Wednesday 14 December 2022

Skull Duel!

Roused from stasis, Skully McSkullface is firing up the Skull-o-meter™ to count your skullz for AHPC XIII!

Skully McSkullface reporting for duty

The winner will be the Challenger who has painted the most skullz. These can be any skullz in any scale- Prussians, Brunswickers, Nazis, undead, pirate flags, base decoration, or maybe something from 40K.

PaulO'G knows where to find skullz!

The winner gets to keep the skull of last year's champion! And last year it was the Snowlord himself, so it is a special prize indeed.

CurtC printed a 10mm undead horde to victory

Hall of Skully Fame:

  • XII CurtC 475
  • XI StuartL 1363
  • X PaulO'G 543

To enter, tag your post with 'Skull Duel' and state in the post both how many skullz you have painted, and what your running total is. Feel free to enter the duel at any time in the Challenge.

StuartL has this one weird trick: scenery!

There will be regular skullicious updates throughout the gruelling months ahead, as well as a spotlight on skulltastic miniatures that have caught the unblinking eye of Mr S. McS.

AHPC Studios for Challenge XIII

 AHPC Studios, GmbH


Our wayward talent agent, Sidney Roundwood, has returned from scouting a prime location for our next adventure, and wow, is it a doozy!


From Sid:


'After last year’s voyage through planets and stars, this year we travel to the lavishly appointed AHPC Studios, GmbH.  Based on several acres outside Berlin, AHPC Studios is benevolently controlled by the infamous cinema director, Kurt von Paintheim, aka the “The Show-Lord”.  Ably assisted by his two hench-dogs, Oscar and Felix, and the leading studio-starlet, Lady Sarah, the Snow-Lord has invited all of you to AHPC Studios to assist in making some movie magic in miniature.'


(Updated) Here are the rules for exploring the great variety of cinema-inspired themes on the AHPC Studios lot.


  1. Each Studio has a hobby task associated with it (see below). You must submit your work to your minion, get their approval (they may consult with other minions if he/she believes greater deliberation is required) and they will post it to the blog. You then can continue on to the next Studio;

  2. Each successfully completed Studio awards you 20 one-time bonus points;

  3. The Studios need different security passes to enter.  Each Challenger begins with a Green Security pass and can enter any Green Studio.  After you have visited four Green Studios, you will receive a Blue security pass, allowing you entry to the Blue areas located further in the Challenge Studio grounds.  If you complete four Blue Studio tasks, you will receive a Red security pass - which allows you to visit the studio of the Great Show-Lord himself. 

  4. There are three ways you can move between Studios: by the pathways between Studios; along the Yellow Brick Road running through the whole site; or by being driven through the Challenge site in Lady Sarah’s Limousine;

  5. Once a task is completed you can pass through it without having to do the theme requirements again (unless you wish to);

  6. When you complete the task which is appointed to you by the Great Director, you can sit in the Producer’s Chair, and bask in the adoration of all the beautiful people out there, self-satisfied with your grand achievement.



Lady Sarah’s Limousine


At the (very reasonable) cost of you painting one single female figure, per relocation, Lady Sarah - star of the Silver Screen - will drive you in her luxuriously appointed limousine to any location within your security pass colour (Green or Blue), or back to a previously cleared colour pass area. Travel in her limo will award you 20 bonus points for the journey. The Limousine award can be collected multiple times. At the end of the Challenge, Lady Sarah shall judge all the female figures painted during the Challenge - including those painted to facilitate Challengers’ relocations in the Challenge Studio site - and award the winning Challenger a special prize.

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The Yellow Brick Road

The Yellow Brick Road runs through Challenge Studios. At the additional cost of painting a Cinematic miniature figure (of your choice, according to your discretion), you can travel down the Yellow Brick Road from any crossing point to any other crossing point on the site - which are denoted by the small traffic lights (note: The Director's Chair cannot be accessed by the Yellow Brick Road unless you've achieved 4 locations of both the Green and Blue areas). For your efforts you will also receive 20 pointsThis award can be collected for each use of the road.


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(Updated) The Gift Store

Are you looking for something to commemorate your visit to the AHPC Studios GmbH, or maybe a souvenir for those friends and family unable to make the trip? Come along to the AHPC Gift Store and see what we have to offer. Snow Lord (tm) snow globes, Replica flight attendant uniforms, delicious AHPC Studio crayons, we have it all.

Models entered as a Gift Store Special must be figures that you are going to give to someone else as a gift. Entries should explain why you chose the model as a gift for its recipient along with the usual photographs of the mini itself. Challengers can visit the gift store from any other point on the map without needing to use the Yellow Brick Road or Lady Sarah's Limousine (though you can if you wish). A gift submission will award 20 bonus points. Like Lady Sarah's Limousine and the Yellow Brick Road, the Gift Store bonus can be collected multiple times.
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Green Security Pass


These are Studios which allow access to all participants in the Challenge at any time. Feel the excitement on each of the Green-pass Studio lots as you join the huge array of extras and crew and watch magic being born.


Under Construction: Half-done, almost-done, or barely started. This is the studio for painting projects which are just not quite there yet.


Black & White: Paint something in grey-scale, with black and white being your colours of choice. Reconjure the elegance of the silver screen!


High Adventure: Whether it’s battling mummies in a pyramid, or scaling the Himalayas in search of a Yeti, the entries for this studio all remind us of the spirit of High Adventure, daring and risk-taking. All that, and fighting a giant Gorilla on the Empire State Building.


Historical Drama: The whole of history at your fingertips and painting brush-points. Which historical drama will you choose to paint in miniature?


World Cinema: Russian war movies, Bollywood excess, or Samurai showstoppers. The idea in this Studio is to paint a figure, vehicle or terrain item from elsewhere in the world from where you live now.


The Casting Couch: Every film needs stars and talent. Let your paintbrushes create one of the leading characters of your gaming experience. Champagne flutes will be handed around while you paint, as befits visitors to this most discrete of Studios.


1980s or Retro: You might remember the white socks. Or New Wave. Or maybe neon lit palm trees in Miami. Or just WRG 6th Edition Ancients. Whatever you remember from the 1980s, the 1970s, or indeed any time long past - your task is to paint something which screams “RETRO” to you.


Sci-Fi: From Aliens to the Mandalorian, from Solaris to Jules Verne - your mission here is to boldly go and seek out new science-fiction subjects to paint. May your paintbrushes live long and prosper.


Blue Security Pass:

These are the inner Studios on the Challenge Studios site. You need to have completed at least four Green locations to be allowed into these most-exclusive of Studio locations.

Books: Time to paint something from a famous book. It can be any book, as long as you think it would make a great subject for a film.

Swords & Sandals: The gladiatorial arenas of Hyboria. Chariot racing in the Colosseum of Rome. Battling strange gorgons on white-sand Greek beaches. Or climbing into the Wooden Horse of Troy. Whatever you’re painting in this studio, we’d love to see the shifting sands of ancient adventure, scimitars flashing in the dark, and maybe a few sandals too.

Fantasy: If you want to paint a hobbit, a dragon, a skeleton or a wizard’s castle, this is the studio for you. Anything goes as long as it’s from a world which is either fantastical, or pure-fantasy.

Arthouse: Darling! Come in, relax at the Cabaret, and enjoy the show! From cold-war European drama, to adventures conducted solely in 8th Century Mayan dialect. From miniatures created out of bottle-tops, to hair-roller armies. Everything artistic is welcome here - whether the art is visual, or just a pose. Want to paint a miniature in just pink paint? Obsessed with Carroburg Crimson ink? This is the Studio for you! Welcome to the location for the quirky, arty and the downright strange.

Superheroes: Bring a cape, and your set of flaming-lazer eyes. This is the place for painting Homelander, Batman, Buffy or Judge Dredd. But supe’s come in all shapes and sizes. Who’s your favourite superhero for painting in this Challenge?

Westerns: Anything goes, as long as its ‘Way Out West’. Your chance to Paint Gary Cooper, Sitting Bull, or - for the more lateral thinkers - Toshiro Mifune, Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. Wagons roll !!


Red Security Pass:

If you have completed at least four Green locations and four Blue locations, well done! You’ll now be welcomed into the Studio of the Great Show-Lord himself to collect your Red Security pass. The Show-Lord will give you one task to complete. If you succeed, you’ll have earned the chance to sit in the Producer's Chair. Everyone… please be quiet…… shhh!! ….Lights. Camera. Action!


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As usual, I'm sure we've (meaning me) missed something... If you think of anything that may have been overlooked, or something that has not been clearly explained, feel free to ask in the comments! We strive to ignore all queries with equal consideration.  :)

I'm looking forward to exploring AHPC Studios with you all!

Next from Administration: A Guide for Posting from our Senior Studio Tour Guide, Tamsin!

- Curt

RossM - An Untidy Hobby Desk and Challenge Painting Plans

RayR's recent post made me have a look at the calendar and realise that AHPC XIIII is 7 days away and I haven't started the ritual tidying of the hobby desk. The picture below shows the daily carnage that I call a hobby desk and a poor attempt has been made to start the tidy up.


More pictures to follow over the weekend - time allowing - including some of the prep work started for this year's challenge including:

  • 28mm Republican Romans for SAGA: Age of Hannibal
  • 28mm Carthaginians for SAGA: Age of Hannibal
  • 28mm Late Romans
  • 15mm Early Imperial Romans for ADLG
  • 15mm Arabs for ADLG
  • 15mm Thracians for DBA and ADLG
  • 15mm Wars of the Roses for ADLG
  • 6mm Punic and Macedonian Wars for Age of Hannibal (LittleWarsTV) and DBA
Looking forward to the off and following everyone's progress in paint. 

Cheers for now, 
Ross

 

Lee H - Back again, and not a moment too soon

Wow! Twenty Twenty Two shot past in a blur and here we are on the eve (almost) of another Painting Challenge. This will be my ninth time in the mosh pit and I'm all geared up, ready, and eager to get started. I set myself a modest points total, but as most of my work this year will be 6mm, that equates to a lot of minis. For a change, I am nearly* ready ahead of time. Everything* is primed, my consumables have been restocked and my long-running AHPC Spreadsheet of Doom is set and ready to start recording my completed entries. (* More figures from Baccus are on their way, but are clearly being delivered by an asthmatic carrier pigeon and may take a while to arrive!)


My desk is tidy, although a quick going over with a mini-vac is probably in order... there's a year's worth of sand, dust, and static grass building up in the corners and between the bottles. 

So what am I working on for Challenge XIII? Well, I'm back with 6mm this year (following a 15mm Foreign Legion outing last year) and I'm working on the late medieval period and the end of the Wars of the Roses. I  will be focusing on the Battle of Bosworth and its participants. I visited the Heritage Centre earlier in the year and the more I read about this battle the more interesting it becomes. I'm looking forward to exploring the battle and the seemingly endless theories on exactly where it was located, who took part, and how the two sides were deployed. Modern archaeology may have answered a lot of questions, but there are still lots of options to explore so this seems to be a battle that will just keep on giving. 

Best of luck to everyone taking part and I look forward to seeing the entries of Challengers new and old over the next few months. 

SimonG: Absolute Chaos -- How Come It's Starting Already!

Great to be back again for my third run around the AHPC -- despite all my plans to be well prepared I'm once again up to my neck in half finished projects.



For those that don't know me I'm a 50+ mostly retired Englishman who rediscovered my teenage hobby of miniatures just as we entered lockdown in 2020. Since then I've actually managed to finish one project (28mm HYW) but have several others still on the go.

On the deck for this time is the continuation of my 28mm skirmish Jewish Wars project -- with the major focus this time around being terrain. In fact a reproduction of one corner of the Antonia Fortress and Temple Mount circa 73CE.  This has been great fun learning lots of new skills such as MDF construction, paper crafts (for tiling), and working with clay to put a finish on all my fortifications.





As you can see it's still all a bit of a mess, today I've been trying to apply PVA sealant and hope to have it all undercoated for the kick off. It's a 1.2m square setup based on four 60cm square blocks. I'm looking forward to sharing more with you as I go along.



My other projects will be the continuation of my 10mm 1980s cold war Soviet/British project and expect to see more Black Rose Wars miniatures plus new this time -- Descent Legends of the Dark.





So lots to keep me occupied in my office come hobby room -- the cupboards are stuffed full of paints, brushes and materials all ready to go. The room is about 12' square, so not particularly large but theres plenty of storage in a void under the mezzanine floor of the next room up -- just mind your had as you struggle to get around in there. It's rapidly filling up with KR cases full of completed miniatures, terrain and the like.



So heads down to get all the prep work done before next Wednesday (when I promptly head off to Paris for the holidays) -- and hope to be sharing much more with you over the coming few months.