AHPC X Day 71 - Paint Table Saturday 29 February

I have finally finished painting the barbarian riders late this afternoon. Above is a pic with the 21 horses - with a small leap* of imagination I'm sure you can imagine them on their horses. Part from one...

Below is a closer-up pic of the riders:

Tomorrow I will be varnishing them. I'm going to keep the horses and riders separate until I've flocked the bases (it will be much easier without the riders attached). If all goes well, I should have them completed and the post submitted by the end of play tomorrow.

I'll be taking a short break from this project to paint something else before I start work on the final "secret" unit.




* I had to get that in somehow - it's only once every four years that I have the chance!

AHPC X Day 68 - Wednesday Workbench 26 February

As you can see, I have made a decent start on the barbarian riders, although I have realised that I won't have finished them until some time this weekend.

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted that there are twenty two riders, but only twenty one horses. There is a reason for that...




...and, no, I'm not going to tell you what it is...




...just yet.

AHPC X Day 67 - Tuesday Update 25 February

Well, that's the horses for the mounted barbarians finally finished. And pretty much on the schedule I predicted.

Tomorrow I'll begin work on painting their riders. They should take me another two days to complete, so I should have them ready for varnishing and flocking on Friday if all goes well.

AHPC X Day 65 - Sixteenth Entry - Doyle's Dockers

It appears that my sixteenth entry got posted late last night: [link]

Just the four figures, but I needed a bit more palette cleansing between batches of barbarians.

AHPC X Day 64 - Fifteenth Entry and Paint Table Saturday 22 February

I finished and submitted my 15th entry yesterday and it got posted this afternoon: [link]

This entry leaves me just 101 points shy of my original 1300 point target with 4 weeks left to go. I will be raising my target shortly to account for all the bonus points I've earned - that should make it a bit tougher for me!

Yesterday I painted another four figures for my pulp collection. They got varnished today and have just been submitted. I also started work on the horses for my mounted barbarians, airbrushing on the base colours for their coats.

This afternoon I have been highlighting the horseflesh using the airbrush. The thirteen on the left have been highlighted; the eight on the right will get done tomorrow. Once that's done I've probably got another day or two of work to get them finished. And then onto their riders...

Today I have most

AHPCX Day 61 - Fourteenth Entry and Wednesday Workbench 19 February

I finished the barbarians yesterday and they were posted as my fourteenth submission this morning: [link]

Today I started work on my next entry - some 15mm security bots:

The base colours are all down. Tomorrow I'll be highlighting, dry-brushing the base, gloss varnishing, panel-lining using a wash and then matt varnishing.

After these, I'll probably do a few pulp figures before returning to the barbarians - I still have the mounted and the special unit to do for that project.

AHPC X Day 57 - Paint Table Saturday 15 February

Today has been quite productive. All the fur, hide, leather and cloth areas have been washed, hair has been painted (auburn for the female champion and 13 different shades for the remainder - it started off as 10, but a couple looked wrong so I darkened them and I added grey streaks into the brown on one of the chaps); wood has been basecoated and all the metal bits have been blacked.

First task tomorrow will be washes on the hair and wood, then it's onto the metal parts. I had thought about doing NMM, but with this many figures that would be too much like hard work. When the metals are done, I'll give the furs a light drybrush to highlight them then it's onto the detailing including painting symbols on the standards.

AHPC X Day 56 - Friday Update 14 February

I ended up taking a day off from painting yesterday as I was out for most of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon. I'd also managed to strain a muscle near my right armpit while coughing.

Luckily the muscle strain had eased off by this morning so I was able to paint. My productivity has also been helped by not have many Challenge posts to "minion".

First off I added final flesh highlights to all the figures, then sorted them into groups for the next steps - painting cloth, furs, skins and leather. The cloth (apart from Khaki on a handful of figures) has been highlighted; the furs, skins and leather have only had basecoats done so far.

Tomorrow I'll be applying washes to furs/skins/leather as job #1. After that it is probably basecoats for the metals, then hair, then wood. Provided I don't get too distracted, I should get all the painting finished this weekend, but will almost certainly have to do the varnishing and basing on Monday.

AHPC X Day 54 - Wednesday Workbench 12 February

In my post yesterday I said that my next project was a biggie - 51 fantasy barbarians! I've finished the flesh on the two female figures and have got most of the way with the 49 chaps - just a wash and final highlight to go. I've possibly gone a little bit OTT on the flesh tones, but with so much on display I think it's justified. The rest of the painting will be much easier - base, wash, highlight. I should have them finished this weekend.

AHPC X Day 53 - Entries Twelve and Thirteen

Yesterday was quite a busy day. Not only did I finish and submit my twelfth entry, the Stronty Dog trio I showed in my last WIP post, but I also completed my Snowlord's Peak vignette and submitted that as my thirteenth entry.


Entry #12 - "Scum of the Universe" [link]

Entry #13 - "Tamsin To The Rescue", my Snowlord's Peak vignette [link]

I thoroughly recommend that you follow the links to the posts on the Challenge blog - there are lots more pics and for the Snowlord's Peak piece a beautifully crafted tale which I'm sure you will enjoy.


I thought I might include some WIP pics here of the island:

Base covered with a mix of filler (spackle), PVA glue and paint (black and German Uniform):

Water colour base coat applied (Dark sea Blue):

Sand base coat (Yellow Ochre) and water highlight (Blue Green); rocks painted and highlighted (various greys and greens):

Palm trees fixed in place, sand added, stained dried herbs added around base of palms; everything sealed with PVA:

Preparing to add water effects - masking tape around terrain base and a bead of water effects added to create a seal:

The morning after adding Vallejo "Still water" (coloured with a 1:2 mix of Dark Sea Blue and Blue Green):

 
Masking tape peeled away; horrible meniscus:

It was at this stage that I discovered that the cured "Still Water" had a consistency like rubber which proved rather resistant to being trimmed with a knife. I resorted to scissors. This was also where I discovered that the wavy edges made trimming with scissors awkward - chunks at the edge ended up being torn away and in a few places it lifted at the edges.

I had to add a bit more water effect to "glue" the lifted areas down and some more on top and around the torn chunks to try to hide them. That wasn't a complete success, although it did look much better. It also meant another overnight wait before I could move on to the next step.

First application of gloss Mod Podge to add wave texture. A applied a fairly heavy coat all over the water and "rippled" it with blasts of air from my airbrush..

I left that overnight to dry, then added some more defined waves yesterday morning. They had cured by the afternoon, so I added white froth by stippling some of my snow texture mix on them.


It will probably be a good few days before I have another submission, but it's going to be a biggie. I expect you will see quite a few WIP pics as it progresses.

AHPC X Day 51 - Eleventh Entry and Sunday Update 09 February

My eleventh entry has been posted today. Link

I'm still working on my Snowlord's Peak piece, but it's at the point where there are long cure times so I decided to quickly paint up a few Strontium Dog figures, in this case a trio of Stix.

Today, as I was still waiting for some gloss Mod Podge to arrive (my shopping trip yesterday was a bust - Ryman were rearranging the store and there wasn't any on the shelves so I ordered via Amazon) I figured "what the heck" and started on another SD trio.

Since taking the above pic I have finished their bases and also added gloss Mod Podge to the water effects on the vignette.

AHPC X Day 47 - Wednesday Workbench 05 February

Also Day 12 of this flippin' 'orrible cold. Grrrrr!

I actually thought my cold was clearing up last Wednesday, but it took a turn for the worse. Today was the first day that I felt able to hit the brushes and I have managed to finish (apart from a thin black-lining wash) painting the figures for my Snowlord's Peak challenge vignette:

Tomorrow I'll be gloss varnishing them and sorting out where they will go on the diorama base. Once they are fixed in place, I can then start work on the island base.