From BillA: It Came From Cooke's Crevase! 37 Points

I had a couple different ideas in mind for the Cooke's Crevase challenge, all fished out of the "Lost Valley" expansion box from Reaper's last Bones Kickstarter.  Stone Giants? A big fertility idol? Ooh, a big, stompy dinosaur! I actually started on a couple options and let my paintbrush guide me.  Ultimately, what came to fruition first was this Giant Ground Sloth.

While these prehistoric grazers came in a variety sizes (with the species Megatherium standing 20 feet tall on its hind legs), this figure scales pretty closely to a North American species called Megalonyx jeffersonii.  If you'll forgive a short paleontology lesson, in 1796, Vice President Thomas Jefferson received a box of fossilized bones, including a number of large claws.  Theorizing that these were the partial remains of a large, hitherto-unknown American lion, Jefferson proposed the name "Megalonyx," or "Giant Claw," in a paper to the American Philosophical Society.  The publication of this paper marks the birth of American paleontology, and in 2008, Megalonyx was named the state fossil of West Virginia.

I'm used to seeing giant ground sloths in a variety of coppery red-brown towns, and while that formed the basis of my color scheme here, I tried to vary it - over a basecoat of Reaper's "Woodstain Brown" I drybrushed layers of red-brown, red-orange, warm gray, and khaki, allowing colors to mix a bit on my brush as I went.  Claws were picked out in a dark gray and the eyes in black - I'll go back and put a drop of gloss varnish in each one later.

Explorer for scale.  

I used Green Stuff to blend the sloth's base into a 50mm round base, and then textured the whole thing with superglue and baking soda.  Once this was painted I applied an autumnal ground-cover - I could have sworn I had a spring mix, but I couldn't find any.  I would have liked to have had that green to contrast with the reddish tones in the fur, but it wasn't to be this time around.


Well thats not something you want to run into for sure! i have tagged it as a 40mm figure so 37 points it is.

From TomG'' - First Post from the wind swept Sander's Sand Dune. - 40 Points

Hey all, here is my first ever entry to The Painting Challenge, but, boy, what a rollercoaster it has been to get it to you! Having planned my painting recipes, packed all of the paints needed and set off to the in-laws house for Christmas week, I get there only to find I left all of my minis at home! THE HORROR! A whole week of the painting challenge being wasted... or was it? Being able to see all of thr amazing entries come flooding in was so inspiring, that as soon as I got home I dived in to the hobby office and let the Yuletide juices flow.

So here for your viewing pleasure is the Holiday Hellboy by Mantic Games. 

So in keeping with the Sanders Sand Dune I was wondering what I had that was red, and if course it had to be Big Red, but I wanted there to be a twist to the standard red coat Santa look. As such I checked out some old Christmas cards of St Nick, and found some that had very similar gifts in their sacks, minus the skulls of course. 

However when it came to the red I wanted to make sure the stone hand and arm stood out from the skin, so to achieve this it was painted with a less saturated palette, then given a wash with black oil paint. 

Unfortunately this image came out a bit blurred, but hopefully it shows off some of the effort that went in to the green fabric, and the textured effect that I was testing on the gift sack. 

Finally was was the base, and although I've not seen snow this festive season, I couldn't resist the urge for a white Christmas for Hellboy. It was surprisingly fun to bury the skulls in snow and to leave some settled on the grave stones. 

For 2 days work I'm pretty happy with how this one has turned out, and it has helped motivate me to get more sorted. Now I think that this it's classed as a 28mm mini, and with it being a challenge entry, I'm guessing it'll give me 35 points? If not a solid 5 and my first entry secured makes me happy. Next up will be something slithery from warmer climates.

Well your pent up creative juices have certainly worked here Tom.. Thats a fine entry to challenge island .I am going to top you up to 40 points for all the extra work on the skulls and basing - its a lovely job 

oh and for the stats nerds out there - yes Miles thats you - this is also the 4000th post on the challenge blog!

From StephenS - The price is right... (65 points)

G'day Everyone and a Happy New Year to all!

It's good to be back and what could be a better way to kick of 2020 than with my first post of Challenge X!

First up is my entry fee for this year's Challenge. I've chosen something that will hopefully appeal to a wide range of my fellow challengers; a 28 mm British officer from Warlord Games. He was lying around with a few other bits and bobs as part of what was to be my first foray into Napoleonic gaming, with the idea of building a British force from the Peninsular campaigns for Sharp Practice. However, I soon fluttered onto other projects and that niche was filled by other members from my club. Such is the circle of the hobby. Now, as I'm not a Napoleonic's player myself I've just copied the artwork from Warlord's website, so any complaints about how I've painted the uniform should be forwarded onto them ;)

Next up is a brand-new project that has my 3-year old son very excited. I've gotten my grubby hands on the new Marvel: Crisis Protocol skirmish game from Atomic Mass Games and I'm very much looking forward to getting the rest of the figures painted up. Whilst I enjoy the movies, superheroes and comic books are not something I've really shown much interest in gaming before. My son though, is absolutely in love with the 'Avengerbees' (as he calls them) and I've caught his enthusiasm. I have the Incredible Hulk, who needs no introduction. I also have M.O.D.O.K., who I did need to look up. His acronym I now know, stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing - which says all you need to know about him, I guess. The best description I've heard is that he is what might have happened if Stephen Hawking had decided to use his intellect for nefarious things, like world domination. They are 40 mm plastic miniatures.

A shot for scale comparison. Any suggestions I would include superheroes in a re-fight of Waterloo are... probably right on the money!  

I've scored the 40 mm monsters as mounted figures due to their size but am happy to be corrected. This along with the 28 mm mounted officer and the entry bonus should hopefully add up to 65 points.

Cheers,

Steve

Welcome along Stephen. Thats a fine first post. I just love the MODOK.. and the Hulk looks just the part - 65 points it is!

From PeterD Yacht Race in Douglas' Shallows - 42 Points

I have a variety of naval projects on the go, and this is the first post from a new 1/2400 Anglo-Dutch Wars project.  I have 4 yachts which I am entering in my own Challenge Location Douglas' Shallows under the theme "Messing About in Boats".

These are 4 yachts from the Tumbling Dice 1/2400 Anglo-Dutch Wars range.  I have a couple of squadrons of these ships which I am aiming to complete over the challenge.  So far I have been very happy with the quality of these castings.

Leading the race we have two English Royal Yachts the Katherine and Henrietta skippered by two gentlemen who knew a lot about boars, and a lot about messing about too!.  Charles II and his brother James (Duke of York and Lord High Admiral at this point) were keen and skilled yachtsmen and Charles commissioned a series of yachts.  Charles yachts were used for pleasure and actively sailed and raced by the Stuart bros.  They were also armed and used as scouts and dispatch vessels in wartime and took Admiralty officials to inspect the port of Tangier.

I’ve selected two that served in the Second Dutch War as that’s my chosen niche in time.
By the third war Charles had two yachts some named for his mistresses (Cleveland and Portsmouth) one named for his mistress's anatomy (Fubbs being Restoration English for pleasantly plump) and one named Kitchen to provide victuals while cruising.

A Van de Velde painting of Charles arriving by yacht to inspect the fleet in 1672.

His Majesty’s yacht Katherine launched 1660, captured by the Dutch 1673.  Returned to the English but not  as part of the Royal Navy.  Armed with 8 guns.  49 feet long on the keel.

His majesty’s yacht Henrietta launched 1663 and sunk at the Battle of the Texel  in 1673.  52 feet long on the keel and armed with 8 guns.

On the Dutch side we the Windhund and Schiedam, both of which were attached to De Ruyter’s fleet for the Four Days Battle of 1666.  No royal connections here, but another good story.  The maritime artist Willem Van de Velde (sr) was given a galjoot and accompanied De Ruyter in battle.  He sketched from the decks of his small craft in the heat of battle, like an earlier Robert Capa  on  Omaha Beach.  His sketches are used to reconstruct battles given the inconsistencies in memories.  

The two dutch galjoots.  Not being royal yachts there is not a lot available on these vessels.

Two of Charles first yachts were gifts from the Dutch and design of these influenced later royal yachts.  The basic design had a single mast with square topsail and fore and aft sails elsewhere.  There would be leeboards instead of a keel.  I have seen similar craft used as pleasure boats sailing with my dad in the UK and French waters.

A Van de Velde sketch from the first day of the Four Days Battle.  I was tempted to use an umber wash over cream bases on my ships to replicate the two tone effect  in these wonderful works.

Detail of another sketch from the same action showing Van de Velde  on his galjoot.

As these were the first models for a new project I did some experimenting.  I wanted to replicate the greenish hue that Dutch maritime artists give the water in almost every oil painting.  It took several layers, but I am reasonably happy with my results.  I also wanted to use mdf bases ( these ones are 30mm square from Sarissa), but wanted to use the moulded bases supplied b6 Tumbling Dice on top of these.  This means using acrylic gel to bulk up my paint to smooth over the rough base edges, and it looks ok on these ships but I think that I’ve left myself room for improvement 

.

Canadian loonie and UK pound to show the size of these ships.

Points wise there’s 30 points for Douglas’ Shallows but I’ll leave the ships to the Snowlord to tot up.  1/2400 ships are typically scored 3 points a pop but these are very small. I’ll also point out that each of the four yachts has a flag added which I whipped up in photoshop.  

From DaveD
Ah lets sail into the new year with Peters little boats! Oh my they are small alright , but wonderfully done. I will go with 3 points a piece 

From DaveD Happy New Minions -

Well we have reached that time in the challenge where you are handed out to the proper minions ...non of this Snow Lord lardie Dahdyness . It’s a New Year ..so time to get to work people ..!

So gird up your camels and get ready to hit hump day!

I will post through the day ...as the New Year effects wear off!

From Curt: Cartel Gangsters and their Housetrailer Holdout (85 Points)

Happy New Year Everybody!

As we turn over to 2020 this will also wrap up my time shepherding the Holiday Season submissions. I'll be passing us over to our brave Weekly Minions, with the esteemed camel-driver DaveD taking the helm for New Year Day. 

I thought I'd close out with a final submission before I hand over the keys to Dave. 

This is a book-end entry to my SAS post from last week. Here we have a nasty band of cartel members, in the midst of a shoot-out next to their seedy caravan hideout.

Similar to my previous post, these figures are all from Spectre Miniatures. I find them to be  very characterful sculpts and a lot of fun to paint. 

As with most of my skirmishy collection, I sawed off the original metal bases on all the figures and replaced them with acrylic bases supplied by my good friend Byron over at Northern Lights Terrain (as we all know, Byron's both a participant and a long-time Challenge sponsor, bless him). It's a bit of a pain to do, but I like the effect of being able to see the table surface though the bases.

The caravan/housetrailer is from Sarissa Precision. I really like their kits as they are seemingly specifically designed for muppets like me. I managed to put this thing together in under 30 minutes AND without completely screwing it up. Bonus.

I wanted to this to be a really dodgy place, definitely not an AirBnB Superhost location, so I went pretty hard on the weathering. For the siding I wanted an effect of faded, peeling paint which I attempted to convey with various shades of simple craft paints. It's pretty rough, but I think it works at arms length.

I kept the interior fairly basic. As opposed to the exterior these guys must be minimalist neat freaks...

I wanted the skylights to be just as nasty as the exterior so I smeared superglue on the surface and misted it with water to get a frosted, scaled effect. I then drybrushed them both light khaki to convey they being filthy and cracked.

Now for a little tabletop scatter. These trash piles, cardboard boxes and stacks of concrete bricks are also from Spectre. 

I find the piled trash bags to be especially neat additions to the terrain collection. 

The largest pile of bags is cast flat along the rear so it can be placed flush along a building. I think they all help give the tabletop that lived-in, urban-decay look.

The Ford F-150 Raptor was a very late addition and has a little story behind it. It was Sarah's birthday this past Monday and a few days prior I was at a ladies gift shop picking something out for her. After I made my purchase I spied in the children's section a group of diecast vehicles. This truck caught my eye and I plunked down for it thinking that, with a little weathering, it will serve nicely as a ride for my cartel boss. 

This group should net me 60 points for the 12 figures, 20 for the caravan and tabletop scatter and another 5 for the weathering on the truck, giving it a grand total of 85.

Thanks for checking in. Now, I put on my pith helmet and head back to Challenge Island. 

From MartinC Village of Kujumachi (80 points)

I have built, Ok I have bought and painted, a 28mm Japanese village circa 1601. The village of Kujumachi is in the foothills of Kuju Mountains in Higo Province at the extreme south of Japan. It has recently been given to Kato Kiyomasa as part of the land granted to him by Tokugawa Ieyasu as reward for support in the Battle of Sekigahara.

Blue dot marks the spot

Kiyomasa was a successful general in the Injin War and a fundamentalist Buddhist and hated the Christians that we becoming dominant in the province.

The aim is to fight skirmishes, duels and generally have adventures in this village. I have the advantage that I can keep it laid out for as long as I want

Kujumachi Village - 3ft by 4ft. Village to the left (South) and Farm land and waterwheel to the right

Village

Looking North

Looking South

So that would be loads of points apart from the fact that most of it already existed. I have however built and painted a lot to the buildings in the last couple of days.

Waterwheel mill - Sarissa. Fiddly to built out of mdf but looks really great

the front door

Small farms and animal pens - again Sarissa

some form of shop - from ebay (banksjohnedwars). Really like this guys stuff. Simple but study and very cheap

House - ebay again

Dojo - for all your martial prowess (ebay)

temple cells - Sarissa. roof has warped due to paint. Plan to use as shops

another house - guess from where

another house - sarissa

So that is a lot of houses and they add up to 4 terrain boxes so 80 points.

All I have to do now is paint loads more villagers and animals.

_______________________

Wow, this is absolutely awesome, Martin. I love the whole idea of having a little, fully realised skirmish board ready and waiting in the wings. Can I come over to play? I'll bring some figures, beer and crisps.

The buildings look terrific. That watermill is pretty darn impressive and so are those eBay finds. I have a few Sarissa pieces from this range and can attest to their good quality. I'm also happy to see your village bell nestled in the posh part of town. Now, do you have enough figures to fill all of this? I hope not as I'd like to see more of Kujumachi. 

80 points for you sir. Thanks for sharing this great project. 

-Curt

From PeteF: Heer Goes A Hanomag (25 points)

It’s a very long time since I painted a vehicle – the last one being in the early 1980s. Since I got back into the hobby it’s been mainly Napoleonics, Dark Ages and AWI – so no tanks or half tracks. This Hanomag came with the Blitzkreig Germans starter army and I picked an easy colour scheme for Operation Sealion – German Grey that will provide some camouflage in the British rain.

The half track comes with a gunner and a couple of medium machine guns. I decided to paint the numbers and cross since the decals that came with it were black and wouldn’t stand out very well. Maybe what I really need are some tiny stencils. I Haven’t decided whether the fuel cans (and some other bits and pieces including stahlhelms and a rolled up tarp) should be glued to the side(s).

I’ve only recently started drybrushing stuff and my technique needs some work – but hopefully good enough for the old geezer viewing at 2 foot test. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and it was quicker to paint than I expected. The gunner was painted along with the last group of Heer so he would be ready to take his spot.

One 28mm vehicle and one 28mm foot figure for a total of 25 points - That's 5 submissions for 2019 - not going to keep up this rate after the winter break.

___________________________

Well, I must say this is more than pretty darn good for someone who has been away from model vehicles since the early 80s. Great work, Pete. Your Hanomag certainly looks the business and seems ready to make its victory lap around Paccadilly Circus. 

I look forward to seeing more from this project.

-Curt