2012 Round Up

As 2012 draws to a close, it is time to reflect on what I have and haven't achieved this year.

Blogging

I started this blog on New Year's Day and have been shocked (in a very good way) at how popular it has been.
nearly 53,000 page views
301 followers
2441 comments
300 posts (including this one!)

I started it as a way of keeping a record of my painting and as an aid to motivate me to do carry on. I really never expected it to take off the way that it has, so a huge and hearty "Thank you!" to everyone who has followed me, commented on my posts, shared tips, told other people about this blog....

I'm particularly glad that so many of you stuck around over the past couple of months when I wasn't posting as often as I had been. Some of you know that prior to rediscovering my interest in miniatures gaming back in the summer of 2011, I had been off work for 9 months with chronic fatigue. Over the last 18 months I had been back at work on reduced hours, but had hit a plateau at just under 70% of full time hours.

Work then decided to make me push the rest of the way to full time over a very short period. That left me very tired in the evenings and I was spending most of Saturday recovering, leaving me just Sundays for any decent amount of painting. It didn't help that my body and brain weren't getting time to adjust to each increase in hours before the next increase kicked in.

Fortunately I am now back to working full time and hopefully my body and brain will rapidly adjust to the hours and I will have energy in the evenings to do painting.


Painting

Looking at the list in my side-bar, I have painted the following:

15mm mounted: 407 figures
15mm foot: 414 figures
15mm artillery: 6 guns
15mm horses: 76*
28mm foot: 46
plus various figures for my army camps and ambush markers.

* 60 horses for my remaining Sarmatian lancers and 16 riderless horses for my 30YW dragoons.

Now, using the points for Curt's 3rd Analogue Painting Challenge I calculate that out as 2862 points (excluding the camps/ambush markers) that I've painted this year. Unfortunately, there are a lot of figures that I started painting but never finished - they are still sitting in a drawer unit on my painting desk.

Gaming

This year I have managed to do quite a bit of gaming:

FoG:AM - probably about 20 games
FoG:R - about 8 games
Tomorrow's War - a few games
Ironclads in Action - about 5 or 6 games
Saga - several games

I even took part in a tournament!


Shows

I made it to 3 shows this year - Salute, Broadside and SELWG. I would have done Colours as well, but it clashed with the start of TUC Congress (at which I was a delegate from my union).


Next post - the obligatory "HNY!" and plans for 2013

Analogue Painting Challenge: 30YW Croat Light Horse

Well, they've been up on Curt's blog for a good few hours, so I think it's OK to post them here now.

I present to you 24 Croat light horsemen for my 15mm 30 Years War army. These were rather time consuming to paint as there was so much detail and I was using a lot of different colours. I think in total these took me about 12 hours of painting, plus another two hours for doing the basing. I'm pleased with the results - they're certainly a colourful bunch, as they should be.

Now I've just got to decide on an army list in FoG:R where I can use them and get them onto the table!

Next Up For The Challenge: 28mm Vikings

Well, I've had quite a productive day. This morning I finished off the Croats and sent the pics to Curt to post on his blog as he gets first shout on posting them. I've scheduled a post to go up here tomorrow. Errrmmm, today - it's gone midnight!

As I didn't have anything ready for painting I decided to prep some figures for my next Challenge batch. As several commenters had said they were looking forward to Saga stuff, I spent the afternoon assembling 20 Gripping Beast Vikings. Once they were assembled I superglued them onto 25mm washers and then did something a bit dumb. I should know from past experience that doing the PVA-over-base-and-dunk-in-sand/stones before painting is a pain in the neck, but I went ahead and did it anyway. It probably would have been fine if there had been less of the ballast/tallus in the mix, but by the time I realised it was too late. I guess I'll just have to paint the bases as beach or stony ground. After letting the basing texture dry for a while, I primed the figures with Vallejo black polyurethane primer. So, here's a quick pic:

Tomorrow evening I'll be doing a round-up of 2012. I notice that I'm currently at 299 followers - wouldn't it be great to gain another before the year ends?

Back from Xmas in Sussex

OK, this post is a couple of days late - I got back to London on Thursday afternoon. Since then I have been cracking on with painting my first unit entry for the Challenge - 24 15mm Croat light horse for my 30YW army. In contrast to my rather muted Ronin, these figures are a veritable riot of colour, which is part of the reason for it taking me so long to paint them.

I finished the painting this evening, gave them a Klear/ink coat and have based them. Now I'm just waiting for the gunk to dry so that I can dry-brush it, then in the morning they will get their matt varnish spray and will be tufted, flocked and photographed. Depending on how quickly Curt gets the pics up on his blog, they might make an appearance here tomorrow, but more likely on Monday.

So, what's next? No painting for a couple of days unless I finish off the FSE ships and/or the Norman knight. It will mostly be prep-work to get the next batch of figures ready for painting. I'll probably assemble a ton of 28mm plastics (Vikings, Saxons, Normans) for my Saga armies.

Analogue Painting Challenge: Ronin #46

(pre-written and scheduled to post on Boxing Day while I'm down in Sussex recovering from Tuesday's festival of gluttony!)

Well, here you go, my first entry to the 3rd Analogue Painting Challenge is my "entry fee", a lovingly painted 25/28mm Samurai figure which will shortly be wending it's way over the Atlantic to Curt.

The figure is a mid/lat 1980s Citadel Miniatures Samurai which I must have bought when I was still playing D&D. I never got round to painting it back then and found it last year after I'd got back into gaming.

Painting this figure was fun. After gluing the figure onto a 32mm washer I added basing gunk and a couple of small rocks. Once the gunk was dry, the figure received two thin coats of Vallejo white polyurethane primer and after the 2nd had dried a thin wash of black paint was applied to the whole figure. When the wash had dried, I dry-brushed with off-white. the idea was for the black to provide deep shading and the off-white to provide natural highlighting under the thinned down paints I would be using. The sword blade and chain mail sleeves were undercoated with black.

The metals were done by dry-brushing successively with Gunmetal Grey, Oily Steel and Silver. The guard-piece was dry-brushed with Old Gold. Painting was done using thinned down paints, getting progressively lighter and thicker. Guessing that the other participants would probably go for riotous colour schemes for their samurai, I opted to do something a bit different and went for a rich dark brown for the trousers and a golden-brown for the jacket/vest. I reserved bright colours for the sword hilt and scabbards.

The base was mainly done by dry-brushing after an initial thinned coat of Flat Earth, using Iraqi Sand and various greys. The rocks started out black, with successively lighter shades of grey being used to highlight it.

Once painting was complete, the figure was sealed and shaded with my usual Klear/ink mix, then sprayed with matt varnish. I then used brush-on satin varnish on the cloth and hair, and gloss on the sword blade and scabbards to make them "pop".

After varnishing, the base was given a final dry-brush to tone down the effects of the Klear/ink coat, then tufts and flock were added.

Anyway, that's more than enough verbiage to have made you read on Boxing Day, so here's the eye candy:

I'll be back home on Thursday, and will have to crack on with my first batch of figures for the Challenge - the Croat light horse. I'm hoping to get them finished before I have to go back to work on the 3rd.

Happy Xmas Folks!

And in line with the festive spirit, some music vids for you.

This first one was done in a good cause back in 2003:

And just in case you still believe, there really Ain't No

Ok, that's enough of that for now. Put down the egg nog, stop scoffing those Twiglets, put down those nutcrackers and enjoy these pics.

30YW Pike & Shot Reinforcements

These fellas will bring all 6 of my foot regiments up to 9 bases (for use as early war "Late Tercios").

30YW Artillery

That gives me 3 batteries of artillery. The only "gunnes" I'll need to paint up now are some regimental guns to enable me to do late war armies (Swedes in particular).

These figures bring my 30YW army up to:
4 command groups
6 x 9 base regiments of pike & shot
2 x 6 base regiments of shot
3 x 2 base artillery batteries
6 x 4 base regiments of cuirassiers
3 x 4 base regiments of reiters/harquebusiers/horse
2 x 4 base regiments of dragoons

I probably will add a couple more regiments of pike and shot at some point, the regimental guns I mentioned earlier and I have 2 more regiments of horse waiting to be prepped and painted.


The Challenge

I finished painting Curt's ronin last night and this morning I did the matt spray, touched up the basing with another drybrushing, added some tufts and flocked it. Once that was done I went over various parts with brush on satin and gloss varnish to make them pop a bit more. I can't post pics just yet (comp rules) but will schedule a post for Boxing Day.

What? She's Actually Finished Something?

Well, I did say in my last post that the cuirassiers were finished and I was just waiting to matt-spray them and do the flocking and tufting. I actually managed to get that done today.

I've also finished painting and have based the artillery and pike & shot figures I was working on. I might be lucky (and brave) and do the matt-spray this evening and perhaps even the flocking and tufting on those as well. If I do manage to get them finished before lunchtime tomorrow, I'll post pics of them as well.

So, without further ado, here are the cuirassiers:

These are the 5th and 6th cuirassier regiments for my 30YW army. I've worked out that the only way I'd be able to field all 6 regiments is as part of a 900 point army, due to the minima for other troop types.


So, what's next?

25/28mm Ronin for Curt

As the "entry fee" for the Analogue Painting Challenge, each participant has to paint up a samurai figure for Curt. I've started work on mine - a 1980s Citadel samurai figure. the figure was primed with Vallejo white polyurethane primer, washed with thinned black paint (to provide deep shading in the folds and recesses) then dry-brushed with off-white. Metals and the hair were given a basecoat of black.

I've done the first coats all over using thinned colours. jacket, trousers, boots hair and flesh have received their second coat as well.

= 5 Challenge Points

15mm 30YW "Croat" Light Horse

24 figures as my first unit entry into the Challenge. I'll be starting these later in the week. Expect to see a very brightly coloured bunch of horsemen.

= 96 Challenge Points

The Remainder of my 30YW Leadpile

32 casualty figures; 24 late war horse; 6 limbers and teams; 6 mounted standard bearers. All of these need to be prepped first - probably a job for between Christmas and my return to work next Wednesday. As these are historicals, they'll count towards the challenge.

= 232 Challenge Points

Unfortunately I can't post pics of these until after they've been posted on Curt's blog so it may be a while before you get to see anything.