AHPC X Day 08 - Saturday Workbench 28 December

As it happens, I took a few days off from painting this week - Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly taken up with cooking and eating, then I decided to catch up on DVDs the last two days. I finally resumed painting this afternoon and finished these chaps off.  they've been varnished and I'll get the basing done tomorrow.

I had some goodies arrive on Tuesday:

Some acrylic bases (for my Judge Dredd figures). some MDF factory buildings and some fillable Christmas Tree baubles.

"Fillable Christmas Tree baubles?"

Yes, to do this:

It's for Judge Dredd - in Mega City One, there is a breathable, bouncy plastic called "Boing!" and some bored citizens have been known to create spheres around themselves, launch off tall buildings and then bounce around until they eventually come to a halt. Of course, this tends to cause lots of damage to property and citizens that happen to get "Boinged" - the Judges are certainly not amused by such antics and the perps will find themselves in the Iso-Cubes for at very least a few months.

AHPC X Day 03 - Second Submission

My second submission is up now: link

I was meant to be heading down to Sussex today for Christmas, but I've been struck down with a D&V bug. Brilliant timing, thanks whoever passed it on to me. As a result, I will be staying in London on my lonesome, but it does mean that I will be able to do some painting. I got these chaps primed this morning, then added basing gunk:

They will be for my "Millsy's Millpond" entry.

And I have made a start on these chaps:

I hope to get these and two regiments of converged grenadiers finished before the 30th, so that they will be available for a big game at the club.

AHPC X Day 02 - First Submission

And we're off! This year's Challenge began at 0600 UK time yesterday. It was a few hours later that I hit the brushes (I'm not a morning person), but I managed to finish my first submission by 2100.

Here's a pic of the figures:

And a link to the submission: Link

That submission managed to put me into the top spot on the table, although I have now been knocked down. My #1 tenure was short, but sweet.

Today I have painted another 5 figures and they have been submitted. They still need to be varnished, but I'll have to do that tomorrow morning. If they have been posted before my departure for Sussex, I will add the link to this post.


Which just leaves me to wish you all a very merry Christmas - let's hope that Santa brings you lots of miniature goodness on Tuesday night.

'Tis the Night Before Challenge

Curt Campbell did gush,
So wipe down that workbench
And clean out that brush
You can begin painting
In a few hours time
Not figures you've started
Unless they're just primed


By the time this drivel is posted there will be 10 hours left before the kick-off of AHPC X. All my prep is done and only one batch of figures (the Judge Dredd minis) hasn't been primed yet.

My workbench has been wiped down and I've got it ready for painting my first submissions:

Taking a bit of a risk, I am going to try out my new wet palette tomorrow I've also got a new set of brushes out (my last pair of series 7 brushes have taken a heavy hammering over the past few months).


Here's a photo of the figures I definitely intend to paint:

What? You want close ups of the boards? Oh, go on then!

Strontium Dog minis

15mm robots and 10mm lizardmen

28mm characters and 15mm SYW Russians

28mm WW2 British Airborne

28mm Pulp

28mm Barbarians

Barbarian skirmishes, command, shamen and beasts

Barbarian swordsmen and axemen

Barbarian cavalry riders

Barbarian cavalry mounts

Besides the Judge Dredd figures, there is a lot more that's prepped and primed in the wings if I finish these early. I might also be making up some terrain.


Before I go, I would just like to wish all my fellow participants in this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge the best of luck in achieving their targets, winning their side duels but above all I hope that they will have good fun over the next three months.

Wednesday Workbench 18 December

With just two full days left now before the Challenge kicks off, I've been slowly working through prep and priming of recent acquisitions, alongside doing some reading, catching up on DVD box sets etc.

Over the past couple of days I have been priming the barbarian horde. All the humans (and the special unit figures) have been primed - base of Vallejo German Red Brown surface primer, zenithally highlighted with Vallejo Model Air Light Brown:

Barbarian infantry, riders and "specials"

Tomorrow I will be priming the horses for the riders:

Barbarian horses

Today I have also been adding gunk to the bases of various figures:

More Paras; Stronty Dog figures; some Copplestone and Artizan figures

They will also get primed over the next day or two.

Wednesday Workbench 11 December

As I'm mostly in the midst of doing figure prep, there is no overall "on the workbench" photo today.

Since Friday's post I have done a little bit of work apart from prepping figures. I used up the last of my basing gunk mix (I've since made up a new batch) to coat a bunch of bases:

After painting them, I took the 75mm ones and added some cushion stuffing using hot glue, then airbrushed them with various greys and finally white before touching up the base edges where there had been overspray:

Et, voila! A good load of smoke markers for Chain of Command. My plan is to use the 50mm bases to make barrage markers.

In the first photo you will have noticed the cavalry alongside the bases. Here's a better shot:

All the barbarian cavalry have been assembled. Most of them came as separate torsos and legs and I'd spotted during dry-fitting that there would be gaps so I decided to use a small amount of greenstuff to attach the two parts - the excess squeezing out would fill the gaps. Since taking that photo, I have fixed the broken standard using a length of steel paperclip and greenstuff. I will need to buy some nails to mount them on for painting (I thought I had some, but couldn't find them). I was a little concerned about how strong the bond would be, but I needn't have worried - it's strong.

There was a bit of greenstuff left over, so I made some sandbags.


Dredd Miniatures

No photos today! I have finally decided that I will be mounting them on acrylic bases once they're painted so have been removing their integral bases and drilling holes for pinning them. I've also cleaned up the metal figures. I'm a little disappointed with the special edition "Dredd vs Death" miniature - there are quite big gaps which will need to be filled. I've also removed the integral base of this one so that I can mount it on another one.

Now I just need to decide what thickness of acrylic bases to go with.


Shinies

Some goodies arrived this afternoon:

You might be able to see what the figures are, but I'm not going to provide close-ups or identify them just yet - a couple of them will be for a very early entry in the Challenge.

As for the wet palette, I had decided to give one another go and was looking at the ones from Redgrass games when I saw the Army Painter one being advertised - it was slightly cheaper, so I went ahead and ordered one. I have used a wet palette in the past, but wasn't happy with it - it was one designed for use with thicker artist acrylics. These new ones have been designed for use with model painting acrylics - we'll see how it goes. My main concern is about the size - I'm not sure how many colours (and mixes) I'll be able to fit on there at the same time - hopefully enough for painting the Dredd and Stronty figures.

Finished - 28mm WW2 British Airborne Jeeps, Bikes and Carts

After much delay, I have finally finished these. And that's the last of the Airborne for now, although (as I'm sure you know) I do have a few more figures that haven't been prepped and primed yet.


Hand Carts

Motorbikes

Two Wellbikes and one 350cc Matchless bike

Woah! One of them has switched bikes!

I've left him separate so that he can be used with either bike

Signals Jeep

I will be adding radio antennae at some point

Recce Jeep with Trailer

Everything apart from the "proper" motorbike is from Warlord, the motorbike is from Foundry.


There have been some purchases...

I took advantage of  Warlord's Black Friday sale to buy the last three packs from the Strontium Dog range; I also bought their Airborne 75mm pack howitzer, 17 pounder and Polsten gun.

On Wednesday I did a little bit of shopping in town - the two Judge Dredd packs that I didn't buy initially, some acrylic paint pens, white ink and a couple of paints, a couple of portable daylight lamps, a couple of Series 7 brushes, superglue and activator, some tree armatures, some matchsticks and some triangular plastic strip.

Apart from finishing the jeeps etc today I have been doing some prep:

The horses for my barbarian warband have been glued onto bases, as have the figures for a special unit.

I've also prepped the resin Judge Dredd figures. Dredd's Daystick broke at the mid point, so I removed it at the handle and fitted a length of paperclip; I also had to pin another Judge at the ankle - I'll need to do a little bit of greenstuff work on them. I'm still debating how to do the basing - I'm considering mounting them on acrylic bases, but I'm wary about cutting them off their integral bases.

Tomorrow I'll be prepping the metal JD figures and maybe some of the recent Airborne acquisitions. I'll also be assembling the barbarian riders.

Paint Table Saturday - AHPC X Is Upon Us

Well, in three weeks' time the tenth edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge will kick off and an intrepid band of 68 fools figure painters will retire to their workbenches, pick up their brushes, load their palettes, accidentally drink from their brush water mugs, and finally emerge at the end of March.

This year, in amongst working through my leadpile to get to my 1300 points target, I will be one of the Full Minions again. I've been assigned Friday as my duty day but this year it's "free fire" for submissions rather than victims entrants having assigned days.

Now, you might have spotted that my target of 1300 points is much lower than my typical output from previous Challenge editions, particularly last year when I achieved nearly 3500 points. That is because I will be largely focusing on character figures this year, rather than armies.

What do I have lined up for painting this time?

10mm Lizardmen - for James' charity project
15mm SYW Russians - there will be a small contingent of additions for this mega army
15mm SciFi - there may be some more Kra'Vak
28mm Pulp/Gangsters - I've got quite a few figures (including civvies) still left from last year
"28mm" Strontium Dog - some more figures for this project have come (or are coming) my way
28mm Barbarian Horde - a mixed foot and mounted warband for Dragon Rampant; lots of bare flesh, furs, leather and steel
28mm WW2 - there should be a small group of British Airborne hitting the ground
"28mm" Mega City One - errmm, yes, I did succumb and purchase the new Judge Dredd game from Warlord; my order arrived this afternoon:

I have opened up the packs and the figures are very nice indeed. Some of the packs are metal, but most are in Warlord's new resin. There may be some additional purchases made before (the two packs I didn't order) and during the Challenge (the second wave which will be released in January).

And now, the Workbench:

I've made progress but they aren't quite finished. That's mainly the result of my flat being horribly cold at the moment - my boiler broke down on Sunday night and the engineer who was meant to come on Thursday went to the wrong house and naffed off - I've got another booked to come tomorrow morning. However, I suspect that the pump he will need won't be on his van so it will be a few more days until I get central heating and hot water back.

Finished: 28mm WW2 British Paras Batch 4

Just a small batch this time, with some odds and ends that I bought in the past few weeks. It's not the final batch though - some figures I'd ordered in June from Black Tree Designs finally arrived on Saturday. I've also got the jeeps, trailer, motorbikes and handcarts to finish painting. And some Artizan vehicle passengers.

Foundry Paras in Berets

What's that on the kneeling chap's back?

A 2" mortar I added from a Warlord sprue!

Warlord PIAT and 2" Mortar Teams

I'm rethinking my earlier decision to sell off the Warlord paras I painted when testing out paint schemes. Although that will mean that I have more PIATs than most of the airborne battalions at Arnhem!


Crusader 6 Pounder

The gun seems to be the same one that Artizan sell, but the crew are different. If I keep the Warlord figures, this will take me up to three 6 pounders - I doubt that I'd ever get that many on the table, even in a game of "Big CoC". I now have visions of me ordering the Warlord 17 pounder and 75mm pack howitzer to add to the force, just in case...

I've also painted the crew figures for the Warlord jeeps and the motorbike riders:

You'll get a better shot once the jeeps, etc are painted (probably on Thursday).