From MilesR: 28mm WW2 US Marines and Sherman Tank (185 points)

 I've surprised myself at how much WW2 stuff in 28mm I've done for the Challenge.  After finishing up the DAK force, I had one more group of figs in the WWII lead pile - US Marines.  I manage to complete 34 infantry and a Sherman tank this weekend.  the bulk of the infantry (30 figures) are from the Warlord plastic box set which is quite good.  The other four figures (the flamethrower and bazooka teams) are Warlord metals.

I've had a Japanese Bolt Action army for years so I really "needed" to do US Marines.  The second picture is a very badly composed shot of the flamethrower team and an infantry squad.

 The next picture shows the platoon command section and the second squad.

Lastly the third squad and a bazooka team.  I've got another 20 or so Marines primed and ready for painting but I'm not sure if I've got time to get them done for the Challenge.

Giving my Marines some real firepower is a Blitzkrieg Models M4 Sherman.  As with all Biltskireg models this is a simple resin kist with 4 parts and it's just superbly cast.

I've run out of ink wash so this tank appears without shading - my apologies to those of you who are easily offended by such omissions to Miniature presentation etiquette.

I really like how the "mud" came out and will likely add some more storage in the Post-Challenge time period.

I've got one or two more posts to make, but in the event I can't (that darn real world), I'd like to thank Curt for putting on yet another fantastic event - it really is the highlight of my hobby year.

I also want to thank all the participants who post such inspiring and creative work.  Every time I read one of your posts I get energized to do better work myself and appreciate the tutoring all of you provided me in our odd little chosen form of art.


From Curt:

An excellent entry Miles. These Marines will be a great counterpoint to your impressive Japanese collection. That Sherman looks to be a very nice model. I particularly like the rust on the metal edges and the mud on the treads and lower hull.  Your plans for the extra stowage and inking will really cap it off in style. 

Ah, and I see that you've bashed through your 3K points target. Fantastic, bravo Miles! Now, I seem to remember a 'Death by Spreadsheet' duel between you and Millsy. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Mills will surge back this week to reclaim 3rd place...

I won't say farewell now Miles as I suspect you will dig deep to get in at least anther entry before the deadline Thursday night. Now, there's another challenge for you. ;)
 

From IannickM - Blood for the Blood God! (60pts)

To this point my Oldhammer Chaos army, which I've been working on since last year's challenge, has been made up of worshipers of Chaos in all its undivided glory. My plan was to create to create a core of Chaos undivided troops, and then I could add contingents of worshipers of the chaos gods. My army is a dark and brooding undivided force and I plan to include equally dark and twisted Nurgle and Khorne contingents to it.

So after working hard on the undivided troops, it's time to start working on some Chaos God's specific units.

The first such unit is a unit of Khorne warriors; crazed and bloodthirsty warriors who like to kill, maim and spill blood. You know, your average bunch of evil medieval psychopaths!

The unit is made-up mostly of Khorne  champions designed by the master Jes Goodwin in the 80s as part of the massive and now iconic Citadel Realm of Chaos range. There is also a few chaos warriors which style fitted Khorne and which I really liked, like that crazed cleaver wielding warrior in the last row. I wanted a unit clad in dark red, and I had to experiment a lot to find the perfect recipe, red being a notorious bitch of a colour to paint and highlight well. To blend the unit with the rest of my army,  I went with dark green as a secondary colour, and picked details in the "poison green" (bright green) which I have use throughout my Chaos force. 

 I painted these guys in small batches of three, since they are unique and characterful sculpts which don't lend themselves well to mass production. I actually put paint on the first batch in the first week of the challenge and I slowly worked on these between bonus round entries and other units. 

You will notice the warriors without helmets have African skin tones; I thought it worked really well with the look of the unit and colour scheme, and the notorious lack of black skin characters in fantasy is a pet peeve of mine. I will also admit enjoying painting black skin!

The standard bearer is a conversion, I cut the sword he was carrying and replaced it with a pole. I'm quite happy with the whole figure and the standard; I haven't painted a standard in literally 20 years and I got the bloody and dirty look I wanted. In my youth I wanted to use chains to decorate my banners like I would see in White Dwarf but never did it, so 25 years later I did not miss that chance! I find it looks as good as it did in the 80s!  

Arkil Gorefury and his cadre of maniacs

Unfortunately there is no movement trays for these guys like I usually do; my original plan was to do a unit of 10 and I got carried away, and I realized yesterday I do not have a 12 figure movement tray! Litko will get a bit more of my money apparently!

Awesome sculpts full of details

So that's 60 pts to add to my total.


From Curt:

Ahhh, more wonderful Oldhammer goodness, wonderful. These are fantastic Iannick. Such crisp and clean paintwork, yet still very 'Chaos'. I really like the pointing green fellow with the tail and axe. Also, the banner is absolutely terrific. The blood spatter is suitably gory, yet restrained, and the chains are a excellent touch.

I have a bunch of these old Chaos figures in storage and this post makes me want to pull them out to take a trip down memory lane. I seem to remember that it always made me crazy that they would never rank up properly. I had to make up a template with the bases labeled on the bottom so they would all properly fit together as a unit - a little OCD glimmering through again there...

Iannick, what version of Warhammer do you use for these? I know 3rd edition seems to be the favoured child amongst many Oldhammerians but I thought I'd ask.

Great post!

AdamC - The Comedy round that didn't happen (50 Points)

These little fellows are the Mouslings form the Bones II Kickstarter.  When I saw them I immediately thought of the Mice of Redwall the protagonists in a series of children's books my brother and I read growing up.   I got these and painted them up.  My plan is to bring them with me on trips to visit my nephew (soon to be Nephews) as a special toy that comes with Uncle Adam (and maybe get them interested in game as time goes by).

First we have the Archer clearly he spends his days hunting cats to protect the mousling community

These are 25mm figures and Reaper gets some nice details on the figures like the stitching on the quiver.

Next we have the mysterious forest mouse who lives out side the keep... I gave him a little bet of unkempt and dirty look.

He has some strange powers drawn form his shining ball.

I don't have a clever designation for this fellow yet.  He strikes me a the local boy swept up in the great adventure by fate. He has a sword, a fairly big one (for a mouse) so maybe Martin (a hero from the early Redwall books.

The yellow scarf really pops against his gray-green cloak a suggestion from Ariana on color. I think it will catch a child's eye.

The Bee boy.  Clearly inspired by falconers this mousing trains bumble bees to hunt? or maybe scout?  I don't know exactingly how he uses the bees but I really love the idea this is one of my favourite sculpts.

I decided to do this odd patter on his cloak he has spent so long with the bees he has started to dress like one.

Sneaky mouse, clearly he is up to no good!  or maybe hes coming back from a foraging mission of some sort.  He might have just got caught was his little dagger is drawn.

The patch on the sack is a nice touch, clearly he has had a successful trip hope he can escape who or what has caught him.

The Girl archer I love the holly leaves and berries on quiver. 

 I tried to get her to look like the male archer in coloration I figure they are brother and sister.

 Every band of adventures needs a wizard! you can't quite see them in the picture but he has spectacles balanced precariously on the end of his nose.  I also like his busy eye brows.

Ariana suggested the yellow color of the wand making it look a bit less like a stick and more like lightning or some mystical energy jumping from his hand.

The Princess my least favourite figure but I suppose heroes need some one to rescue.   I toyed with painting her the same colors as the archer mouse suggesting secret identity but decided against it.

I did try to make hem of her dress a little dirty like she regularly escapes her escorts and goes skipping though the woods and fields on her own. 

Ariana suggested the color combination and I think this looks quite nice. I figure she and the Bee boy may be related.

King mouse! Somebody has to be in charge!  and clearly he is the mouse, Ariana said he has angry eyebrows maybe someone has just told him of the princess's running off on some adventure with the young mouse with the scarf?

I think the cloak came out well and I like his acorn sceptre, clearly acorns are the source of the kingdom's wealth.

 My favourite figure the Samurai Mouse!  I am tempted to name him Splinter clearly his is an important ambassador from a far ways kingdom of mice.  Not sure what he is doing here but he looks fabulous  in his yellow kimono and top knot hair due. 

 I decided to decorate his kimono with orange and red flowers.  I am very pleased with how this came out.

 Two group shops.

I just painted the bases as I plan on using these with kids and I don't want flock coming off and getting eaten. There are ten 25mm figures here for a total of 50 points. I had hoped to enter these in the comedy round but they didn't arrive in time.


From Curt:

Very, very cute figures Adam! I have a sneaking suspicion that you'll be all the rage with your nephews when you drop by to visit. My favourite has to be the Samurai mousling with the yellow kimono, though the one with the bee has to be a very close second. Wonderful stuff and well done.

From MilesR: 28mm British Intervention Force Artillery (60 points)

 Next up, a bit of historical "what-if" - 2 guns and crew from the new Perry line of British Intervention Force miniatures.  This is a very new but rather large line of miniatures that depict a hypothetical British Intervention Force for the American Civil War in 28mm scale.  As stated earlier I'm doing a pair of linked games depicting this intervention at Historicon this summer (one naval, one land) and needed to finish up the British forces.  I am cheating a bit as the bulk of the Brit's are being painted by a friend (and thus ineligible for the Challenge).

This Royal Artillery battery is equipped with two 12 pounder Armstrong guns.  These were the first breechloaders to enter service with the Royal artillery (starting in 1859) and they were very advanced for the period.  I did have some trouble tracking down useful references for uniforms so just went with a "looks British enough" approach.  I have a few more guns on order but they haven't arrived yet.

Just how many guns will the British have use of at Historicon - that depends on how well the Royal Navy does in forcing a landing the game before....

I think 8 crewmen at 5 points a piece and 2 guns at 10 points totals up to 60 points for this submission.



From Curt:

A very cool 'what if' force Miles! You know the Perry's are doing well when they can indulge in these playful little forays into history. 

I'm wondering if looking at British colonial campaigns during that era might be a good idea for uniform ideas. I'm wondering if the British would have their artillerists in blue or a blue-grey during that period - I'm not sure. No matter the colour, these fellow look more than up to the task in supporting their Confederate allies and putting a crimp in Yankee plans.

Well done!

From TamsinP - Curtgeld "Is that the best you can do, you pansies?" (28 points)

My 23rd submission this year is my Curtgeld. I've actually painted up the same figure (in slightly different poses) twice - the Snowlord will get to choose which one he wants (Curt - you can only have one; the other is for me! Me! Me! *lol*).

Marv from Sin City

I'd say that he's a marvelous antihero (see what I did there?).

• He's got that heroic square jaw. 
• He gets very drunk. 
• He'll do anything to help a friend.
• He's an ugly beggar, made more ugly by all the scars. 
• He won't hurt women. 
• He doesn't have any problem using violence , even in everyday encounters.
• He falls in love with dangerous dames. 
• He frequently discovers he's killed people and has a hard job remembering having done so and why he did it. 
• He has some great lines in the films (and probably in the graphic novels too).

Rumour has it that the make-up technicians for the two films protested at Mickey Rourke being cast in the role. They said it would be much easier to make a pretty boy ugly enough to be Marv than it would be to prettify Mickey Rourke.

The "Marv" figure is 28mm from Hasslefree; the victim is from the Dixon gangster casualties pack. The figure comes with two different heads, two different right arms, one left arm and the left leg which all need gluing in place.

Oh, and I did them in greyscale - it seemed appropriate.

This was my first attempt at greyscale. The most difficult bit was that most of his clothing is black, so I needed to differentiate between items. I ended up using 4 different dark greys, washed black, heavy highlight in the same grey, slightly thinner black wash, then two more highlights followed by thinner black washes. The reason for the black washes after each stage was to tone down the contrast.

Once the blacks were done, it was onto the lighter shades for face, hair, hands, singlet and belt buckle. As far as possible I tried to leave "shadow lines" where the light areas meet the dark clothing. Finally I added some darker grey to resemble bruises and scars on his face and some red for blood spatter.

They got a coat of Klear, then another of matt varnish. The belt, buckle and boot-uppers got a coat of gloss varnish on top of that; the coat, gun and the victim's hair got a coat of satin varnish.

The pics do seem to show something grainy reflecting light. I'm not sure if that's the varnish or maybe dust from when I added the ground texture to the bases.

Some of you may be wondering about the title of the post, It's a quote from Sin City (as distinct from Sin City: A Dame To Kill For).

[Marv's last line, blood pouring from his mouth, after the first shock from the electric chair] 
Marv: Is that the best you can do, you pansies? 
[They shock him again] 


From Curt:

Fantastic! I love it. Wonderful work Tamsin. Marv is an absolutely perfect antihero and it's made even better with you doing him up in the spirit of Sin City - just brilliant. 

I particularly like the chiaroscuro effect of the blood spatter juxtaposed against the greyscale setting. Excellent stuff.

I can commiserate on how hard it is to properly photograph greyscale figures. It's very fiddly as you have to have good control over the lighting, ISO settings and backgrounds - I must go a hundred varying shots to find one that I'm happy with. So my hat's off to you m'dear!

Interesting lore regarding the makeup artists working on 'Sin City'. It seems tragically poignant as Mr. Rourke used to be a very attractive man before the botched plastic surguries in his middle career. 

I've very much looking forward to having Marv amongst the other antiheros in my Challenge display cabinet. Thank you Tamsin!