From DaveV - Jedi Master Luke - Fantasy (27 points)

The best laid plans and all that. 

This year has been challenging for painting so far. My wife Jen had a kitchen accident involving boiling water (she is recovering very well, but there were some scary moments at the hospital and follow-up visits). 

My IDOLS of Torment project was derailed. I was just about finished my Flayed Man, and was dry-brushing a horrifying ballerina with blades on her feet and hands when she snapped off her base, fell and shattered most of her right fingers. I will be having 18 models re-printed using a more flexible resin.   

Plus, work has been very busy. 

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It has been great to at least view everyone's cool models.

I did receive last week a new Star Wars model designed by Felipe Manivel of War Bear, and printed by Wargames3D in Spain. I figured, what the hell, and assembled, primed, zenithal highlighted, and painted this figure over the last couple of days.

I replaced the resin saber blade with brass wire. Otherwise the figure is stock.

It's a great design, with Luke raising rocks with the Force, ready to hurl at some hapless Imperial Remnant baddie. Luke is wearing his black Goth look, so I just needed to highlight the various black textures and tones - I don't shade black. 

The lightsaber was hand painted white and airbrushed Golden Fluorescent Green. Luke's head and the rocks got zenithal highlights. A quick sketch in acrylics, and I then finished his face in tube oils. Everything else was basically thin acrylic glazes, with some oils for detailing. Tamiya clear flat spray completed the figure.

 

It's a ~40mm figure. Star Wars is a space fantasy, not sci-fi, so 27 points for this last minute entry.

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Really lovely work on Luke, Dave. The sculpt looks to be a sturdy interpretation of him, which I quite like (though at some angles it seems like he's wearing BOG boots). Your work on his lightsaber and face is fantastic - so smooth. Well done!

- Curt

From Barks: Grimdark outpost (60 points)

I've been overthinking this pile of GW plastic scenery for some time. Magnetizing, pigment powders, basing- in the end I decided to smash it out for the end of the Challenge. I rattle-can-sprayed everything black, then brown, then gunmetal;  then sponged on a bright orange; then slathered everything in watered down brown craft paint; then drybrushed metal; then got lost in the weeds of the details. I could go back to it and add more- I'd like a buildup of dust on the lower surfaces, and maybe some decals- but I'm more than happy with them for now.

There are plenty of thematic pieces which are great for scenarios and objectives. Let's go on a tour with Halo Jones for scale.

Is it a secret facility? Forward base? Childcare centre?*

First, the stockade wall pieces. They don't physically connect together, unfortunately. I took a while trying to work out which were the inside and outside- I decided the lights go on the outside, despite the armoured shutters opening that way. I'm not a huge fan of these as gaming scenery- they're too constraining, and the gates don't open.

The hab-bunker has a wild west vibe with the false front board. I put armoured shutters in all the windows. The roof is removable, but I didn't detail the inside.

I quite like the Mechanicus in 40K. They run all the machines, but don't know how they work or what they do. If you want to make something more efficient, they will kill you for tech-heresy. Their weird gizmos make evocative terrain pieces.

I tried a mild glow and some verdigris on the furnace.

I tried a bit of drybrushed OSL for some of these. It is always a bit heart-in-mouth, as it is hard to fix any errors.

It's so hard to avoid going to town on all the details!

This comms tower is a great vertical piece. Also, festooned with skullz.

This radar dish is a great terrain piece. The dish rotates and can be elevated and depressed. It could be assembled with the dish up-and-down, but I chose the horizontal aspect.

The last piece is this chunky landing pad/ refuelling station/ missile silo. I was set on red landing lights and the hazard stripes. I tried orange fuel tanks, but it was a disaster. I used about a dozen coats of paint and wound up with uneven coverage that was too vibrant and overshadowed the red lights. So at the last minute, I went back to trusty Vallejo Iraqi Sand and am very satisfied with the outcome.

The hab-bunker is designed to be another level. The stairs are removable.

Too orange too blotchy.

I've eyeballed this as three Standard Terrain Cubes. 60 points, please!

Skull-o-meter™: 34 (total 184)

* All of the above!

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That is an awesome bunch of tech terrain, Barks. I really like the Mechanicum turbine-type-thingy with the black and white Machine God sigil. I totally agree, your sand coloured fuel tanks look MUCH better than the initial orange effort. I also fancy those red marker lights on the surface. Such a great schwack of GrimDark architectural goodness (grimness?). Well done! 

- Curt

From SebastianR: Behold Kaladrax! [Oversize books] (80 Points)

I told you I'd be back.

I've had this one in the pile of shame opportunity for a long time, and after being thwarted in my last attempt to claim the oversized books location I decided there was no better time than the present.

I also did a lot of anxious procrastinating.

I've never painted a model this big, nor as... prestigious. I didn't buy the original reaper bones kickstarter; I got this figure from facebook I think, for around £50, almost a decade ago and lugged it around ever since.

I love skeleton dragons and was hoping that this bad boy could become the centerpiece for an undead army or be the end boss for a particularly messy Pathfinder campaign, but he's just too damn big. Impractically big. In fact, according to a couple of sources I stumbled across while searching for painting tips, due to a miscommunication with the manufacturer, he was molded larger than intended, maybe even three times as much.

Instead he'll spend his days perched on a shelf, waiting for people to ask, "That's a neat dragon; what the story there?" at which point I will regale them with the tale of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge that forced me to finally paint him.

And isn't that the purpose of the challenge? For us to ignore the projects we actually need to complete in order to chase internet points with fearfully ignored figures from the bottom of the lead reaper bones worryingly soft plastic pile?

It's still too humid to trust a varnish, thus the glossiness on parts of the base.

I have no idea what this is worth points wise. It's 20 for the challenge, and it's technically a 28mm monster, but given the mis-sizing and the sheer size of the model (14"*14"*9").

And that's me I think. Once again I get to within unlocking distance of the Snowlords challenge, but without the time to actually complete the challenge. See you all next year!

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That is a fabulous undead beastie, Sebastian! I love his sickly green interior and wing membranes. Very cool. I'm delighted that the Challenge prompts some folk to do as yourself and unpack almost-forgotten treasures to submit to the event. That warms my heart! I also really like your 'Returned' library stamp. :)

Due to the shear size of this fella lets equate him to thee 28mm vehicles, so 60 points plus the Oversize bonus.

Until next year Sebastian!

- Curt

From GregB - More Afghan Regulars (60 points)

Another unit of 28mm Afghan regulars for the late 19th century - metal castings from Perry Miniatures.

As we get down to the short strokes on the clock, I have one more unit of 28mm Afghan Regulars for my Second Anglo-Afghan War project. These are metal castings from Perry Miniatures, sporting different head coverings from the last group. As with the previous such entry, this group is meant to represent a unit of infantry in the Osprey game "The Men Who Would Be Kings".

Opted for Khaki colours on these lads...

Some different head wear to capture the variety to be found among the Afghan forces of the period.

I opted for more of khaki look for this unit - still a bit of colour on the red facings and straps, but on balance not as bright as the previous unit of regulars. This choice was made in part to create some variety, but I also wanted to practice painting khaki tones so I could come up with a paint "recipe" that I like when the time comes to paint some of the British units.

Officer and musician to rally the troops!

So that makes four units for the Afghan side of this project - still not a complete force, but getting close. Not bad for a new project started from scratch!

A couple of the riflemen.

Afghan regulars ready to resist the British!

So, for points, we have another 12 different 28mm figures, which should be good for 60 points. Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone in these last few hours of AHPC XIV. Thanks!

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Terrific work on these reinforcements to your Afghan Regulars, Greg! Your khaki recipe for these fellas looks pretty darn solid to me, especially with that vibrant red accent with the cuffs, sash and shoulder boards. Very sharp. I look forward to hearing what you think of the rules once you have enough of these lads (and the Brits) ready for a game. Lovely stuff my friend!

- Curt

From FrederickC - Elements of the British 8th Army in North Africa (471 points)

The deadline is approaching like an oncoming train, so this last week has been a mad scramble to get my last big project completed before the bell rings. It consists of elements of the British 8th Army in North Africa. Again, I was inspired to delve into that arena by fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscript, DallasE, who had recently painted up some 8th Army and DAK troops. Like my Italians that I painted earlier in this challenge, I wanted to do something a little different, so I went with earlier models of tanks, and infantry units of the 4th Indian Division. The four tanks are by Blitzkrieg Miniatures, while all the rest are from Warlord Games.

I have always been interested in the early years of the North African campaign so I acquired two Vickers Mk VI light tanks, one of which is the B version, mounting .303 and .50 Vickers machine guns, while the other is the C model with co-axial 15 mm (0.59 in) and 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Besa machine guns. Of course, you have to have an Infantry Tank Mark II, better known as the Matilda. Finally I have a Valentine tank that I got in a trade with DaveV, another member of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts. The Matilda and Valentine tanks were resin castings, while the two Vickers light tanks were 3D prints. Both methods have their pros and cons. The details are much crisper on the 3D prints, but a lot of cleanup of supports was needed around the road wheels. Keeping with the early war theme, I painted all of them using the Caunter Camouflage pattern, although that introduced a slight historical anachronism. The Caunter scheme was phased out in October 1941, but the Valentines didn't become operational in North Africa until December of that year. The method and colours used closely followed those outlined in a video by Sonic Sledgehammer.

British armour in the desert

Valentine and Matilda (front)

Valentine and Matilda (back)

Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (front)

Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (back)

Next up is the 8th Army Carrier Patrol from Warlord Games, to which I added a third Universal Carrier that I had in one of my storage boxes. The Carrier Patrol box comes with four metal figures wearing shorts to ride in the back, and some heads with helmets without the later war scrim, and two 8th Army infantry sprues to make 12 figures on foot. I decided to assemble them as members of the 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade, and swapped out a few heads for the carrier crew to give them Punjabi turbans. The carriers were painted in the same manner as the tanks, while I used another Sonic Sledgehammer video for the infantry, with a few minor modifications. All the figures were primed with Vallejo Desert Yellow, and I used the Cork Brown option suggested for the skin colour. I also used Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade instead of the special mixture shown in the video.

Carrier patrol of the 4th Bn 16th Punjab Regiment

3 Universal carriers in Caunter scheme camo (back)

3 Univeral carriers in Caunter scheme camo (front)

In a similar fashion to my Italian force, I bought a Warlord Games 8th Army Support Group boxed set consisting a Headquarters, a Vickers medium machine gun team, and a 3" medium mortar team. The Headquarters group has some nice sculpts depicting a senior officer smoking his pipe and having a cuppa, a medic with a stretcher, a company havildar-major (sergeant-major) carrying a Thompson with a drum magazine, and a radioman feeding a monkey some bisquit. 

8th Army Support Group

Next is the mainstay of my infantry, a 36-man platoon of the 2nd (Royal) Battalion, 11th Sikh Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade. It consists of a headquarters with a British officer with Enfield revolver and whistle, a havildar (sergeant) with a Thompson, a Boyes anti-tank rifle team, and a 2" mortar team, and three 10-man sections each with a Thompson-armed naik (corporal), a Bren gun team, and seven sepoys armed with SMLE No. 1 Mk III* rifles. The miniatures are from the Warlords Brtish 8th Army infantry box, to which I added an additional sprue of 6 figures. I have a love-hate relationship with multi-part figures. I like the ability to customize the miniatures, but I find assembly is sometimes frustrating due to the fiddly small parts (not helped by have a finger in a splint), and not all arms fit well on all torsos. I also found that the arm options were a bit lacking, and a few figures were assembled after cutting off whatever the soldier was carrying in that hand to just leave a closed fist. I opted to make rectangular bases out of plastic card for all the prone weapons teams, rather than mount the figures individually. They were painted using the same method as the Punjabis.

Platoon of the 2nd Bn 11th Sikh Regiment

Boyes A/T rifle, officer, havildar, 2" mortar

No. 1 Section

No. 2 Section

No. 3 Section

As a final bit, I have a few pieces of terrain that got painted up during periods of contemplation that occurred during the challenge - a set of light smoke/heavy smoke/flame markers, and three scaling ladders made from a plastic piece to which a set of Christmas lights were clipped. It was heavily trimmed to remove all the slots for the lights, primed with dark brown, and then dry brushed with lighter shades of brown. My Uruk-hai with make good used of these when assaulting Helm's Deep.

A point's worth of miscellaneous terrain(?)

The points being claimed are as follows

 

64 x 28mm foot figures @ 5 points each = 320 points

 

1 x 28mm artillery @ 10 points each = 10 points

 

7 x 28mm vehicles @ 20 points each = 140 points

 

.05 x cubes of terrain @ 20 points = 1 point

 

Thus concludes my third year of participation in the AHPC.. We will see you all at the afterparty.

 

"Chocks away!"

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Congratulations Frederick on another tremendous Painting Challenge. While I may have moved away, I will always consider myself a "Fawcett Avenue Conscript", and as a member of that extended gaming clan I am confident to say I know all of us are glad to see you running up spectacular points totals on some great projects. Need to keep the Conscripts up at the top of the scoring table! These figures you have shared here will all provide fantastic service on the gaming tables in Winnipeg (I mean, after they get their "newly painted figures" game out of the way). They will particularly be welcome in the middle of a prairie winter, which I find is always an even better time to stage some Western Desert WW2 games. 

 

Seeing Caunter camouflage appear is always a treat too, and I think you have achieved some excellent results here. 

 

A fine "points bomb" to conclude your participation in AHPC XIV. Well done!

 

GregB