From BartekR: Free-fire squirrelly dash for cover – 1980s, Superhero, Casting Couch and Arthouse Studios [187 points]

Okay, with the clock ticking down, a last dash through some studios, compiled in the one post. Apologies in advance for the length and the photos (the IT curse continues - managed to CTRL-Z the folder with all photos into non-existence, prompting a late night redo)

The 1980s…

I grew up in the 80s so it’s a rich topic for me: playing on plinthed T-34s back in the old country pre-emigration to Australia, the Vic-20 (we couldn’t affort a C-64), my first sets of Airfix, Esci, Matchbox and Tamiya, discovering D&D then Call of Cthulhu, purchase of my first ever Citadel minis set (1985)….then later being sucked into the worlds of Warhammer through Rogue Trader and 3^rd ed Fantasy Battle. Among other stories. But how to capture the zeitgeist in miniature?

Alas, I don’t have many miniatures from back then. And still wonder what happened to the 40K Rogue Trader Imperial guard army I had (and sold): shiny helmets, gang tattoos, imperial beastmen, commissar training squad and – problematically – ‘human bombs’. I do have a box of ex-Citadel Foundry Miniatures which are of the period (I assume) but it didn’t feel ‘just right’.

Then I got onto the TV of the period – in the halcyon days before interactive screens.  the various miniatures inspired by shows like The A-Team, V, Dr Who. I almost got a box of CMON’s He-Man miniatures game. But what I really wanted was The Equalizer (also having discovered Callan in the 1980s). Or maybe Buck Rogers, Battle of the Planets, Star Blazers*, or Danger Mouse. That took me down to the thinking journey to this triptych: the 1980s through screen, game and page. Enjoy.    

1980s - Screen: Saturday ‘toons: Robotech

Being a kid of the 80s I can point to so many shows - some listed above (nd many the vanilla-ised version of their Japanese originals). But Robotech nee Macross was a standout – the tales of plucky UN Spacy pilots in space jets slash mech armour battling the Zentraedi invaders. Happy days.  So, courtesy of Kids Logic 1/285 licensed Harmony Gold range, here we have: a VF-1S Skull Squadron Super Veritech in Battloid Mode; Zentraedi Officer’s Glaug (Battlepod); and one of the undervalued workhorses of the UN world government’s space defence force – a Destroid Tomahawk.

 

 

These miniatures are high detail, to an annoying point (missed so many fine but deep panel lines and with the undercoat!) and the resin can be brittle but they are really nice also. Painted using Citadel, Vallejo and with some Ammo of Mig crystal acrylics and filters. The VF-1S intentionally left looking mostly dirty. There is an ongoing debate in the scale model community as to how clean modern jets on ops are and I wanted to tap into that…and because dry brushing became a pain! The Tomahawk could do with some decals but is otherwise stock, and not much to add about the Battlepod. 

 1980s - Game: Second sci-fi fiddle: Battletech

Of course, the Macross mechs (and other anime designs) would see another life in Battletech, at least for a while.

Though it didn’t hook my friends and I in like 40K Rogue trader, Battletech was the backup game (circa 1988). It was easy to throw the box – with all the card minis and maps – in a backpack, jump on the bike and ride over to a friend’s house. we never expanded with City Tech and Aerotech), I liked the art and the story was almost as gripping (though I was also attracted by FASA’s other offering – Renegade Legion). 

 

The Destroid Tomahawk, renamed the Warhammer in Battletech, was the mech of the game for me. This one – same Kids Logic as the one above – has been painted in black with red accents as a mount of (Battletech sex symbol/poster gal), the notorious and enigmatic mercenary sub-unit commander Natasha Kerensky, aka the Black Widow. The one regret I have of this is that the Wolf Dragoon’s decal on the lower right leg is lost – I didn’t underpaint a light colour effectively enough. 

 ***INTERMISSION***

Armed with my fresh Blue pass, jumping in to...

The Superheroes Studio.

In the dedicated peak of my comic book reading (pre- through later teens), there were three ‘heros’ I followed diligently, going down to the newsagent each week and buying the latest releases: Judge Dredd, Batman and The Punisher. (now I think about it, might say something about my mindset in those years). If I was to add a fourth, it would The Nam. So, for this entry, 2000AD’s iconic and ironic (anti-)hero Judge Dredd. 

 And what superhero would be complete without a nemesis, in this case Judge Death (although I wonder if Death isn’t really the nemesis for PSI Judge Anderson?). 

 Sing along moment…

Both figures are Warlord releases from their Judge Dredd game, in Warlord resin (which I understand has been improved, thankfully). Death was mostly slapchop and kept to a faded tone – in keeping with his not-alive and not entirely corporeal state. Dredd was  a slapchop/traditional hybrid (clearly, having kicked off a few minis with it, slapchop is not the ‘last technique you’ll ever use’ in my book).

Meanwhile, back in the 1980s Studio

1980s - Page: There is only war: Rogue Trooper

Genetic Infantry, Souther trooper and Nort trooper

 

Mongoose Publishing Rogue Trooper, Nort Trooper, and Southern Trooper. The sharp-eyed will see the Nort and ask ‘what the hell? He’s in black” (rather than brown). Although Rogue Trooper has a long history, I didn’t come to it until the 1989 ‘War Machine’ re-boot which, for all its faults, struck a chord with 14-year old me through its grimdark art and, since I was running them as my 40K army, the Imperial Guard-like look of the Southers and GIs (the helmets and flak armour – a look continued in some mainstream 40K imperial guard to this day!). So, the black rubber chem-bio suited Nort is a nod to that – the shine achieved with Ammo acrylic filter. 

With source material

 

Onto...

The Casting Couch….

The Director leaned back to look up at the casting manager, the now empty whiskey glass deposited on the oversized desk. It had been a long day, he had a headache which the whiskey was barely medicating.

The casting manager leaned in, plucked the cigarette from his lips and exhaled smoke over his notes before speaking.

‘So, Herr Director, I understand you wanted to sign someone versatile. Make them a star and use them through a number of movies on a tight deadline. Dare I say, I feel you need someone with a thousand forms for all the roles you have planned. And, I think I have got the actor you need…’

The Director sighed. His planned release schedule was hectic, and costs needed to be kept down. Signing one actor who could do a variety of roles would save a lot of headaches.

‘Mr N – hmmm, no first name given, seems to just go by the initial - l’Hoptep. A new find. Yet to meet him in person you understand but comes recommended. Has been doing some off broadway and avante garde work, but apparently very impressive. Well, beyond avante garde…if there is such a thing. His solo play ‘The Tick Tock Man’ was something of an underground hit although marred by some drama and scandal at the end. Apparently, the audience went wild. Literally. Tore each other up, some had guns so there was shooting. A bloody mess’.

‘Hmmmm. That’s the avante garde crowd for you. What kind of name is that anyway. L’Hotep – French?”

“I don’t rightly know. Probably made up. His background is…well, you know how these actors like to create an air of mystery. Nevertheless, maybe this is one you should take a look at’.

‘Fine, fine Rudy, get in contact. And find a time to summon him in’.

Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, Messenger of the Outer Gods, God of a Thousand forms and so on. For those not into ‘all that tentacle stuff’ of the Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos, Nyarlathotep is…actually hard to describe…an entity that promotes chaos and destruction, and has a myriad human-like and monstrous forms (‘masks’). And is the main big bad in the Chaosium’s epic (in several senses of the word) Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign, The Masks of Nyarlathotep. Given the many masks, you could not ask for better for versatility in a lead role.

I managed to get two avatars painted up – The Haunter of the Dark and The Bloated Woman. Both miniatures are from the Nyarlathotep expansion to the Cthulhu Wars boardgame (a kickstarter I sold years ago) so boardgames figures, with all the problems that come with those. 

 The Haunter of the Dark is taken from the eponymous short story by Lovecraft

“I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye. . . .”

A large partly corporeal batlike entity that detests light, with its most obvious feature being a tri-lobed eye, it doesn’t lend itself to a lot of use of colour. The eyes are the obvious focal point. Minis was black undercoat highlighted grey, with the eyes painted red then orange. To finish off I used the Ammo of Mig acrylic crystal paint red on the eyes, and Ammo’s acrylic filter ‘Night Black’ to smoothing out the dry brushed greys and get a sheen. 

 

The Bloated Woman - Pure body horror that appears first in Chaosium’s The Masks of Nyarlathotep. I’ll draw on that for the description of this avatar (all rights reserved etc Chaosium Publishing):

This particularly disgusting form of Nyarlathotep is known on Earth only among the Order of the Bloated Woman. The avatar crudely resembles a human woman, even though she appears as a 600-pound (270 kg), 7-feet (2 m) tall horror, with tentacles in place of arms, and more tentacles sprouting from rolls of sickly yellow-gray flesh. Below her eyes waves another tentacle, and below and beside that are four lumpy chins, each sporting a mouth; all a perfect bow made hideous by clusters of fangs. Multiple smaller tentacles sprout from the rest of her body…tucked into the belt is the Black Fan which, when held just under her eyes, permits her to take on the appearance of a slim and beautiful Chinese maiden. The fan pulls all attention to her gaze and somehow conceals the avatar’s bulk and her true form—everything but those lovely eyes. When the fan is removed, her full monstrousness is gruesomely apparent. Assisted by the Black Fan, the Bloated Woman may seduce men and women alike, giving her victims unearthly and degenerate pleasure before smothering them in her flabby bulk.

 

 

The miniature is different to this description but still, not something you want to run into. Ever.  

Arthouse

I was struggling what to do for Arthouse until the conversation on the back of one of Curt’s posts about Mork Borg and then Cy-Borg. The cover of Cy-Borg, Stockholm Kartell’s Mork Borg-esque rules light take on cyberpunk. Johan Nohr’s cover art prompting this neon flouro-tastic arthouse entry, painted in a new technique which I am sure will create as much a buzz on the socials as ‘slapchop’ did: I like to call it slapdash’. 

 

(Ok, I’m taking the micky here).

The miniature started as a GW 40K chaos cultist but was wantonly Borg’ed with green stuff until it looked suitably chaotic, undercoated black and then…well the technique literally involved: remind self it is the last night before the end of the challenge, simultaneously accept that one has had one or two too many adult beverages to paint with much degree of skilled coordination, defiantly declare ‘f it, we’ll do it live’, get a bit Jackson Pollack with flouro paints, wake up the next morning and redo some sections being a bit more deliberate.

 If I was to redo I’d use less colours and starker white (there is a few bits of art in the Cy-Borg rules in which Nohr uses just black, white and one other colour – normally yellow – with good effect, in keeping with the ‘Borg aesthetic and also on black (which helps).

  So, do I think it works? Yeah, kinda. Placing the mini on the rulebook cover  – the palette is ballpark, the figure has the offbeat look that could be Borgian? Borgish? Ultimately there is nothing (I’m gonna use the term again) avante garde about the figure…until the UV light goes on 😊

 

Conclusion (and points)

With my with my lower back about to write a letter of complaint over some longer-than-usual days in the office and late nights at the bench, I am drawing a line under my entries for AHPC XIII. But obviously not before calculating the points:

•  Robotech Zentraedi Officers Battlepod (60mm) – 1x 54mm miniature: 10 points
• Robotech/Battletech mechs – 3 x 40mm miniatures @7pts ea: 21 points
• 2000AD and Cy-Borg – 6 x 28mm minis @5pts ea: 30 pts 
• Lovercraftian nasties – this is where it gets awkward since there is no ‘monster’ category I’m going to pitch for 15 points each: 30 pts (welcome adjucation on this)
• Studios Bonuses x4 (1980s, Superhero; Casting Couch and Arthouse) @20pts ea: 80pts
• Total: 187 pts

 

Challenge wrap-up post to follow some time. 

________________________________

Bartek, from my reading of your post I think you and I would get along just fine. We are of the same vintage and have many of the same hobby recollections. It was nice going down memory lane with your last submission. So much to like here, from the Battletech to the Cy-Borg, Robotech to Call of Cthulhu, it's all wonderful stuff. Thanks for pitching in with us this year, Bartek, I hope to see you in the ranks for Challenge XIV.

- Curt

From Pete F: Ice Naiads [Arthouse](160 points)

 

With the end of Challenge XIII fast approaching, I feel lucky that I've managed to finish this unit of ice naiads for my Kings of War army.  We had a tournament at the weekend and I needed to get them done - just made it under the wire. 

This is my entry for the arthouse.  Partly because - blue skin! But mostly because I  shillied and shallied, lollyed and gagged, trying to come up with a colour scheme that would work. I wanted to do blue metallic armour - which one of them still has - but with the blue skin it was too blue.  I messed around with different hair colours, different furry bits. And so on.  It took forever. And I'm still not that happy with it - although as they say the best colour is finished.

I'm not saying I'm happy to see the back of them though - I have a few more to paint for smaller troop sized units - this large base is a horde.  

I enjoyed painting some of the details as the unit finally came together - mainly as a result of the time pressure.

This one slightly reminded me of the bad dude in Game of Thrones.

Fortunately the effort paid off and with a 3-2 record at the tournament I managed to squeeze in to the top eight in our region (we are by far the worst region!) and onto the team to compete at Kings of War's US  Masters in July - got to find a cheap flight to Nebraska.  

28 x 28mm foot plus 20 for the Art House = 160 points.

That's 4 greens and 4 blues (with Westerns being blue on the new scheme) - if there's time I'd like to paint something for the Director's Chair - what say you?

Well, it seems like you got past your doubts with the tests to have these ready for your game. Great work, and congrats on completing 4 studios for each of the Green and Blue zones. What say I? I say email the Show Lord and agree a task that you can complete before the Challenge ends!

Tamsin

From StuartL - Arts and Crafts House - Arthouse (60 points)

Hello again,

So, after blitzing through two studio sections, it is time to hit my fourth, thereby clearing the way for a run at the Director's Chair.

Of all the sections of the studio, the Arthouse was the one that gave me the most pause, so I decided to take it literally and paint a house. Luckily, I had one to hand that I had built prior to the previous challenge, but that had sat on my shelf for the past year. The plan is to use it for Saga: Age of Crusades as I have some Arabs and Crusaders on the go for that.

Like a lot of folks, my finances took a hit during Covid and things like terrain have become a bigger financial burden to sort out than I would like. As a way of getting round that, I tried my hand at putting some terrain of my own together. I started with two wooden boxes I got at the local dollar store, and cut some foam board to match their size, cutting holes for doors and windows. Gluing everything together gave me a basic structure. The boxes are upside down, the base of each forming the roof of the building. This means that the interior isn't accessible, but I don't need to worry about it collapsing if anything heavy is put on it.

I then cut up some coffee stirrers to make the doors and some bamboo skewers to add some beams to 'support' the roof. I used an old pen to score some brick work into the foam and covered it all in textured paint to provide a harder wearing surface. (The bricks got a layer of PVA instead). Everything got painted in dark brown and then I went over it with a beige using a cut up piece of sponge to dab the colour on. The base is foam covered with Vallejo White Stone and some sand sprinkled on top.

One of the problems with terrain is scoring it, especially when it is not a regular shape.

The main building is about 5" high, by 4.5" wide and 4.5" deep.

The smaller section is roughly 3" by 3" by 3.5".

Overall, this should be 132.75 cubic inches.

That's great, but I kind of need more terrain to fill up a table, so...

This building is from Renedra. I got it cheap off a friend who had tried building it and got fed up with it. The kit doesn't fit together all that well, even with some Vallejo plastic putty, there are a LOT of gaps between the panels. It is nicely detailed though.

Size wise, it is roughly 5" by 3.5" by 2.5", or 43.75 cubic inches.

That's probably enough buildings for now, but how about some natural features?

I had a large piece of blue foam left over from a previous project, so I cut it into a rough shape, added some smaller ridges on top and glued down some tree bark to be used as rocks. Then I decided to add the same texture that I used on my buildings and minis. This thing took half of the tub of Vallejo White Stone, making it quite expensive given that the rest of it is just scrap material.

This should fill up a large chunk of the table and block some lines of sight. It is 7" wide at it's narrowest point, roughly 16" long and 1" high (2" on the two ridges). At a rough calculation it is 7"x16"x1" or 112 cubic inches.

Ok, nearly done, just a few bits of greenery to brighten up the table. 

I found these palm trees at the dollar store and bought out their entire stock. I then went back the following week and bought out their restock and then again a few weeks later. The clerks must have thought I was mad. This lot represent about a third of the trees I bought. The bases were done with the same method as the building above. I drybrushed and washed the trunks to make them look less like cheap plastic, but the leaves just wouldn't take any paint at all. I don't know what they are made from, but they are essentially paint-proof.

The whole lot measures roughly 6" square, but there are some gaps between bases that I couldn't fill up.

The trees stand between 3 and 4 inches tall, plus a bit of extra height where the leaves stick up. Going at 6"x6"x3", that gives the trees a total of 108 cubic inches.

So, all told that comes to: 396.5, or 1.83 challenge terrain cubes. That is roughly 36 points plus 20 for the studio, though I suppose I should take some deductions for the dead space between the trees. I'll leave it up to my fair-minded and all knowing Minion to decide. As he just finished off some terrain himself, I am sure he can appreciate the way points and volume are calculated.

Final score ??? 56 points???

Hopefully, I score over 25 for the terrain, which will then qualify for a Squirrel Point. Too late I have realised that I should have stuck a skull somewhere on one of the bases to get a point for the Skullz duel too. Drat.

My side duels

Squirrels +1 = 28

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese, Wolf's Dragoons, Merfolk, Fishmen, Fish, Mummies, Greek Myth, Peasants, Desert Terrain

Skullz - 200

Turnips - 115 Points

And that means I have finished the minimum to qualify for the Directors Chair! See you all next week.

Love the building, terrain can be a pain to score or a positive bounty of points. You fit in the middle. I'm doing to score it a 2 cubes so you don't get trippy decimal points on your score