[Wednesday] From PaulS: Wednesday Madness (Ready)

Much like previous weeks, we're going for another very mixed batch of games and manufacturers in this entry with no thought to consistency of theme, other than "That's weird..." and I suspect that will be your response to the selection too.

Starting with some bits that very nearly got finished for the last entry, but didn't quite pip the post. These are all for Bolt Action/Konflict '47 or the Achtung! Cthulhu skirmish. The first two figures are a german super  soldier and Canon from the A!C skirmish game from Modiphius. The figures are more true scale than Warlord's which makes the Canon a little small, hence him being on a thicker base than the other guy.

When I picked up the plastics for the last batch of Germans, it included some tanks (in the queue). One of which was a choice of SD.KFZ 251 kits. Rather than grabbing the normal one, I opted for the mortar carrier... but opted to build it as a normal 251 and made the mortar into a medium mortar team instead

There is also a lone flamethrower from the Pioneer box set. I still need to make his partner in crime to complete the team, but that involves getting out the green stuff, so rather than delay things further with more modelling, I'll leave that until after the challenge. For now a generic rifleman will have to do.

Next up we have two characters from the Pulp Alley range. These are some of the nicest models I've painted in a while. I think it is the clean sculpts and just enough detail to make them characterful, but not over the top so that it takes forever to pick out the bits and pieces

Pulp Girl has been done up as a German super soldier or mystic with a powered/magical gauntlet... not quite decided which she will be.

The other figure in the pack has been painted up as Lobster Johnson from the BPRD comics. What pulp/weird war setting would be complete without his appearance?!

After the deviation into Pulp, we return to the Weird West with three giant, two headed rat-type things from Shadows of Brimstone. Like most of the earlier sculpts, the detail is soft, but not as soft as the original sets. There are also less gaps caused by poor casting design and warpage or plastic, so I have some hope that the rest of the KS figures will actually be worth while when it turns up. Lobster Johnson is fighting these off to give you a sense of scale on these things. They are massive...

Last, but definitely not least, is a deviation off into 30K with 5 Custodes from the Prospero box set. These guys make Terminators look small and weedy!

This totals to 16 28mm figures to add to the totals so far. 

ByronM: Another great eclectic post Paul.  Everything here looks great, but my two favourites are the giant rats and the pinup.  The rats I really like as they could be used for so many different games and fit right it, and your neutral / normal paint scheme for them looks great and helps them be universal.

The pinup girl is my other favourite as I love the contrast from the grey uniform to the blue glove and back to the blond hair. Speaking of which blond hair is always so hard to pull off, but it looks spot on with her, and that is what helps sell it.

The rats look big enough to be considered cavalry, so you get 95 points for today's submission. Great work!

From IannickM : Female Assasin (5 Points)

Yes, two posts today! It didn't feel right to mix Napoleonics with fantasy. So a single piece for this entry, a female assassin from Dark Swords miniatures. The figure is not attached to any planned games or project, really, it's a Christmas gift from the girlfriend. Now usually when she gives me figures as gift they go into the lead pile (as all my purchases go), and she gets to see them painted many moons later, so this year I decided to do something different and put it in my priority pile!

So there she is, I painted her as a single so I did spend more time on her than most other figures, and I'm really happy I did as I think she looks gorgeous! The figure itself is an awesome sculpt and has that nice Old School vibe the fantasy masters at Dark Sword still manage to produce. It's a very simple sculpt, no skulls or extra belts and stuff, but it is very effective.

Yes, I couldn't resist using some pink on the female warrior, cliché you might say, but I just love the colour and any excuse to use it is good with me! I tried to offset the bright colour with a darker mauve cloak, a very simple basing and some grey pants. I quite like the final results.

Now, of course, being who I am it might just be the start of a Frostgrave or Songs of Blades and Heroes warband! Somewhere the old masters at Dark Swords are smiling, knowing I need at least 10 more of their figures...

So that's a small but satisfying 5 pts. 

ByronM: I would agree with that, you should be satisfied with this small but high quality submission.  The figure would suit itself to many different games and settings, and is very feminine due to the pink colour.  Once again I like the stark highlights, it is a method that a lot of painters that I realy like (like Curt, Greg, Sydney) all use on thier models to produce very high quality tabletop miniatures.  Calling it tabletop, is not a put down in any way, as this style is done for that exact reason, to look good at table top level, and in fact looks BETTER on the tabletop than many of the super detailed methods that a lot of the elite painters use.  All to say, I really like the look and style.

From MichaelD: 16 French Foreign Legionaires (80 points)

One of the projects I'm using the challenge to get completed is a French Foreign Legion force. I've already got about 20 or so and I'm also working on some Tauregs for some skirmish gaming action.
So here are the newest additions to La Legion. These are Artizan figures.

Had a bit of a problem when I realized that the blue I had used for the great-coats was a bit lighter than what I had used previously on the rest of the group, but I think I'll go back and fix that later. The bugler here I got right, because I had realized my mistake by the time I'd started him.

I especially enjoyed doing the command figures. They had a lot of character, and I'm happy with the way they turned out.

ByronM: Very nice figures and paint job on them.  In regards to the blue, it is your call on adjusting them, but I will give you the same advice Curt gave me when I complained about having done that on some of my first Napoleonics... 

No two uniforms were the same in real life, and even if they all started the same, they saw different amounts of wear and cleaning, so rarely looked even close the the same after a few weeks, then faded or colour shifted due to dirt, sun, cleaning, etc, - You are perfectly fine leaving some different colours.

After that advice, I started painting big units like that different on purpose.  While I keep them close to the same colour, most of my units have a least a few members with far different colours on them, including completely different coloured pants, as most of the time at least one squad member would have ripped them or replaced them.  While not "standard issue" or normal, I think Curt's advice makes a lot of units look more real, than flowing the official uniform standard.

From IannickM : Duchy of Warsaw skirmishers (25 points)

We take a break from the little fellows (Halflings) this week, and completely change register by doing some Napoleonics! 

Indeed, au menu today we have five Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw skimishers, from Murawski Miniatures. The figures are from the Voltigeurs in Full dress, campaign dress set as well as the new "extra" scruffy Campaign dress figures. And boy are they scruffy! Roger has a real problem and just keeps producing more and more Poles! The sheer variety is one of my favourite thing about the range, and oh if all Napoleonic armies could get this level of completeness and love (other than the French and British, the boring and annoying favourites, of course).

The figures are fusiliers and voltigeurs skirmishers from the Duchy of Warsaw 1st infantry regiment, presumably in the middle of an exhausting campaign! I'll probably end up using them for skirmishes set in the 1809 campaign between the Poles and the Austrians (and maybe Brunswickers 'cause they look cool).

They are meant for a Napoleonic skirmish project I'm just starting, the goal to play really small scale skirmishes and maybe eventually bigger ones like Sharpe's Practice. But mostly, it's an excuse to give extra love to my favourite Napoleonic ranges: it seems I always paint Naps in batches of 16 or 24, and I wanted to work on small batches and individuals for a change. I must say it was a very different experience from batch painting Napoleonic battalions!

The Murawski figures are as usual lovely (I'm biased), and I'm always surprised I don't see more Duchy of Warsaw in blogs and on the battlefield, as it is really a lovely army with their distinctive Czapka and colourful facings.

Finally, I just want to remind y'all that Murawski Miniatures is giving away a complete set of such skirmishers (11 foot, 6 commands), so if you like what you see work extra hard on your productivity and such gems might be yours free of charge in about two months! (this extra motivation speech is brought to you free of charge, courtesy of Murawski Miniatures.)

So, for this entry that's 5 28mm figures, 25 pts, hopefully more to come in between Halflings! 

ByronM: Words you never thought you would say "I miss the halflings!".  Regardless of the halflings, these Napoleonics are cracking figures and paint jobs!  I really like your clean painting and how each one is done differently rather than all the same.  

Maybe this is how I have to do Napoleonics, a few figures at a time to get better results. Doing small batches like this really lets you focus on them as individuals instead of rank and file, and it really shows in your painting here.  Great work.  

From BillA: Foot Knights of the Livonian Order (125 Points)

As I have mentioned, I'm building a Teutonic Knights force for Warhammer Ancient Battles, which is played regularly at a local gaming store.  The rules contain strictures on how many of certain types of troops I can field in my army - in an Early Period Teutonic force, which is what I'm currently doing, only 50% of my army list may be Brother Knights of the Teutonic Order.  A large portion of my force must be "Guest Crusaders," which for the sake of using figures I received for Christmas, I have opted to make members of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword - originally a separate order of warrior monks, but merged with the Teutonic Order in 1236 following a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Saule.

Mostly this gave me the opportunity to "assembly line" a regiment of soldiers that had a *bit* more color to them than the black-and-white surcoats and shields of the Teutons.  The figures are Fireforge Games' "Teutonic Infantry" plastic boxed set, assembled with hand weapons, for which I had to raid my Teutonic Knights sprues - while the Teutonic Infantry box provides bodies for 24 figures, it only provides 12 arms holding hand weapons, along with 12 arms holding spears, and 12 arms holding crossbows.  So I grabbed some sword, mace, flail and axe-wielding arms from the Knight sprues, since I assembled all of them with lances anyways.

The bases (magnetic, something I haven't used before - fancy!) are painted brown and then flocked with brown basing grit, some tufts of "Winter Grass" glued down, and then varnished to seal the grit in, before being flocked again with the snow flocking.  I went with this because one of the most famous battles of the Teutonic Order (at which the Livonians were a major presence) was the Battle of Lake Peipus, or "The Battle on the Ice," in which the German knights faced off against Russian forces under Alexander Nevsky.

This also represents something kind of special for me: this is the first rank and file regiment I've built and painted in something like 12 or 13 years, since I was in high school and discovered the Games Workshop store at the local mall.  This is, at 24 figures strong, also the largest rank and file regiment I ever built - the biggest I ever did back in the day was a 20-figure strong unit of skeletons when I wanted to build a Vampire Counts army for 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  I never finished an army for Warhammer Fantasy, being far too broke as a teenager to afford it.  I'm looking forward to being able to say I've completed an army for Warhammer Ancients.

ByronM: ARRGGG, yet another era that I always meant to pick up and get into.  They look really good all ranked up and the Fireforge miniatures look like they have a fair bit of detail as well.  I like the white and red colour scheme, especially against the snow bases, which also look good for a tabletop unit.

I hear your paint with big units, they are always a struggle to get through, these will look great on the battlefield though with all their high contrast.  24 figures nets you 120 points but I threw in an extra 5 points for all the hand painted shields, and congrats on your biggest ever unit.

From KyleC - Playstation 4 gone Rusty... (Just for fun!)

I hinted in the other post of a 1:1 project, and here it is. I had taken apart my son's PS4 controller and gave it a repaint. I like painting rust effects, so thought this might be a cool time to give it a go.

Main reason behind the paint to be fair was that his buttons were beginning to stick, and getting progressively worse. Once I had it all apart ( thank you YouTube and other crazy modders! ) I could see that the buttons had maple syrup on them. And that as it was drying, hardening, it was causing the buttons to stick lower and lower inside the controller. Down/upside of a Canadian household I guess... always having a bottle of Maple Syrup around.. though not always going where you want it!

Once I had gotten past the part of tearing the case apart I was able to separate the top half from all electronics. Making the paint work area easier, and less dangerous of breaking the controller further ( though prior to opening it, we had decided that if it died, it died for SCIENCE!!!! ).

First layer was the grey auto-body primer from Halfords, and then multiple layers of ModelMates rust effects.

I don't know why I went with an off-blue/grey coloring for this, but after several coatings of the AK Chipping Fluid, I gave it some nice gradient black to white with blue in the middle coats.

Once that was done, it was pretty simple to just go and begin to slowly chip off the top layers with a warm warm soaked brush. Slowly working certain ares to remove paint. It allows the top layers to be removed, but keeps the bottom layers in tact ( mostly.. depends if you did the chipping layer properly ).

The effect gives a proper look/feel of an aging controller.

The bluetooth headset was much easier as it came with additional faceplates for it. So I just took the spare and gave it some different rusty effects here.

Both were fun little projects to spice up my console gaming set up, and make Junior feel a bit more special ( and less sad about breaking the controller with Maple Syrup in the first place ).

Now I threaten to paint the PS4 console itself.. but maybe when I have more confidence to take it apart without breaking it fully!

ByronM:  So this is your 1:1 project...  Nice!

Very cool demo of what can be done around the home, I love the results, and I am sure your son does as well!  It has a very Fallout 4 look to it.  I would go for it with the console, they are dead simple to take apart and there are lots of tutorials on how out there as painting them is fairly common.  

From KyleC - Scum.. and Penguin... (230 Points)

So it has been a quiet weekend for me ( and an even quieter week ).. but the first ( of unfortunately many ) units for my Parliament English Civil Wars army is ready.. finally! I normally am not so down on the painting, and quite enjoy it, but for some reason this unit took me far more effort to get completed than I thought humanly possible. 

I believe it to be a combination of the sculpts and the lack of knowledge in the period to throw me off in the end. But I did in the end begin to organise a method for painting them up quickly. So hopefully future units will not take as much time. 

The way in which they hold the pikes differs from model to model, so have to plan that out much better next time around.. ugh.. learning curves suck!

I also do not like that they are in batches of 4 for basing, which made me have to go about a different route for getting them painted before bringing them on here. As I do want them to be a bit nicer. 

Also, before others mention it.. I am aware that I had painted some of the armor sections blue instead of metal. My reasoning is that they colored it for this unit, but future units were more lazy and left them silver ( maybe ). 

The biggest pain of the unit of course is the pikes themselves though. Something that I had to have a think on how to paint them up. In the end, you can see that I used a larger socket, blutac'd them on, and went to town on them with sprays and airbrush work. Before coating them, and the figures, in multiple coats of gloss, and then matte varnish for protection. 

Smaller batches moving forward for this lot will be required, and some better thinking on how to attach them prior to painting will also help. 

In between cursing this lot of infantry though, I did manage to paint up a small gang for Arkham City skirmish. Penguin and 5 of his goons for one of the local players. A lot more fun than I thought, and I also got to have a bit more freedom in how I did it. Although I did copy the boxart for a majority of it, I did get to choose how to get there in the end. 

There will be a few more of these coming soon, and if I can figure out how it works, I might even go and get in a game of it!

So all in, I got a total of 46 models painted up in the 28mm scale. I am not sure what else I will have for next week as there is a bolt action tournament coming up which I will get to use some of the rangers and American vehicles in.. but also means less painting time. Curious what I might get done, and in what scale. Have one project that is in 1:1 scale! :D 

ByronM: Good stuff here Kyle! I am completely with you on painting block infantry they always seem to be a slog for me as well.  Others around this site seem to bang them off with no issue, but I don't know the secret either, so maybe someone will share and we can learn something?  Unless the answer is skip details, then that's a no go (for me at least).

You ECW guys look really good though, despite your issues. I like the subtle things, like the pants being a slightly different shade of blue to make them appear separate yet still part of the whole (if that makes an sense).  All the details are nice and clean as well.  Pikes are always a pain for everyone though, so welcome to the club!  As for basing and painting, while it takes a bit more effort to be careful, what I do is paint them all on sticks, then fit them all together after so that you don't need to deal with painting around other figures. It sounds (and I could be wrong) that you based them then painted them, that makes it a lot more difficult, although many do it that way.

I would have liked to see some more pics of your Penguin gang as they look awesome.  I really like the shading you did on the "white" parkas.  You went far darker in the shades than I would have thought possible, far starker contrast lines, yet they still instantly look white.  I really like the effect.

From TeemuL: Working Class Heroes and an Evil Lord (35 points)

This week my Odds & Ends present you some working class heroes for two different game and an evil lord.

Here are four Dwarf Miners by Games Workshop. Miners are workers, who work in the mines and during the time of war, go to war, pick up their picks and form Miner units. So real working class heroes then. I painted them in the simple and bright colors as it usual in the Old World. It is important to be properly dressed before the battle. They have red, yellow and blue on gloves and pouches on their belt. They will strengthen my Miner unit, which was only 5 dwarf strong before.

I started the unit last year as part of another challenge, where there was a theme for every week. Theme for these guys was triad (meaning the color theory triad, not the Chinese criminal organization). I learned that the old fashioned color circle is not valid anymore, but I decided to stick in to old fashioned way and picked the old primary colors.

Here you can see the whole group at the moment, they are still missing the command group, which I have, so they might return later in the Challenge. So these are not basically odds or ends, but if I manage to finish the command group, then they all are ends, right?

Then there are some other working class heroes. It is quite hard to define these as odds or ends, especially when my goal was not to start anything new...

I happened to buy some Spanish Civil War Republican Militia miniatures from the Empress Miniatures earlier, when buying some other stuff - they looked nice, they can probably present any firearmed militia anywhere and Curt has been writing and painting about them a lot. I have more than these two, so they are not odds, I have not painted them before, so they are not ends. My only hope is, that I can paint the other ten or so and then call the whole group as ends or odds.

But the actual reason for painting these was my purchase of Citadel Texture "Paint" Agrellan Badlands. I like to keep my bases similar inside armies and so on, but I really liked to try how this works. So it was practically mandatory to try something new. Well, it was good that I tested, because the stuff really shrinks when it dries leaving the edge between base and washer visible. I need to smooth the edge with something else or put more this stuff. Otherwise I was happy, nice texture with very little effort, some Agrax Earthshade and light drybrushing gives a very nice and fast base.

Couple of word about the miniatures, they are wearing those blue overalls and red scarfs, so they are easily identified. I chose some muted down and earthly colors for the rest and kept my palette limited to tie these guys together. I probably need to add a color or more later when painting the rest of the group to give some variation - the militia didn't have uniforms after all. These two are probably my favorite of this post, they seem larger than they are, they have a bit dirty look like anyone with overalls should have, their faces and eyes look good, highlights on the rifles look good etc...

Lord Aquila

My Chaos Lord Aquila, commander of my Age of Sigmar Slaves to Darkness -army is actually a miniature called Lord Aquila. He is part of the Heroic Fighters of the Known World -box by Games Workshop. It is sculpted by Jes Goodwin in the year 1986 (I think that time Sigmar was still alive and kicking some Orc butt in the Old World).

I'm not entirely happy with the painting, it is may be a bit too dark. Or the contrast between black underside and bright red (pink?) plates is a bit too much?

Here you can see him in a last week's league game with his Chaos Warriors (back then he was missing the base).

That's 7 25/28mm miniatures and 35 points. Next week something completely different!

ByronM: What a mix of figures you have here, and from different eras as well.  I have always had a warm place in my heard for those old dwarf figured, I mean who doesn't like dwarves?  They are grumpy and love beer, what better race could there be!  On the SCW figures, I think you are right, they could be used for many different things, especially in the colour palette you have used.  They would fit right into a pulp game as some beatnik hipsters or vegetarian hippies for the Police to righteously pursue through the streets back to their evil underground layer.   Oh wait, those Trump "alternative facts" may already be starting to cloud my judgment here...

On the Chaos Lord, I get what you mean with the red being pinkish. I always had that issue as well, until I found a time in one of Angels painting books (and I am sure many others say to do the same thing), to highlight red, mix in sunny skintone, not white or light red.  It works amazingly well, and not something my colour theory challenged mind would have ever come up with.  But, base shade colour crimson, then base colour red, then first highlight 50/50 red/sunny skin tone, then second highlight 50/50 sunny skintone / white. I know it sounds strange, but thinned right it looks spot on.  Go look at Angels site or the Infinity side at all the Nomads that he did that way.  Something to try next time you do red and don't want pinkish tones.

From John M: 16th Panzer Division Sd.Kfz. 251 (68 Points)

Further vehicles for my 1/72 Eastern Front WWII German forces, this time identified as being from the 16th Panzer Division, XIV Panzer Corps of the German 6th Army. This was part of the force trapped in Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43. Two Sd.Kfz. 251/1 have been painted which would represent 2 panzergrenadier squads of regiment 64. There is also a Sd.Kfz. 251/9 Stummel.

The models are from PSC, and are from the 251/D halftrack variants box. This is an excellent kit aside from the fact that instructions are printed on the inside of the box. Lots of extra pieces and 32 men. Highly recommended. The vehicles were airbrushed with VMC Panzer Grey, then 75PG/25White mixed was airbrushed on the flat panels of the AFV. Washed in black and then a slight dry brushing to smooth the transitions. I am happy how they came out, and they will be added to my German Eastern Front vehicles.

 

 

 

I believe that is 36 points for the vehicles, and 24 points (if I remember correctly 1/2 points for figures crewing weapons) for the men for a total of 60 points. This will put me on track 1/3 of the way into the contest for my 400 points. Hopefully next week, I will have another submission...........something completely different.

ByronM: Very nice entry John, I have always loved German half-tracks as they are such a strange and wonderful vehicle.  Your painting is good on them as well, however one minor point, if you are weathering the wheels and tracks go all the way up, as they turn and would never be covered on just the bottom half :-).  I do love the red clay type colour used for weathering though as too many people (myself included, far to often) use to plain a colour, mud is not always just dull brown, I like this bright almost rust colour.  

As for points, yeah its usually 1/2 for anyone that is crew as most times a lot of the figure does not need to be painted fully as they are sitting, leaning, blocked from view, etc.  There are at least a few here though that appear to have needed a full paint job (the front and back gunners) so I upped it by a few men and you get 68 points.

From DavidL - Better Late Than Never (255 points)

Thanks to spending way too much time looking in the mirror and grooming my ear hairs, I managed to miss my last two deadlines (last week and then the Bonus Round) by mere hours each. As a result, this week's entry is an eclectic mix.

First up, we have the first proper entry in my WWII "East Africa 1940" project, which had its first bow this Challenge with my Matilda II during the Armor round.

Here we have most of an infantry platoon plus support elements, all representing members of the 3rd Battalion, 14th Punjab Regiment.

I'm experimenting with mounting my LMG teams on lozenge-shaped bases. This makes them easier to ID at a glance, and also allows for a variety of poses, including the infamous prone pose! (Not yet featured here.)

Figures are Perry "Desert Rats" with swaps of Perry and Warlord heads.

We've also got a Universal Carrier (from Perry) and an ACV-IP Indian Pattern Carrier (from Company B) to provide some mobile support.

The camo pattern on the Universal Carrier is modeled off a photo from a book about the conflict:

I love how the guy in the back appears to be reclining and belting out a song!

Now, here's where I went a little nuts; if I've got my research correct, in 1940, the 2-pounder would not yet be assigned as a regimental anti-tank gun. Instead, we've got the French-manufactured 25mm Hotchkiss. Imagine my delight when I found someone makes a model of this rather obscure gun in the correct scale! Hooray! Wait, should I be celebrating? I'm going to miss that 2-pounder, I just know it...

The rounds for this gun are so tiny! I had to really file down the 2-pounder round the loader is normally holding.

Crew are kit-bashed from the Perry 2-pounder. Technically there should be two more men (I really can't imagine what for, this thing is so weenie), but 28mm British gun crews in desert fatigues are surprisingly hard to find. In fact, I couldn't find any!

This nearly completes the British contingent of my collection. A couple more squads and done! Then it's onto the Italians...

So that's last week's entry that didn't quite make it. For the "East" Bonus Round, I present just two figures, but they took me nearly as long to paint as a whole squad of those Punjabis. Here are two samurai, characters from an RPG I wrote and play-tested over the summer. I painted up the figures as a gift to a couple of the players who participated in the play-test as a way of saying "thanks."

That's Jiro on the left, Gentaro on the right

The game is set in the early days of the samurai (the 11th century), when armor was especially ornate, and it took me all of Saturday just to get these two guys done. I'm quite happy with how they turned out, but I can't imagine doing a whole army of these dudes!

This one is from The Assault Group.

This fellow is actually a "Legend of the Five Rings" Lion Clan figure, but the armor had more-or-less the right look for the period. I won't tell if you won't.

Next up: I go teenie-tiny!

ByronM: Sorry that you missed the entries the last few times, but personal grooming is important! Kidding aside, this is a fabulous entry and one well worth waiting for. I am never sure what counts as a points bomb, but with this single submission counting for 255 points which is a full 1/3rd of your goal, I think it counts, so congrats!

I love the paint style on the Punjab infantry.  Since their uniforms are normally almost monochromatic (like most British based uniforms of the time), a lot of times any uniform like that looks bland painted.  With your super high contrast highlights though it really shows detail, yet despite the high contrast still looks absolutely correct, it is very nice.

And for the Samurai figures, also very nice!  I like how you look the time to do all the armour plates in various colours like many would have been in real life. Most people just do single colour because it is hard to pull of the look you did.  Great work!