Category Archives: painting challenge

painting challenge

The EB vs. CB Painting Challenge – November

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The painting challenge between myself and Essex Boy (Iain Burt) is still ongoing. Although the original focus was to expand our C18th ImagiNation forces that has proved problematic for me as my head is just not in 28mm mode at the moment so I’ve been focusing on finishing my 15mm ACW armies. To that end we have agreed the targets for the end of November. Iain has posted his targets on his blog: http://general-e-pickled.co.uk/uncategorized/novembers-challenge/ and mine are (despite a little misunderstanding…):

  • Finish the rebasing of ALL my ACW – that’s about 80-90 stands
  • Do an assortment of marker bases
  • Paint EITHER 1 unit of Union infantry (c.30 figures)  or cavalry (16). If the latter it will also include dismounts and horse holder stand.
  • Paint 3 more Union limbers (that’s all I have of the Minifigs ones)

That should be plenty to be going on with….

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A mini painting challenge…

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With Ayton now out of the way and no real painting targets set it was time for a little planning. Ayton 2017 will be Lion Rampant based. I’ve completed the first twelve figures so no real need to re-visit that project until at least March next year! 🙂 And in November we have a To The Strongest game planned at the Foundry venue. This will use existing 15mm collections and although I may re-base some and paint the odd thing I don’t REALLY need to do anything.

So with the C18th firmly in my mind I was talking to Iain Burt (Essex Boy) and we decided that to spur on our efforts to expand/complete our C18th armies we would match each other unit for unit. Now, these are the new ‘smaller’ units so we are looking at 28-30 for a battalion (inc. command etc.) and 12 plus command for cavalry. And not to make it too much of a strain we would allow about two months a unit! That may seem a lot but life does tend to get in the way and it also leaves time to do other bits and pieces as well. We both have a unit that has been started so the schedule is:

30th June

31st August

31st October

31st December

One unit to be completed by each deadline. We can do more of so desired…

My first unit is the 2nd Altefritzenburgers. I did a tester for these ages ago:

20160509_154507and the first batch have been started and sat gathering dust for months:20160509_154528So today I cleaned up and prepared the rest of the batch:20160509_154535I’m sure Iain will post details of his plans on his blog (yes, he has one but has done sod all with it!) or he can send me pics and I will add them to my blog.

We shall see how things go…

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WIP Report

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Well, at New Year I said I’d try and do more updates for the blog. So it seems a while since I did a Work In Progress post so here goes…

This is the painting table as of this evening:

wip01All this is for the Painting Challenge and for Ayton. On the far left you can see my Last Stand entry going through the final stages of basing.  In the middle, amongst all the Vallejo pots, are 36 RSM figures for Ayton. All three batches of 12 are at different stages as I’m finding that if I go up to the attic and can’t focus on some details stuff then I have figures there waiting for some easy block painting. And finally, on the right are the casualty bases I intend to enter for the Casualty Bonus Round. I’m not 100% sure on what the entry for this is meant to be but I do need to do a few casualty bases so that will be the focus.

The other big news is that this year I will be attending Salute for the first time! I’m quite looking forward to it. To meeting up with various fora denizens from southern climes and also to hand over dosh to traders that don’t make the Northern shows. If there are some good show deals on then I may even be tempted by something new… maybe…

So the painting goes on and I’m now starting to worry a little about hitting my Challenge target…

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Painting Challenge – Hero Bonus Round

Last weekend saw the fourth of the bonus rounds for the Painting Challenge. I’d missed the other three so was determined to get something in for this! The standard of the round was stunning. Some beautiful entries. As there have been in the other rounds. Well worth a look: Hero Bonus Round.

After my last challenge entry of 15mm Minifigs ACW from a project I started back in the late 90s I thought I’d step back a little further for this entry! Back when I was doing my A-Levels in the early 80s I started playing assorted RPGs with friends in Shrewsbury (who are now friends in Birmingham!) and although we played mostly AD&D to start we did move on to Call of Cthulhu and others. Including Runequest. I always like the background to this where the human element wasn’t some pseudo medieval thing! So around that time I bought some of the Runequest figures released by GW (and sculpted by the Perrys I think). As ever, we moved on to other games and I never got any/many painted but the remnants have moved around the country with me ever since! So one of them seemed ideal for the Hero Round.

pc24 The figure is a Non-Cultist Adventurer from Box Set 2. As he’s broadly a hoplite type figure I intended just painting a generic Greek hero. But as I searched for a shield pattern I stood a chance of painting I came across what I believe is the one carried by the Spartan King? So the figure morphed into Leonidas on his way to Thermopylae. Burdened with his own baggage (as I think any Spartan king would be) he strides through the marshes to see off bandits threatening the 300 on the march!

pc22 pc21 pc20The base is an offcut of blue insulation board as I figured I should make a little effort with the base.

I’ve also almost finished my Last Stand entry (for the seventh and final round) with figures of a similar vintage! But that will have to wait until March!

I’m still slowly painting RSMs for Ayton and awaiting the arrival of my RSM and Minden orders which will hopefully arrive this week.

 

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Painting Challenge – 15mm ACW

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Last night I finally uploaded my next entry for the Painting Challenge. I’ve now officially ‘cleared the decks!’ so I can make a start on the Ayton stuff…

Here we go:

Many moons ago, late 90’s I think, I went to the Edinburgh Wargames Show (Claymore) and on the bring and buy spotted a large 15mm ACW Union army. These were all 2nd Gen Minifigs and based for Fire and Fury. The paint job was simple but neat. I then managed to acquire a 15mm Confederate army from my mate Billy in Birmingham. I re-based them and had great plans for ACW gaming! The Union army was lacking cavalry and somehow I never got round to painting any of the numerous unpainted packs that came with it and eventually the project fell to the wayside so I sold the lot back to Billy! Fast forward 13 years or so and the arrival of Sam Mustafa’s Longstreet rules and the desire to give ACW a go again! I bought the lot back off Billy and sorted the unpainted stuff out and there was enough to do a basic 8 stand cavalry unit.

I couldn’t match the blue used on the originals (and thought it too dark anyway) so upon some research amongst friends tried Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue and Prussian Blue on a sample next to an original:

pc11

Happy enough with this I went ahead with the the main lot. I had decided to keep them simple and over black undercoat just painted round straps etc. (Thanks to Loki for the Vallejo Black Surface Primer recommendation). I eventually decided they looked too plain so added a Ogryn Flesh Wash and assorted washes on the horses. And the cross swords on the kepi to give a little contrast:

pc12 pc13

I knew I needed dismounted versions. Although there were about a dozen already done I decided the difference in colour was too much so repainted the lot!

pc14 pc16And obviously I needed a symbolic horse holder stand as well. And took the chance to do one for the Confederate cavalry as well:pc17And here they are in two ranks.

pc18

Flags are by GMB (which were fiddlier than I thought in 15mm!). All figures are Minifigs 2nd Gen although there are a couple of 3rd Gen horses in there (e.g. dismounts and command) and I think the horse holders may be Lancashire Games?

I’ve also finished rebasing all the Confederates so in theory could go for a game. However I think I might want to re-base all the Union to match first… 🙂

Now, where are all those 28mm figures I need to do!

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