Reminder: Saturday is the 'Reconnaissance' Theme Round Deadline

Hello Everyone,

Just a friendly reminder that submissions for the first theme round, 'Reconnaissance', is due this Saturday. The gallery will be up Sunday for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks!

Curt

From Rob Hingley - Have TARDIS, Will Travel (95 Points)

This is my first submission to the IX painting challenge.  It consists of 1 vehicle (The Tardis) and 15 x 28mm figures for a total of 90 points (See below, Rob - you may be pleasantly surprised - Ev).

Doctor Who is a favorite Sci-Fi choice for many gamers I know to watch. I believe we choose our favorite Doctor to be the one(s) to whom we were introduced in childhood.  Mine were the first two, which aired in Canada on the CBC in the mid-1960s.

I wasn't introduced to the Tom Baker years until sometime in the mid 1980s as re-runs on PBS.

As I wrote my introduction was to the first two doctors. A simple presentation of
a Tardis, based upon photos from the original series, with the simple word POLICE in black lettering above the door.

The TARDIS was a Constabulary Communications Cabinet produced by Ainsty Castings as part of their Professor What line. They are a great source of resin terrain pieces.

Three figures, two in homage to the first Doctor, played by William Hartnell, Richard Hurndall and David Bradley. The third figure represents the 2nd Doctor played by Patrick Troughton. I believe the figures were produced by Crooked Dice as part of their Temporal Traveler Series which I think is no longer available.

The First Doctor

The Second Doctor

(Note: In the comments the Doctors were identified as being from Black Tree Design's Dr Who range. Black Tree is definitely one of my go to sources for miniatures.)

Next is a group of 12 Scary Scarecrow figures from the episode Family of Blood which aired in 2007. These figures were purchased from the Woodbine Design Company through Gripping Beast.

I wanted to keep these figures drab using various earth tones, but in the end decided to add just a splash of colour to a few of the figures.

The light was not the best this morning 45 mins after sunrise. I had hoped to take the photos yesterday but I spent the best part of the sun either on Skype or the phone. Happy New Year to one and all.

Note: I was able to get a couple of photos taken before I left for the office and have replaced the earlier ones of the Scarecrows.
__________________________________________________________

Cracking work on this assemblage of figs, Rob, though as a 28mm vehicle, the TARDIS now scores 20 points. The fact that the TARDIS is much bigger on the inside can have no bearing on the final score (hey, I don't make the rules...).

As a long-time Doctor Who fan, I can only approve of this submission. The Family of Blood two-parter was one of my absolute faves, and the scarecrows were a wonderfully chilling addition to the roster of bad guys in the Whoniverse.

So that's an opening salvo of 95 points, well done that man!

Ev

From SimonM: "Fantasy Flight Games" Chewbacca (9 Points)

This 47mm tall hard plastic miniature of Chewbacca is produced by “Fantasy Flight Games” and can be found inside the company's "Chewbacca Operative Expansion" for "Star Wars: Legion"; "a miniatures game of thrilling infantry battles in the Star Wars universe!" Described as "Han Solo’s ever-faithful companion", the Wookie was played by Peter Mayhew and made his first appearance in George Lucas' 1977 American epic space opera film "Star Wars".

The figure was initially primed with two coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, shaded with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, and dry-brushed with both (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and (lighter) Heavy Brown. I then applied a combination of "Citadel" Doombull Brown and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade to Chewie's side-bag, plus "Vallejo" Gunmetal Grey to his "trusty bowcaster" and along his ammunition belt. These areas were subsequently washed with "Citadel" Nuln Oil and highlighted with a little more "Vallejo" Gunmetal Grey.

I then encountered something of a painting dilemma, as having previously pigmented two slightly smaller models of Chewbacca I knew the next stage was to carefully pick out the leather covering his belt's line of hard metallic shell boxes. However, the sculpting for this version of the Wookie didn't allow for me to get my brush tip in between the tiny containers and I couldn't help feeling that there was more than enough brown on display without the smuggler's bandoleer being the same colour too.

Resultantly, and any purest "Star Wars" aficionados will want to look away at this point, I have left the ammunition belt a dull metallic colour so it stands out a little better on the figure. Finally, I applied some additional "Citadel" Nuln Oil to certain areas of the Wookie, in order to darken him down a bit and break up the colour consistency of Chewie's fur.
____________________________________________________

Very tidy work on this iconic character, Simon, and I think we can forgive you some differences to the colour palette in the interests of clarity!

Since a 40mm figure scores 7 points, I figure a 47mm model has to be worth at least 8.5. As I don't want to get into trouble with Miles by fouling his spreadsheet with decimals, I'll round that up to nine (if anyone asks, put it down to Beginning Minion Syndrome).
; )

Ev

From TeemuL: SU-152 (10 points)

First week of scheduled posts and as usual, I try to have something ready for publishing each week. Deadlines give some motivation to me, I just need to finish something, not necessarily much, but something to keep the Challenge running. After the frantic first weeks, it is calming down and getting more organized, so I thought a short introduction could be nice. I'm 40 year old painter and parent (of three year old son), I mostly play the different Games Workshop games, wide variety of board games and so on. I painted my first miniatures in the early 90s to use in our RPGs and soon after that I bought Blood Bowl 3rd ed. I really started painting and playing when the Lord of the Rings was released by GW first time. We switched quite soon to 40K, because most of the friends thought that scifi is better. We played through 3rd and 4th edition, but when the 5th was released, we were all living in different cities, had jobs and girlfriends, so we decided to stop. I kept on buying and occasionally painting miniatures until some five years ago I joined the local Blood Bowl league. One of the players had LotR armies as well, so we started playing that as well. I kept on wanting more, so I gave my little finger to Age of Sigmar as well. Last year I started Kill Team and I bought some Death Guard before Christmas. I have all kind of random miniatures waiting for the paint, so with the Squirrel competition I have a perfect excuse to paint what ever I want - I have enough painted miniatures for all the games I play, so there is no "need" to paint more, so I can now focus on painting things I like and Squirreling. Until I join some Escalation league and everything gets ruined... (I like Excel sheets, but I don't use them for Challenges.) I do have a hobby blog, but it is in Finnish: https://vainvader.wordpress.com/. You can also follow me in Instagram @vainvader, I use English there.Feel free to ask more, read and comment (even in English) my blog, follow me in Instagram and keep painting!

24, not Cyrillic...

Back to the real thing, some painted miniatures. After the 100 point Army of the Dead (and preparation for the first Bonus Round) here is something smaller this time, 1/100 scale SU-152 by Zvezda. Very nice model to assemble and paint, I mostly paint 28mm miniatures, but these smaller things are nice change once in a while. May be I even play with them sometime, I bought the TANKS! game last year, but haven't even read the rules yet. But I have heard it should be a light and quick tank game, X-Wing style.

Quite simple paint job here, I had some troubles browsing the Internet yesterday - most of the pictures didn't load, so I had little choice. Dark green seems to be an appropriate color for WW2 Soviet assault gun. I added white recon stripe and number based on a picture, no idea if they are historically accurate or not. And it is not even white, it's Ushbati Bone, I think bright white is just too bright usually. There's also some lighter green to bring up the details and some brown to indicate mud

 

Some mud and light green highlights

Zvezda manufacturers 1/100 scale models, which is not really 15mm, but 18mm, I think. Instruction sheet has point values only for 15mm and 20mm, 8 and 15 points. 1/100 is generally used as 15mm equivalent, so I'm not sure about the points, especially when the points values for vehicles went up this year. I initially scored this as 8, but I'm happy to take 10 or 12, if this is agreed to be a bigger one. :) Like I said, I'm not that familiar with these historical miniatures, but I have some plans for this Challenge...
__________________________________________________________

First-time minion gets thrown a curly one; 15mm (8 points) or 20mm (10 points) or something in between? What the hey, I'll split the difference and give it 9 points plus one for being insane enough to hand-paint numerals and stripes on this chunky little beast. 

Plus I have a soft spot for the SU-152, since it was one of the first big tank models (Tamiya 1/35 scale) I built back when I was a lad. 

Well played, Teemu!

Ev

Wednesday Minion Steps Up

Greetings, Fellow Challengers, and welcome to The Whacky and Whonderful Whorld of Whednesdays!

Minion Ev is finally on the case after looking after two pre-school age grandchildren for the last two-and-a-half days; they're delightful, but they are exhausting, especially in a Sydney summer. 

Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing.

That's not me, of course; I look far worse than that. 

A bit about me; I've been a wargamer and figure painter in one form or another since about 1976, when I discovered the local library's collection of Donald Featherstone books, the gateway drug of choice for most fifty-something lead pushers. Painted and played GW games with my sons, GM'ed AD&D and Runequest, and now enjoying smaller-scale tabletop games with occasional forays into 18th C Imagi-Nations with Millsy (see The Wars of the Sable Hat for more details). Also a sporadic contributor to Canister and Grape (the other blog where Millsy does most of the heavy lifting...).

Those of you who pay attention to such things will know that this is my first outing as a minion (fourth as a Challenger), and I plan to be a fair-minded and reasonable judge of your work, at least until the Sydney heat drives me crazy and I go full Colonel Kurtz; "Bonus points for the aubergine! But I hate bases which aren't made of WeetBix! Minus five points!"

This Wednesday is fairly quiet as people are still recovering from Christmas and Hogmanay (that's New Year to those of you without the blessing of Scottish heritage), but we have;

• A big vehicle with a big gun,
• A big furry guy with a big gun, and
• A big blue box and associated figures.

So, Challengers, let's get Challenging!

Evan

Supreme Despot and Unquestioned Autarch of The Midweek Realm

'My Door Is Always Open!'

From Millsy: AHPC Snow and Surf Report (0 points)

G'day Mates!

Even though I am currently approximately 1,400kms from my painting desk I reckon I can still make a useful contribution to the Challenge. We all know Curt lives in the Frozen North, but some of us live in more pleasant climes.

So here for your edumacation is the first ever AHPC Snow and Surf Report...

Current weather in Regina, Lair of the Snowlord

• -8C (-16C with wind chill)

Current weather at Bundaberg, GIMP Temporary HQ

• 27.8C (air temp)
• 26C (water temp)
• 3C (beer temp)

Frankly I can't be bothered to do the math to work out the difference as this has gone on long enough and it's cutting into my drinking time. Miles, that's your cue matey to get your abacus out and do something statistical. I'm ready to be bamboozled.

Happy New Year peeps!

Cheers,
Millsy

From PeterA: 28mm Reds, Sons and SEALS (110 Points)

My second entry is all about giving free reign to my inner squirrel!

First up are 10 Copplestone Castings Bolshevik infantry. I have always been attracted to the Back of Beyond setting but have never actually taken the plunge into the period. This has changed with the release of the Dunsterforce scenario book for 'Setting The East Ablaze' and so I am starting a small Bolshevik force; these are first off the rank and some command and support figures are not too far behind.

These were a joy (and relatively quick) to paint; their allegiance is signaled by the red tops to their fur hats (red stars on those wearing caps).

Next we have 10 foul traitors from the Thousand Sons Legion for WH30K. Ever since the days of Epic Space Marine, I have been a sucker for the Horus Heresy setting, so when GW released the Burning of Prospero and Betrayal at Calth boxed sets, I jumped at them. These 10 Marines are in Mark IV armour from the Betrayal at Calth set; I like the heavier, more brutal looking Mark III armour for the Vlka Fenryka. The black bases have been drybrushed grey (doesn't show up in the photos) to represent the ashen ruins of Prospero after it has been razed to the ground by the Emperor's Executioners.

Finally, the first two members of SEAL Bravo Team. They are from Spectre Miniatures and are amazing sculpts - really crisp and detailed. I had planned to do the whole team in one go but doing all that Multicam camo was too much to face. Hopefully the rest of the team will be along before the end of the Challenge! The first SEAL is a scout armed with a suppressed MP7:

Whilst the second has an FN Scar-H marksman rifle with a suppressor made from 3mm brass rod:

That should make 110 points and two more notches in the Squirrel Challenge.

Happy New Year All!

---

A last minute entry (considering its past my bedtime here in the UK) and an eclectic mix if ever there was one. You have been a busy lad Peter. I have a soft spot for space marines, but only when they are wearing red armour! Very nicely done sir, that's 110 points in the bag. 

Lee

From TamsinP: 28mm Pulp Selection (65 points)

Four entries, five themes...squirrel, squirrel, squirrel!

Yes, yet another different theme from me today. Having completed the wolves at the end of the "free fire" period and with my first schedule posting day rapidly approaching, I decided to get a few small groups of pulp figures painted up.

Oh, and there are rather a lot of photos for you to wade through. I'm not sorry!

"Dancers At The End Of Time"*

I think I might have nailed highlighting black! I suspect that the chap with the 'tache keeps a bottle of Madeira near his collection of (unperforated) stamps [bonus point for anyone who understands that].

The silvery dress was a bit of a pig to paint. Possibly because it was getting quite late when I was doing it.

These figures are from Eureka Miniatures - the sculpting is superb, especially the faces on the chaps.

* Yes, I am a Michael Moorcock fan

"Lights, Camera, Action!"

These figures are also from Eureka Miniatures. I reckon that the pair of lights should count as a single figure for scoring.

"Return of Diablo"

Some of you might think that there is something familiar about these figures. Well, you're right. For my final entry in AHPC7, I did a quick and dirty "chiaroscuro" effect paintjob on them. That was never going to be the final look, so before this Challenge I airbrushed them back to black.

These cultists are from Pulp Figures.

And a photo of everything in this submission:

For scoring:

13 x 28mm foot = 65 points...

...and another notch on my Squirrel duel tally. Also an entry for Sarah's Choice.

---

Wow, what an eclectic mix. Love the dancers, these made me laugh out loud. Looks like they had a great New Years Eve party and are now too drunk to realise its over! These figures have a wonderful movement in them and your painting has brought that out wonderfully. 

I really love the film crew. No idea how I could use them but I gotta get me some of these figures. I'm a huge fan of early cinema and these guys hark back to a simpler age of celluloid and a more innocent age that I find hugely attractive. 

It takes a certain type of dedication (or maybe that should be insanity?) to repaint old figures, but you have done a great job with these. The figures are full of character so I can see why you'd want to revisit these and give them a second paint job. Well worth the extra effort bringing the combined total for this entry up to a tidy 65 points. Well done Tamsin. 

Lee