From TeemuL: Sheriff's office, heavy weapons and an aeroplane (90 points)

Here's my second last post. I'll get my first dose on Wednesday and I have some unfinished minis on the table. I'll finish them and post tomorrow, I hope.

But in the meanwhile I have been cleaning my table of half-finished projects. Here's a Sheriff's office from Warbases. I started this during the main Challenge and I was hoping to finish it for one of my Wild West entries, but time run out and it went to the backburner. It is ready now, not super pretty, but functional. I didn't really think about the colors when I painted, I was kind of "in the character" of the wild west house builders... It was easy to assemble and the roof can be removed, so the interior can be seen. Excellent for jail break scenarios.

This one is a Nieuport 17 biplane for WW1. I started this scale model during the Challenge 10, continued during the Quarantee Challenge, worked a little after that, did something during Challenge 11 and it is now ready. I'm not sure if it actually fits in the puritan view of the Challenge, but it is kind of toy and I painted it, so why not. :) Now, any 1/32 scale WW1 dogfight rules anywhere? Empty sheds? Anything? This is from Academy Hobby Model Kits bought six years ago from an Event. Do you remember those? I'm not superhappy with the decals, the big ones are a bit too big and I'm quite sure I could have painted some of the freehand anyway. On the other hand, they were much easier to put in place than the GW decals for example, very easy to use. The paintingi is from the insctuctions, although I didn't have the exact paints and not all the necessary hues, but it looks pretty in the photos. In the real life it is not that pretty, but it will do. Oh, and this was the first time I glued strings to represent various cables and stuff. Tricky business that, not perfect, but looks better than without.

And finally three heavy weapon squads for my Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) Imperial Reenactment 7th. More bullets and laser bolts for the various theathers of war, painted mostly with Contrast paints again. I usually keep my 40K bases quite clean, but these were so empty, that I glued some tufts on them. There are two heavy bolters and one lascannon team, not a perfect mix for a heavy weapon squad, but in the Guard you need to fight with what you have.

The house is about 6x6x3, so 10 points. Biplane is roughly a 28mm vehicle, so 20 points. 3 crew served weapon teams, each with a gun and 2 crew, so 20 points a piece, 60 in total. 90 points total for this post.

Yes, one more post from me coming up, I don't know if there are others still participating or not, but I'll keep my eye on this blog for a while anyway.

From SanderS: Home Alone!

 Hoi,

Since I had a week off from work I finally had time to sit down and paint one of the many TTCombat Streets of Venice buildings I have lying around. This builidng is one I put together from several left over bits (hence the missing door) from other kits and I tried out some new weathering techniques involving sponging and washes.

 

 

 

If I learned anything from the process, it's that I need to go far lighter/ brighter in my colours prior to applying the washes as they darken down the whole subject quite a bit.

I am really pleased with how the building turned out and am going to use the techniques on my other buildings as well.

Cheers Sander

 

 

From MartijnN: Germanic bowmen and sundry

Yes! Invitation received. However, it will be two more weeks before I actually get my jab, so I thought I'd better get on with it. Strangely enough, I seem to be more consistent and faster now the "real" Challenge is over (although I remember struggling a bit too in the Quarantine Challenge a year ago).

Anyway, in keeping with the theme my painting seems to be taking on a bit here are six Germanic bowmen. These too are MTH figures which I printed myself.

To accompany these, and the Celtic bowmen I painted last week, is a unit of ten Celtic warriors, also from the MTH Rome series. I had a lot of fun painting these and I am quite happy with them.

Finally, a Celtic dog handler with two Irish Wolfhound-like characters. I would not much care to come across these chaps, neither on or off the battlefield! I promise to make a bit more of an effort with the next dogs.

Next up are two 32mm thieves from the Arbiter Miniatures range. These are great figures, and supportless too which is quite a boon in my book. They printed without any problems and I like how they turned out. They can be used in a variety of ways, the painting scheme is a bit ranger-like I guess.

Then, there is an armoured polar bear from Wilds of Winterland by Evan Carothers. This is a wonderful 3d print file range with ice giants, snowfolk, arctic animals, yetis, you name it. Shades of Westeros, obviously. I think the bear is a great model.

Next, the only part of this week's output that was not 3d printed: a brigade of Confederate troops for my ongoing Champion Hill project using Altar of Freedom. These are once again 10mm Perrin figures. I try to give my Union troops a more formal character, but I like my rebels to be a somewhat more motley bunch.

Finally, two pieces of terrain. A bridge and a viking burial mound. The last obviously was to have been my offering for the Tomb in the Chambers of Challenge, but I never got there. Both are 28mm figure scale miniatures, but scaled down to somewhere between 6mm-10mm.

So there you have it. For me this is a record production, pointswise:

22 28mm figures @ 5 points is 110 points;

20 10mm figures @ 1 point is 20 points;

and as I don't feel like doing the complex calculations for the terrain pieces I am awarding myself 1 point for each for a total of 2 points;

Which yields a grand total of 132 points; a veritable points bomb for me!

From TamsinP - 28mm SciFi Scatter Terrain

Continuing my theme of scatter terrain, this post has a bunch of SciFi items which will most likely see use in Strontium Dog games.


Computer Consoles and Ship's Bridge:

These items are from Scotia Grendel.


Cargo Items:

Scotia Grendel

TT Combat

Crashed Craft Items:

Now that the scatter terrain is done and dusted, my next posts will be figures and possibly some larger terrain.

From RossM: Misc 28mm - 7 points

Another small post with a few pieces that have been lingering around for too long. 

First up is an old figure from Citadel or Marauder Miniatures back in the day. Always liked this figure and painted this one too match some skeletons from a previous AHPC.

Next up are a two pieces of scatter terrain from Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings SBG. These have been painted with an arid climate in mind and as a result only one has some additional scenic material added. 

These will see a fair amount of use when gaming is able to start again in the future and will included games such as Mortal Gods and the Rampant series. 

So where does this take the AHQC totals to? Well it will be no surprize that this isn't a high hitter on the points front however every little helps as they say

These are worth a grand total of 7 points - 5 for the skeleton and 1 each for the terrain pieces. This takes the running total to 135 points out of 500 or 27% so a little progress made. 

Hope that you found this interesting

Cheers for now

From StuartL - Dutch Mill

Another small post from me this week. I have stuff on my workbench, but can't seem to find the time to get it done. Fingers crossed it'll be finished by next week.
In the meantime, I have painted up some more MDF terrain from Sarissa Precision. I picked up this windmill a while back. It's a truly massive piece of terrain. The top of the mill itself is about 9" off the ground. The sails add another 6" or so to the height and to the width on either side.

When I finished the kit, I didn't like the empty spaces in the sails so I glued some tissue paper over the backs and painted it with watered down PVA glue mixed with a drop of buff paint from vallejo. I think it gives a nice impression of canvas.

To try to add some extra detail to the piece, I wanted to make the MDF look more like real wood. To that end, I scraped a modelling saw across the panels to make some small grooves, then went over them again with a hobby knife to add some deeper marks. These stand out quite nicely after I painted the model in a watered down brown paint. I added some washes to add some colour to the wood. I tried drybrushing, but it didn't work out to well and now one side (above) is a bit messy. I may go back over it with brown at some point to tidy it up.

For all it's size, the mill building isn't that big in terms of AHPC terrain cubes. At 9" x 3" x 3" for the main structure it's only 81 cubic inches. However, since I'm feeling generous, I'll add a bit extra for the stairs, the wide base and the sails. That should round it up to 10 points, giving me a slight boost 809.5 (unofficial) points scored for this challenge so far.

From MartijnN: Some small scale scenery

Just to show that I have not completely fallen of the Quarantaine wagon (though hanging on by my fingernails) the two very small tasks that I managed to complete in the past weeks. A small 6mm/ 10mm wood from Chinese model trees from Wish, and some from Terrain Shed Wargaming, on a Warbases base:

And a small 10mm cottage from Battlescale using mostly Contrast paints. I gave it a wash with Army painter Strongtone which in retrospect perhaps was not the brightest idea. Still, it looks somewhat ok.

Thanks for looking and stay safe, even if less "lockdowned" now.

From StuartL - Dutch Village House

Taking a break from painting up batches of infantry and fantasy beasties, I decided to do a spot of terrain this week. As well as a lead mountain and a plastic mountain, I have a growing pile of MDF terrain that I need to reduce a little. MDF is not the best material for terrain, but it is fairly cheap, lightweight, and with a bit of extra effort it can be made to look pretty decent. This particular piece is from Sarissa Precision.

After assembling the building, I painted the walls with a textured paste from Liquitex. This served to give the walls a rougher finish (since MDF can look a bit flat) and sealed the wood so that it didn't drink up all the paint. The walls were painted white, the brickwork in a reddish brown and all of the woodwork in a pale brown. After that everything was washed with watered down brown paint.

Once the wash was dry, I repainted the walls in white, added the blue colours for the shutters and doors and added some different shades of red, brown and grey to the bricks and tiles. All of this work was done using spare foam from some mini trays rather than a brush. By dabbing the paint on, parts of the original colour and the wash were left showing through. Using a square piece of foam, it was easy enough to control where the paint went on the walls and woodwork. For the bricks and tiles I used a torn up piece of foam for more irregular patches.

The vines going up the walls are simply a mix of flock, PVA glue and green paint, allowed to dry and then highlighted with a brighter green.

Due to the surface area to cover, it took a few hours work to get it all done, but it was surprisingly easy to do. Though I'm not an expert on architecture, I guess this building could be used for Napoleonic games right up to modern day scenarios, so I hope to get some use out of it. I have another one of these houses to assemble in the pile, so I may have to do that sometime soon.

For points scoring, the house is roughly 6" by 7" by 5.5", close enough to the standard painting challenge terrain 'cube' to add 20 points to my score, bringing me up to 799.5 points.

From DrQ: A Wizzard Tower

My work this week centered on a scratch-built, trash-bash wizzard (sic!) tower. The core is made of a shampoo bottle. I then covered it with bricks of foam core that were hot glued in place. The tiles are craft foam. The whole thing was covered in a mix of Modge Podge and black paint before painting with a final layer of only Modge Podge at the end. I find this makes for pretty resilient terrain.

Survivor Marie Claude here is provide for scale. Here's a more accurate idea of scale (though less dramatic). 

I'd include more pics; but to be honest, the a tower is rather the same on all sides.

Stay safe!

From PeterD a Couple of Bridges in 28mm

Configuration one - a three span and a two span bridge.

I've been doing a few projects during the quarantine lockdown, some new and and finishing up of half-completed work from before.  This time up I've got a couple of bridges in 28mm (Beau and Jeff?) from Sarissa Precission.  Sarissa sells these mdf kits in various combinations and I don't recall exactly what combination I ordered.  However the end result is that I have two sets of on and off ramps plus three centre spans, enough to give me two bridges of various lengths depending on the combination of spans that I select.  Bridges feature in a lot of historical battles and make for good missions is a Table Top Teaser action.

Going for maximum length here.

To make these bits fully morphable, I painted these all in the same basic pseudo-Sienna stone for that I used for my Italian Wars buildings posted during Challenge X. These were started early in Challenge X but just finished recently.  

Auvergne regiment crosses the span.  The ruler shows that it nearly a 12" feature.

Normally I find Sarissa kits easy to assemble, but I had trouble with the roadbed on a couple of the ramps and made a bit of a hash of them.  If the ends don't meet up as cleanly as they should, this is also down to me not the kit.

In simplest form a single span bridge.

I kept terraforming down to a minimum.  I put gravel at the edges of the road work and various tufts and clumps to represent vegetation, including trying to get the impression of flowering vines.  For the mid-stream spans I hemmed and hawed between painting the bases to represent water or greenery.  In the end I opted for greenery so that they could stand on midstream islands if required and also to represent weeds and such growing on the bridge piers.