From Mike W - 28mm High Elves (30 Points)

A quickie post to kick off my quest on Dante's Devine Comedy.

These two GW High Elves were in my bits box for nearly 33 years - what kind of horrendous limbo could that be!

GW High Elf Spearman and Archer, from an early 1990s Boxed Set 

I saw them there the other day and I thought I'd liberate them and give them a new lease of life...

They were so much fun to paint that I'm  now seriously thinking about collecting a small High Elf Amy to go with them.

I liked doing these guys so much I'm looking for more to do - but even on eBay they are now quite expensive!

As ever these guys were undercoated white and then 'dressed' with paint! GW Leadbelcher for chainmail and spear points.

Light Yellow for spear shafts  a bright blue speed paint for robes on the archer and a lighter sky blue on the Spearman's robes, with an old gold trim on each and a dash of brass to add much needed bling!

And a final view, I went for red jewels to offset the silver and blue overall look.

I spent some time on the shields and adding a the red jewels to their bow / costumes.

All finished with a fine sand and electrostatic grass vase with a black edge.

POINTS

2 × 28mm Infantry Figures  @ 5 Pts each          10 Points

Dante's Divine Comedy - Limbo                        20 Points 

TOTAL                                                                30 Points

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Lovely work on these venerable High Elf models Mike. Very sharp brushwork and your extra time on the shield, gems and other details has paid off. With the return of the Old World (at least in rule form) I'm sure the used market has become quite bullish with these classic older models. Who knows, there may be some Challengers who may be interested in moving some of their neglected castings or may consider a trade. Perhaps an idea for a page in the future... 

Well done!

- Curt

From SimonG: Welcome Back with more 10mm 1980s BAOR (44 points)

Well here we all are again, stuffed after Christmas and labouring to finish off our first submissions. In may case labouring once again in the limbo that is DPM camo in 10mm for my now four years old 1980s cold war gone hot project. I'm genuinely in the final stretches now with only 32 more figures to go!

Nothing to see here (nice tash Sarge!)

Once again these are Timecast 10mm (1:144) and really nice sculpts with chunky details and even character in the faces (when they are visible). The Timecast painting guide for DPM is very easy to follow although this time I think I've let a bit more of the sand shade show through, which actually makes for more dramatic effect I think.

Group Shot with Transport

Based and labeled

DPM in 10mm (easier than you think)

While painting up the camo is actually quite pleasurable (provided your brushes are in good shape) basing is a real pain in the butt with tiny figures, tiny bases and the need to make up and locate printed brass labels -- I think it takes me as long to base these as it does to paint them. However the result seems to be pretty good.

So that's me started for this year -- and here are some beauty shots of the four types (a section NCO plus mate, GPMG crew, two squaddies and a MAW crew). For those who care about this sort of thing these are taken with a Nikon D-750, AF-S Nikkor 105 F2.8 at ISO 3200, f16, 1/80 to get depth of field in macro. However it's astonishing how good the iPhone 15Pro Macro shots (the two overhead ones above) are, just lacking a bit of that nice depth of colour I feel.

So to make a start on my 1000 point target thats 24 points for 24 10mm figures and a 20 point limbo bonus for the project that never ends. For coming weeks I have more 15mm Albigensian Crusade and 28mm Romans -- no new big projects this year but I have a nice special vignette in the works inspired by a Kate Rusby song -- so looking forward to sharing that with you all.

Got 'im!

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Simon! It's great to see your Cold War Gone Hot project again. Just 30 figures away from completion? That's terrific! You really bring the best out of these 10mm figures with your clean and precise brushwork. I can sympathize with your comments on the basing (which is terrific btw), in that it often can take as much time as painting the figures themselves. Still, the final effect speaks for itself - lovely work. I look forward to your next entry!

- Curt

From Mike W: 28mm Romano British / Arthurian Infantry (60 Points)

Well its Christmas Time and so it must be AHPC time as well! It's good to be back, I hope everyone enjoys it this year's competition.

Finished unit of 12 x 28mm Arthurian Close Order Heavy Infantry

So one of my new projects this year will be building a Romano-British / Arthurian Army in 28mm using the fabulous figures that are available for the period that have been released by Warlord Games, Gripping Beast, Victrix and Wargames Atlantic. All of these set have their pros & cons but the best thing is that they are all pretty much interchangeable, allowing a great variety if figures to be assembled.

Close-up of unit from the left - each shield has unique iconography
but to similar black & white colour palette to give unit cohesion.

I have of course been inspired by Warlord Games recent release of their Arthurian supplement for Hail Caesar, it fits nicely into my image of Arthur being a Dark Ages knight, hanging on to the last strands of Roman 'civilisation' as the Saxon hordes invade from overseas.

Close-up of unit from the right- shields are of various shapes and sizes.

This group of figures represents a unit of 12 Close Order Heavy Infantry, lead by a lesser Knight who owes allegiance to Arthur. As such they have a fairy uniform appearance, albeit they all have individual shields with their own Christian iconography on each shield. All figures are in a light grey dress with a blue trim and where worn, black horsehair plumes in their helmets.

These three guys each have round shields and are all Wargames Atlantic figures,
with a couple of Gripping Beast / Victrix head swaps.

Figures were primed in white, before a light grey coat on all leggings and tunics. A few variations were then allowed as this is, after all, the 'Dark Ages' and the influence and availability of Roman dress and equipment is beginning to be lost. 

Each of these three guys are entirely made from Wargames Atlantic figures
but the oval shields are from Gripping Beast

GW Leadbelcher was used for all chainmail and Snakebite Leather for all shoes and leatherwork, whilst scabbards were done in a fairly bright blue.

Helmets, belts and swords had details added in brass - to add some 'bling' and then the figures were given a watered down wash in Army Painter Dar tone all over except for backs of shields and spear shafts that had a soft tone wash.

Three more figures, the large black shield is the Wargames Atlantic standard oval shield, which appears a bit but to my eye, so I prefer the smaller Gripping Beast counterparts.

The shields on this unit were fixed to be black and white, to give it some unity on the tabletop. Bases were covered in fine sand and then electrostatic grass to give a pleasing finish.

Left we have the Lesser Knight who commands this unit,
Centre is the Units Standard Bearer and right another foot soldier.

Look out for more of these figures in future posts as well as Skeletons, Orcs, Elves and some Warlord Epic 15mm figures.....

POINTS

12 x 28mm Infantry Figures @ 5 Pts each                60 Points

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It's great to have you back to the Challenge Mike! I absolutely loved Cornwell's 'Warlord Trilogy' and these excellent Romano British of yours bring back good memories of that book and it's great characters. I like how you've showed us that these various manufacturer's models can be combined to provide wonderfully varied models. It also helps that your brushwork is so nice and clean as well - terrific work. 

I see you have some more entries in the queue so we'll soon get treated to more of your work!

- Curt

QuinnM - Genestealer Patriarch (30 points)

 Hi

Again I was able to get one more model painted, and this one is my Limbo submission. 

1-54mm Foot = 10 points

Limbo = 20 points  

bonus 8 skulls on the base and 2 ultra marine heads. 

The Patriarch model has sat in a box for 2.5 years from when a friend tried to get me into KillTeam. I asked said friend for a color scheme and I like the final result. 

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Great work on this Genestealer Daddy, Quinn. I like the combination of the violet carapace and green dorsal spines. Also the drainage pipe terrain base looks suitably nasty. And a nice bit of skullz for an added bonus - score!

You're dad's going to have to get the engine started to catch up! :)

- Curt