From ChrisW A last, crazy post [513 points]

This last post will be another mixed bag of stuff as I try to complete what I can of half painted projects started in the challenge. 

Deep Ones [23x 28mm]

A mix of figures, a lot of the old Grenadier miniatures but also some new bigger guys thrown into the mix.  I did some deep ones in a previous challenge but just did not get around to these. I think I have now finished all my deep one figures. Sadly the bigger ones were only completed today, too late for the game we played this past Saturday that featured them. 

Cultists in gas masks [14x 28mm foot, 1 crew manned machine gun]

All but one of these are Pulp Figures, not certain where I got the 'leader' figure. At one point in the challenge I thought that I would finish off all of my cultists, but alas one group of 16 or so figures remains unpainted.

Junks

These two junks started off as cardboard models, the insert tab A into slot B type of model. They were a pale 'wood' coloured model with lots of detail on them. Unfortunately they were not 28mm scale details even though the ships were of a good size. So, I snipped off all of the tabs and did my best to fill in any gaps and then painted them. I was determined to obscure the detailed images but also preserve the etched texture of the planks. I left the sails as they were and the masts. It was a more time consuming task that I anticipated and was just barely able to have them done in time for this past Saturdays game.

DIY Shuttle craft

So a bit of a kit bashing to make a shuttle out of a kids toy. Mostly needed to remove some bits, block up some gaps, add some 'fans' and give it a paint job. The real challenge was what colour to paint it. In the end I could not decide which is my excuse for why it looks like it does.

Tried to give it a bashed up look (beyond the questionable paint job)

The toy as purchased

Sci-fi Tripods

Just what I needed, more tripods! This time not AQMF but Sci-fi tripods of a different sort. Not certain about the windows, they did not come out quite the way I thought they would, I may have to revisit them some time down the road.

Manga

The closest I have to Manga is this freebie figure from Alternative armies. It was included in an order I made a few years back and I really had no use for her. I figure the armour looks kind of like Manga ans certainly the purple hair helps.

Sarah's cart

One of the Blue Moon miniature Vampire hunter figures to allow me to use the cart. (for the first time this challenge)

Local history Huron

Another free figure this time from Bob Murch. It is a pre contact Huron native in wood armour and flint spear. In my youth, my family traveled across Ontario to Fort Saint Marie among the Hurons. While that fort was built well after the time period that this figure represents it was one of the traditional locations of the Huron nation.

 Sarah's cart and Russian Adventurer

One of the Blue Moon miniatures spy figures to allow me to use the cart.

History section

So a journey to the wild west and some lawmen. Up front we have 'Bat' Masterson the famous stick wielding lawman. Then behind him I have added some Pinkerton agents. I believe they are all Artizan miniatures.

Finally a few more figure to round out the challenge. I painted a few extra female characters in case I needed to ride the cart a few more times. All are Blue Moon figures.

So the totals

•  115 points for 23x 28mm Deep ones
•    80 points for 14x 28mm Cultists with gas masks plus machine gun and 1 crew
  
•    40 points for 2x 28mm junks
  
•      8 points for 1x 15mm shuttle craft
•    20 points for DIY section 
•    60 points for 3x 28mm tripods
  
•   20 points for Sci-fi section
  
•     5 points for 1x 28mm Manga Heroine
•   20 points for Manga Section
•   25 points for vampire hunter and Sarah's cart
  
•     5 points for 1x 28mm Huron 
•   20 points for Local history section
•   25 points for Russian adventuress and Sarah's cart
  
•  30 points for 6x 28mm foot Bat Masterson and Pinkertons
  
•  20 points for history section
  
•  20 points for 4x 28mm foot Blue Moon
  

Total  points 513 points

And more importantly...more squirrels!!

 Squirrels this post +5

Squirrels to date [18]

1. Hammers Slammers
2. Ikwen alien infantry
3. Hanuman (Alien) vehicles 
4. New Swabian league armoured vehicles 
5. Rats
6. Scarabs 
7. Mercenary Sci-fi vehicle
8. NAC Sci-fi vehicles 
9. Foo dog statues
10. Terracotta warriors  
11. NSL Bikes
12. Generic sci fi vehicles
13. Civilian sci-fi vehicles 
14. Egyptian cultists  
15. Mud Men 
16. Ladies of the evening (and Jack)
17. Halfling artillery
18. Venetian Gondolas 
19. English Bobbies
20. Deep ones
21. Cultists with gas masks (Pulp Figures) 
22. Tripods
23. Junks
24. Wild west lawmen
    

 and 60 points of big stompy robots of death!!

______________________________________

Wow! Chris, you give us a wonderful parting bomb with your last post (and a blitz through the library). So much to admire here. Deep Ones, Cultists, Junks, Tripods, oh my! I always have a soft spot for anything by Bob Murch, but I have to say that my faves are the lawmen and the female pulp characters. So awesome.

You've had great Challenge this year, Chris. I hope we see you out for the next edition. :)

- Curt

From SteveA: Gaslands, KoW, Terrain (121 points)

Heya painting peoples!

I am chasing challenges with this post,  going for 3 Library Challenges as I wander thru the AHPC library seeking to slay the gray...and chip away the pile of unpainted shame...

Ever since ByronM got me hooked on the table top visuals that 3D printing can bestow upon a Kings of War  table scape where upon the minis were shrunk to 10mm scale so more minis fit within the units bases, thereby making the battlefield appear more epic....I have continued to add more units to my Army and craft more terrain for the KPW 10mm battle field.

A unit of 10mm Trolls will now bolster my KoW army building options, and and a dollar store Halloween Skeleton-snake decoration converted into an "ancient bones within the hill" terrain piece will now provide an obstacle for unit movement and block line of sight  for some upcoming KoW battles

To further complement my "scrubland"  terrain for 10mm KoW battles, I also crafted and painted up a couple hills and some smaller clusters of trees.

If you were pondering over ideas about how to create some variety of scatter terrain with some low-profile base that were both cheap and not a collection of square corners.. I can suggest trying an idea I found when viewing war game hobby yootoob videos - use old CDs as bases for some of your custom terrain pieces.

Hills, Trees and old bones are rather Nature-ish. . so these pieces I think will enable me to check out a "Nature" book from the AHPC challenge library.

Shifting creative gears and jumping across genres......

Music is Art, Art is Music...the creative forces cannot be stopped, nor can they be 'shushed' into quiet submission by beleaguered AHPC  librarians. .. Thereby the risen dead Bone Heads band rocked out in the AHPC Library and grabbed me an "Art" book from the shelf  .  

The Bone Heads are 4 minis created by Ral Partha waaaay back in 1985 as part of there Imports line..  These guys are from the same blister pack of  2 skeletons on guitar, 1 Skeleton drummer, and 1 skeleton dood strapped into the drum kit to hold all the drums together.

The Gaslands car is a converted toy matchbox car - a $2 child's toy reimagined via the power of DYI mini-craft--  with some parts from NorthstarFigures 'Implements of Carnage' bitz sprues and a healthy application of trash bashing with plastic I saved from the recycling bin and reworked with files, knives and glue...

Also painted up for this week is a smattering of scatter terrain - piles of oil barrels and car tires that can used to pretty-up a Gaslands table, and can also to suggest where car lanes exist before collisions and weapons fire alters the flow of game traffic.... and I suppose these barrels an tires could also lend well to other games where there was still shooty-shooty-bang-bang, but less vehicular explosions ..

Considering all the  Terrain I painted for this post simply as a pile of terrain stuff to store between days when the dice are not rolling,  and imagining  if converted it all into a liquid, this assortment of terrain could fill a 6x6x6 inch cube cup..  Hmm ..  not a brew I'd drink nor a cup shape I'd recommend as best design to avoid chin drenching spills...  so I will leave these terrain items intact and ready for game, and give into my feeling there are 20 points of terrain here.

So here on my last proper Thor'sday post before the AHPC Library closing time.. I run a  few more zig-zags around the map so I may ring more challenge bells, and (elder thing powers be willing)  I will have a few more items painted and posted before the  Free-Fire days within the AHPS library  shoots out all the important structural parts of the library walls and it all comes crashing down in a heap of well painted minie among bookish ruination wrought of the next few chaotic days that will conclude this fun challenge.

121 Total Points

15 pts = x1    Gaslands Car, Vehicle 20mm
10 pts = x10  Trolls(KoW), Foot Figure, 10mm (10x1pt)
16 pts = x4   Undead Skeleton Metal Band, Foot Figure 20mm (4x4pts)
20 Pts = x1 cube, 6x6x6 inch of Terrain cube
Challenge Library 
20 pts = S3 "Art" (Undead Metal)
20 pts = S3 "Nature" (scrubland terrain)
20 pts= S4 "DII"  (MatchBox toy car converted to Gaslands battle car)

TeemuL: Yes, old CD, a tried and tested method to have non-warped and rather strong terrain base. All those Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedias and installation CDs from the 90s have a new life! The second mixed of the day, let's see...

Terrain looks good, I like the snake skeleton and the skeleton band, too. I can imagine a skeleton band playing in the background of a Gaslands race. I guess all the terrain here could be used with Gaslands? The red car, nicely built, and probably very fast. Good job Steve! I hope you reach your target during the Free Fire time.

From TomC: Minimags [DIY] (42 points)

Hello again everyone, a bit of time off has given me an opportunity to claw my lamentable progress up a bit and even add some labels to my posts (sorry Greg!).

Today's entry is a pair of Sd.Kfz 250 halftracks from Battlefront's Flames of War range which I've been working on to serve as part of a pilot for the colour schemes I'd be looking to employ on the German half of the Hit the Beach starter I've had for... some time now.

I haven't painted any vehicles since I was a teenager, when I gleefully slathered a variety of Space Marine tanks in Humbrol enamels, so these were painted with the Colours of War guide from Battlefront at my elbow and an experimental mindset. With that said, any feedback is gratefully appreciated!

Chief experiments were the soft-edged camouflage, which I did with a brush and by glazing in the colours (Citadel Straken Green and Vallejo Chocolate Brown mixed in with the base Vallejo Dark Yellow). The photos I've found usually show a much busier camouflage pattern but this striped pattern is much closer to what I'd be looking to replicate on my other German armour, so on it went!

The other was the splinter pattern camouflage, mostly one of the passenger's smocks, but also on inappropriate items of stowage I'd added from the Plastic Soldier Company set, which also donated the constipated-looking passenger on the right. I'm less convinced by how this turned out, work to be done here... 

Other peculiarities were the shoulder-boards: the 250 was generally the preserve of reconnaissance units, but they changed which colour they used throughout the war, but with different divisions required to adopt the 'new' colours (or so it seems). I went with yellow, which seemed broad enough in usage.

 A fair question is why we're in DIY and kitbashing is the answer. Firstly, our man above is a combination of one of the Battlefront tank commanders and the legs of a Grenadier: I wanted a studious scout crewing my halftrack (rather than a shouty officer-type which comes with the crew set). The other is the halftrack crew, the Battlefront kit has neither driver nor assistant and I wasn't keen on the self-driving haunted halftrack, so I appropriated some Plastic Soldier Company passengers. They required a lot of modification to fit!

For scoring, two 15mm vehicles should be 16 points and then there are seven crew members, but two are sitting and four are very vestigial so I would suggest 6 points for the lot perhaps, equivalent to three standing 15mm infantry? With the DIY bonus, the tentative total is then 42 points, which puts me just over halfway to my Challenge target... lots to do then!

***

Others may have feedback and suggestions Tom, but I would say these look marvellous. Great work. It can be intimidating to tackle new subjects (or, "relatively new" - I mean, I'm sure your teenage years were not to long ago, were they? :). And German WW2 stuff is always extra tricky, as even basic research into their use of camouflage can easily cause brain spasms.

I think your approach here has done the trick! They look great, the crew look excellent too. Advice? I dunno, maybe a pin wash of a dark brown in some of the recesses of the vehicles in order to draw the contrast on the panels? But that's just fiddle-sticking - they would look damn fine on any table in my opinion!

 

The scoring all tracks for me - 42 points for you, well done!

 

GregB