From TeemuL: Riddles in the Dark [Children's book] [Self Help] (100 points)

While figuring out which could be the fourth section to enter and finish, I wonder back to the section one and finish the "Children's Book" section with these resin minis from Games Workshop. These are of course Bilbo and Gollum from the "Riddles in the Dark" blister for the Middle-Earth Strategy Game and they are based on the world famous children's book Hobbit or there and back again. Professor Tolkien used to tell this story to his kids and eventually he wrote it as a book and got it published. Adults like this book, too, and especially it's sequel Lord of the Rings, while some hard core fans like the prequels, like Silmarillion or the Book of the Lost Tales.

Like I said, this minis are resin and because they are quite small, they are very light and different to work with after painting some metal minis or larger plastic ones recently. In the end the painting process was rather simple, although it took a time to get there. Bilbo has brown pants, green shirt and red coat and that's about it. Gollum has pale skin and brown loincloth. The third object is Gollum's boat next to a rock with remains of fish. I tried to paint the rock next to the boat and the one on Gollum's base with some green to get a mossy effect, but I think there is too much, at least in the photos.

In general there is a basecoat, wash and some highlight/drybrush here and there. The basing is my standard brown without the tufts, since the scene is located underground and I guess there is little plants.

And then the fourth section, which will be Section 6. I head straight to the Self Help topic. I guess most of us (if not all) have been stressing about the unpainted minis and what to paint next, feeling bad about buying new minis, while there is a mountain waiting to paint at home. Some Self Help is needed, while the support from other's is important, too. I have learnt that, instead of looking at the whole mountain, just take a look at the smaller detail and forget the rest. For example take a one box of minis, assemble, prime and paint it, then take the next one.

It might be useful to have two or three boxes open at the same time, each "project" in different stage or perhaps each project needing different techniques to finish. That way you can switch from one project to another, if one of them is not interesting at the moment or has some drying paint and you still want to paint. Just switch the project and continue.

One of my goals in this Challenge is to empty-and-finish several miniature boxes, which links nicely to this Self Help topic once I understood it. It gives me pleasure and makes me happy to have one box or unit or whatever completed and I can move to the next one. For example these Type 97 Te-Ke tanks from Battlefront are my only minis for 15mm Pacific War and I find it extremely unlikely to have any gaming use for them in the near future, but I still wanted to paint them after buying them from a sale several years ago. Now they are painted, the box is empty and in general I will have more storage space and more painted minis, which makes me feel good about myself. Naturally I have bought more minis this year than I have painted, which makes me feel not so good in general, but these small moments of happiness is all what counts, right? Self help and self deception, ok?

Type 97 Te-Ke tanks were used by Japans in the WW2 and compared to the late war beasts in Europe these look rather small. In fact they were used for scouting and recon. The box comes with two different turrets for each tank, most commonly with a machine guns, but some 37mm guns were used on some. I have painted the both options, the first two photos show the MG versions and the bottom two show the 37mm gun versions. Unfortunately one of the guns (second left) snapped at some point and it looks a bit odd now. There are also 5 tank commanders in total, each roughly a half mini.

I was prepared to paint a characterful yellow cross camo, but my very quick look at the refenrence told me, that the yellow cross was not used in the late war, so I just went with the three colour camo with khaki as a base colour and dark brown and dark green as additions. I gave a brown wash and pale drybrush in the end, but they look may be a bit too dark, I don't know. Anyway, they are finished now and my happiness factor has went up a little. I didn't paint any identifications on these, since I know next to nothing of them.

Here is the map showing my progress.

And here is my collection of empty boxes during the Challenge. I hope to add at least one more.

Then the points:

2 hobbits (historically scored as 28mm minis) is 10 points

1 boat is about the size of a hobbit, so may be 5 points? It is a vehicle, so 20 points? :)

5 15mm tanks is 40 points

5 15mm half men is 5 points

5 extra turrets may be 5 points?

2 library locations is 20 points 40 points

Total is somewhere in the region of 105 points regarding how my minion likes to score the extra turrets and the boat. :)

 

TOTAL = 100 points

 

 Sylvain: As usual, your location bonus topics are very well chosen and well argued. Your brush work on these models shows great mastery, especially the camouflage pattern on the Japanese tanks. I am sure that this newly painted core collection for the Pacific will have a domino effect and soon you will acquire more tanks and soon you will start petting them and whisper to them: "My Preciousss..."

 

I took away points from the boat and the turrets but gave back some for the location. A fair trade in my opinion :-).