I'm glad I take pictures of what I've painted; I was reviewing them and had already forgotten about stuff I painted a few months ago!
My output was a bit down; my excuse is a baby. Here's Furiosa learning the ropes:
 |
| Did you know you can use your painting area for heating food? |
 |
| It cleaned up OK! |
Hi All. Well I have been struggling to not take a nap today. This evening is the first in a while that the painting tray has been put away and I am just relaxed on the sofa. The brushes will not be mothballed though as I have a couple of models in progress that I need to finish up for next month's painting competition at Salute. I entered for the first time last year and didn't place anything, but it was just a rush putting something in that glass cabinet.
This years challenge I had a couple of projects to work on. My WW2 Australians will continue and my 2nd Edition 40K project is still missing a couple of key models I would like to add to it. (If anyone has a proper Orky dread going cheap I am interested!) My to do pile is still pretty large (plenty more Orks, Arbites and Spam looking for paint.) Plus I am sure I will come home from Salute with a bag full toy soldiers.
This is my third year now and as everyone knows, you do something more than twice it becomes a tradition. Well then, here is my traditional double thumbs up photo of myself and everything I painted this challenge (Well, almost everything, I forgot the five Arbites.)
I want to say thank you to Curt and Sarah for having the crazy idea for this challenge and all the Minions especially Sylvain for putting up with us all, including my terrible maths. Thank you to everyone who made kind comments on my posts, I have tried to keep up with the posts myself and give feedback but they come so thick and fast I can only apologise for missing some. I assure you even if I didn't comment, I did read all the posts, you are all a talented bunch.
And finally, if you are in the UK I will see you next month at Salute. (If you aren't there, I will silently mourn all the fun you will be missing out on.)
Spring has arrived (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), and with it comes the conclusion of another Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Before I list what I painted, I want to thank Curt and his band of minions, especially Sylvain, curator of Monday's Musée des Fossiles. His solicitous emails were very helpful in making sure I kept calm and focused when the deadlines loomed, and I appreciated the comments he left on my submissions.
I would also like to thank all those who left comments on my posts. They were very instrumental in keeping me motivated. I had planned to leave more comments on everyone's posts this year, but a fractured finger made typing extremely difficult, and then my computer packed it in. (I still need to set up a replacement). I ended up using my wife's laptop, but while Google says I am signed in, Blogger says I am not. I feel a bit like Schrödinger's cat. I can type up posts, but I am not allowed to type in comments. Hopefully I will have better success with the new computer once it gets set up.
The main focus for my painting this year was my various Second World War armies ranging from early war Germans, Poles, and French, to North African campaign Italians and Indians. Along the way I also managed to complete 19 library challenges and 2 trips on the cart. Once again the special challenges have motivated me to dust off some projects that have long languished in a storage box in the basement and get them ready for the tabletop or display. In all I managed to paint 1 x 80mm figure, 4 x 54mm figures, 10 x 40mm figures, 270 x 28mm foot figures, 9 x 28mm mounted figures, 40 x 28mm vehicles, 8 x 28mm artillery pieces, and nearly 3 cubes of terrain. to land in 6th place in the standing. 😁
 |
| Terrain Projects |
 |
| Library challenge minis, and Idols of Torment |
| |
 |
| North African campaign Italians and Indians |
 |
| A happy painter with his completed projects |
Cheers,
FrederickC
Another incredible Challenge for me. Last year, I filled 12 trays with 6mm WW2 miniatures, and this year I filled only 11, but then added 3 trays of 28mm D&D figurines "on the side" to populate the role playing adventures requested by my family. All in all, I gathered 1282.5 points.
 |
| My precious... |
I want to reiterate my thanks to the Snow Lord, the minions and the challengers. I want to thank the Monday Crew for being so good with me. I screwed up a few times and was only met with patience. I did a better job this year at commenting on other challengers' submissions, but have not yet reach the level I was aiming for. I will now spending the rest of the year preparing miniatures and, most importantly, creating storage for my newly painted little treasures.
Before signing off, I would like to take this opportunity to showcase the often neglected art of storage, which explains my obsession for trays.
When I started wargaming, back in the 80s, members of my group were simply storing their miniatures in small plastic containers, like the ones used for cough drops or the "tank traps" sold by GHQ. If this system would resist water damage very well, it was not great at all when it was time to take out minis for the game, or worse, when it was time to put them back in storage. Without proper identification, only the owner would know which mini goes in which container. That was my storage system for many years...
I purpose-built my first storage box sometimes at the end of the 1980s for my WW2 6mm Soviet army. That box is now lost. In 1994, I built my second storage box for an army of Epic Orks from a card-board container for envelops. This kind of storage had the advantage of making set up and clean up quick, but there were two big disadvantages:
- Each box was unique and different from the others. See, for example, the companion storage box for the Gargants, below. Plus each tray had to be built to specific dimensions. Thus making this kind of storage was very time consuming.
- Most problematic, the top trays were not well designed to carry miniatures on long distance, as the content would invariably shift.
The next "evolution" in my art of storage was to get rid of the odd-size boxes and instead make extensive use of the humble "banker's box". This was a big step forward. I even built my storage cupboards to nicely fit a height of 2 banker's boxes per shelf.
Another important "evolution" was to make more compartments within each tray, to avoid miniatures shifting around. Below is an example for WW2 15mm Soviet tanks. Note that I recycled the foams from the blister packs to make the compartments. Each tray is half the size of the box, as it nicely fits a company of 10 tanks.
Sometimes, I had to build bigger trays, especially for scenery. I then need to carve handles on each end to be able to pull the tray out of the box.
Once, I had to build vertical trays to fit my collection of Napoleonic sail ships.
For 28mm, I simply buy commercially available foam trays that I pile in a banker's box:
When I started my WW2-6mm project, I knew I would need lots of storage, thus lots of trays. I asked my good friend ByronM, who runs Northern Lights Terrain and Game Supplies (a sponsor of this year's Challenge) to cut MDF boards for me in order to create the trays you see below. Using cardboard, I then add a bottom and compartments. At about 2cm high each, 20 trays can fit in a box. Each tray can hold up to 55 miniatures (but trays are rarely full). Thus about 1,000 miniatures (in theory) would fit in a box. Including what I have painted during this last Challenge, I now have 4 boxes of 6mm miniatures.
The next evolutionary step was to develop a classification system because, at 6mm, there are lots of miniatures in an army. First, I made sure that the content of each tray would be precisely identified, as you can see below. Please, also note the color coding on the right side. Blue, red, green for combat units, purple for recce, white for support, etc.
I also wanted to make sure elements would not get mixed up. I would not want to see a Panzer IV F1 among my Panzer IV F2. Under the base, I write a code identifying in which tray belongs each miniature. In the image below, both under the base of a miniature and on the side of the tray, you can read the code "BR-D-01" (British - Desert - Tray number 1). You will also note that there is some coding on the side of the separators. This was done before I started bleeding the coding colors on top of the bases. Now it's not necessary anymore.
Inside the compartment of each tray, I drew sections and identified the content with the name and color coding of each miniature. So now my friends can easily help me put away miniatures at the end of the game :-).
I hope this little show and tell was entertaining.
Thanks for reading and see you next year!
