a cartoony overall look, but I could be wrong).

These guys are pretty chunky for 28mm scale, at almost 50mm tall and on 50mm bases! So they size well with the Badger I painted from a few weeks ago.

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Wonderful additions to this delightful project Byron. Your subtle colours and shading really suits them beautifully - they look like illustrations right out of Beatrix Potter!

Given their chunky yet sly disposition, I've scored them as 40mm figs

- Paul

ByronM - Burrows & Badgers [60 points]

Today's second entry is one that I have been looking forward to for a while.  I happened across this game last year and picked up a bunch of the figures as the game looked like fun and the miniatures even more so!  I mean, which of us didn't grow up reading Wind in the Willows, watching Disney's Robin Hood, or watching way too many Saturday morning cartoons with anthropomorphic animals in them?  Seeing these bits of memory from childhood turned into a wargame fills me with memories and was way too much fun to pass up.

I wanted to paint them up as soon as I got them, but set them aside for the challenge and for new glasses so that I could attempt to do justice to them.  Having got my new glasses mid-December, and having booked holidays from late December through mid January, the time was right to spend way too much time painting these lovely little miniatures, so without further ado here is the first batch of my Burrows & Badgers collection.

This is the first of the base warband sets, which includes Shrew-zerker, a mouse nun, a squirrel archer, a rabbit archer, a barn swallow scout, and an otter pirate as the leader.  Quite an interesting mix of characters which will form the core of my rogue force.

I painted all of these miniatures as one offs, meaning by them selves and not in bulk with others.  This allowed me to focus on each one and give it its own character and look.  As an added bonus because I had such an interest in these figures I spend a bunch of time on each one (thanks to having the last few weeks off since the challenge started) and as a result I am actually really happy with them all, which for me is not very common as I am often my harshest critic.  I am super thrilled with the look of all of these figures and am only disappointed that I can not get around to the terrain that I printed up to go with them while the challenge is on, due to Curt dropping terrain from the challenge this year :-(  Oh well, I will get it done once the challenge is over.

This is the second of the base warband sets which includes 2 mouse (mice?) knights, a squirrel caster, a serpent caster, a weasel archer, and a rabbit knight.  These will form the core of my Royalist faction.

To not bore anyone with pictures of each figure separately, here are just a few of the ones that I really like how they came out.  First is the squirrel witch, and I think her red brown colouration really looks good against her green forest cloak.

Next up is the ferret crossbowman, which reminds me of the archers in the Disney Robin Hood cartoon. I know they were not ferrets in there, I think they were wolves or something, but it still makes me think of the show and I think he would fit right in there.

Technically, this one is supposed to be a sparrow, but while looking up picture of birds to go from for colours I saw a picture of a barn swallow and liked the blue and tan colouration so decided to go with that instead.  In person the blue really pops and makes the model stand out.

I still have about a dozen more models to paint up for this game, but will probably do them piece meal over the challenge, but I promise to put them all together for one big group shot at the end.  At some point I will need to go back and add some more basing elements to the rouge faction models as I 3d printed the ferns and plants for the loyalist models a while back and have since misplaced the files for them, so could not print up more.  That will be rectified shortly.

Overall there are 12 models here, but the shrew-zerker was submitted earlier in another post so only 11 count towards my points here, so 55 points (unless some of the bigger ones class as a different scale as they are quite big on 40mm bases).

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WoW! Those are wonderful sculpts and you've done them beautifully Byron! 

Looking forward to more submissions like this and the big group shot in the end

Take a few bonus points for the bigger models, and because I love Wind in the Willows too :-)

- Paul

From ByronM -WW2 German Infantry Squad + Shrewzerker [75 points]

Now that the Christmas Craziness and Family BS is over with, it's time to get down to what really matters, Wargames, Miniatures, and Painting!!!

First up today is a unit that I first primed up probably 3 or 4 years ago for a challenge and they have sat primed black hiding in shame in the back of the closet since then.  They are the germans that came with the second edition of Bolt action, that I have always meant to get around to, but never have.  There are more coming as I think there were 30ish in the box, so expect another few units over the coming days/weeks.  Since these have sat primed and waiting for so long I am counting them towards the First Circle of hell, Limbo for a bonus 20 points.

They are painted mainly in German field grey, with grey pants and an almost black helmet.  They are a pretty basic paint job, but it works at a distance.  I also decided to base them with small yellow flowers as seen in the Sound of Music, so that at some point I can maybe put on a game where the Germans chase down the incepted and ear piercingly annoying Van Trapp family and silence them once and for all.  They will of course keep Julie Andrews alive, but the rest of the family must be silenced!

Next up is my first test model for a project I am really looking forward to this year, Burrows & Badgers.  I love anthropomorphic animals so when I saw this game for the first time a few years back I needed to get it, but then got sidetracked on other projects so never got around to it.  This year that changes!  I have about 20 models for this game to get painted and have several more in progress on the paint table already.

Points wise this should be 75 points (11 28mm figures x 5 = 55 points, + 20 bonus points for Limbo)

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Terrific work on this German squad, Byron. You may have missed the refreshed edition of Bolt Action but you should have them done for the 2nd edition of Chain of Command this upcoming year. I also really like your maniacal axe-wielding shrew(?).  If ever there was a shrew in need o taming it may be this chap. I've not heard of the game, but a quick look at their website shows some very cool minis. I very much look forward to seeing you show us more of this range. Lovely work.

- Curt

From TomM: The Price of Entry (10 pts)

 Something new in the AHPC since last year, is the fee of entry.  In this, you paint up one figure, and this has to be mailed to another participant that reaches the endgoal of the challenge.

As the model has to be submitted within the first month of the challenge, I always go at it as soon as possible, and so I duly did this year as well.

The model chosen as an entry fee is a Shrewzerker, produced by Oathsworn in their lovely Burrows and Badgers range, and a game I'm keen on collecting and playing more in the future.

This fella really looks the business, wielding his huge axe while taunting the enemy barechested!

But what's more, as I didn't have one for myself either, I opted to paint not one, but two of this mighty warriors, one for the lucky winner, and one for my own collection.

And as such, we are off for another year of painting extravaganza during the next three months, with a goal of 1000 points to score and not that much paint time at all with Baby Thorin.  So carefull planning will be key, but at least the first 10 points are on the counter now!

Good luck to all the participants and may funtimes be had and lead mountains dwindle!