Iain W 28mm Great Italian wars terrain

Not many figures painted recently I've been on a prepping and priming mode but I have finally finished some buildings for my great Italian wars town/city.
They are all from TT combats carnivale range although the three larger buildings have since been superseded in their catalogue, clearly I have taken too long painting them!
So,MDF, I haven't built many MDF kits, the big northern European church (also by TT combat) was about it and I felt I needed a bit more texture than I got with just the MDF so I slapped on some paint  with a bit of sand here and there, based coated dry brushed, washes, I've finally decided enough is enough and close enough is good enough!
These buildings are designed to be slightly later in period and they are also meant to be Venetian, I probably won't use them as Venice but more likely Pavia, Rome or Florence .
I figured I'd look into images of 15th century Florence as my city walls are a pretty good match .

A reconstruction of 15th century Florence 

An image of Pavia ( with patron saint in 1525)

Late medieval Sienna 

The entry of Charles VIII into Florence  1494

The rebuilding of 15th century Florence 

15th century Florence in a contemporary painting 

A view of 15th century Florence 

The Duke of Urbino's palace/city.

So this is the feel I wanted to achieve with the buildings I was working on plus some others I'd already built. 

What I realised was looking at the images of Florence, Pavia,Urbino was that I was missing the distinctive pan tiled roofs. Carnivale ( the game) is all about jumping about on flat roofs, so it's not that surprising that they've made the majority of their roofs flat, but didn't help me much, so I built my own detachable pantile roofs,so that I can use the roof as a  command post or make it visually work with a roof,they're foamboard with some unknown plastic tiles I picked up in a model shop in Windsor ( I always try and buy something in a bricks and mortar model shop!) The ridge tiles I carved out of balsa. 

I have still to finish this ones optional roof but it kind of shows how I did it 

So this is my version of Charles  VIII entry into Florence. 

What I liked about the larger models was how they could stand in for the bigger town houses and I  figured I could combine them with one of my free standing towers and a few small outbuildings to give me the feel of a villa of the period, like say Biocca. Three of the buildings gives you a reasonably sized village or small town, again with the addition of some outbuildings which after cypress trees are next on the Italian wars terrain list, although a bridge with buildings on it would be nice wouldn't it?

Here the new buildings mixed in within my city walls and with my existing buildings, I deliberately went with tiles for my northern European churches so that I could use them to pack out my Italian city, especially if I were to do the siege of Rome! Next up maybe some figures in the last week!?

All the best Iain 

From TeemuL: High Elves (35 points)

I almost finished these at the same time as the Frodo, but not quite. But here they are, some elves for my LotR army. Two with sword, two with bow and two with spear and shield, all wearing the bright green to mark them as Gilgalad's guard.

 Dark blue cloaks on the back, thanks for the good old Blue Ink - no Contrasts on these guys.

And then one regular spearelf in grey.

The armor and shield on all these should be more gold, but since the paint selection has changed several times since I painted first of these almost 20 years ago, but they look like old silver or something. Well, the existing ones are not identical either, so in a big group it is not noticable.

 

All seven of them here.

 

 

These are from my R list, being Reinforcements for my existing High Elves army. I'm looking forward to publish two more posts before this Challenge ends, but let's see...

U: 0 (total 10)
N: 0 (total 8)
W: 0 (total 2)
F: 0 (total 16)
R: 7 (total 21)

S: 0 (total 2)

Points:

35 points (total 343)

From Minion TeemuL:

This kind of smaller miniatures are great for trying out new technics, I really like the extreme edge high lightning on the cloak, OSL around the Ring and NMM on the Ring itself. No wonder it took a whole week to finish!

From GregB: Space Marine Command Group

Commander & bodyguards for the Vylka Fenryka.

Big surprise: I'm back with even more Space Marines! I'm just on a real sci-fi roll right now at the painting table. This is a Space Marine command group - a Centurion, and standard bearer and a pair of body-guards. The commander and the banner-bearer are resin figures from Forge World - they are wearing Mark IV powered armour, burnished with extra fancy bits, like cloaks and combs for their helmets. The two other marines are assembled from an assortment of left over plastic bits. The decals on the figures are from GW and Forge World. As with most of my recent work shared in the Quarantine Challenge, the models are painted in the colours of the VI Legion Astrates, the "Space Wolves".

Adding a command group like this to the collection helps to firm things up to my random hobby mind. A headquarters choice that brings things together, elevating the assortment of Vylka Fenryka figures from scattered and random side projects into a single, coherent force - one that demands further escalation in terms of additional assets, or course...but a significant waypoint in the evolution of the collection and painting process.

Awesome sculpt on this figure - I love this command group, great work by Forge World.

Rear view showing the shoulder pauldron & back pack.

The Space Marine Legions of the Horus Heresy setting have a cornucopia of officers, commanders, specialists, medics, engineers and other heroic figures you can choose from to serve as HQs, but the core selection of the senior HQ level is this small assembly of a senior officer and three elite associates, one of who carries a banner.

We can have some fun with the wolf-themed symbols on the banner. These are decals from Forge World.

Carrying a banner into battle in such a futuristic setting is a ridiculous anachronism - and I just love it! I mean, it's just OBVIOUS that you would do that, right? You step out of your combat-drop-pod or your Storm Eagle gunship or your Lander Raider or your Rhino or whatever and you make sure your banner is present - it is simply how things are done, even amid the grim darkness of the far future.

I love this figure! Great sculpt again by Forge World.

I thought I would try a different colour combo for his shoulder pauldron, to help him stand out more.

This Centurion figure is a favourite sculpt of mine. Normally I hate Space Marine figures who are not wearing their helmets. Space is dangerous! The Emperor spent a lot of money making you! Wear your damn helmet! But this fellow is an exception, the sculptor did a fantastic job on the figure. He looks like he just stepped off a transport, and is wanting to see the situation for himself, with his own eyes. He is cradling his helmet in one hand, ready to bellow some further orders to his underlings, with direction to be reinforced by his power sword if needed. He looks like an actual officer, something that very few Space Marine command figures actually do.

Bodyguard for the command group.

The two additional figures, essentially bodyguards for combat, are composed of a hodge-podge of components...when you are as passionate about 30k as I am, you start to accumulate enough spare bits that you can put together an extra marine here and there...these fellows have the helmets, shoulder pauldrons and backpacks of Mark III power armour, the torsos and legs from Mark IV power armour, and arms and weapons from one of the new "Primaris" marines. As guards for the banner bearer and Centurion, I figured these fellows would be veteran fighters from The Rout, only gradually replacing armour bits as required (hence keeping the 'older' Mark III helmets and shoulder plates).

A little blurry, but I enjoy the animation on this figure.

The assortment of spare bits came together nicely.

These veteran marines would also have access to cool kit - I thought the "bolt rifles" from the new Primaris marines would do the trick, and I'm pleased with how they turned out. I really like the look of the longer barrel and the (redundant and over-the-top) gun sights.

Ready to lead a Great Company from The Rout into battle.

While I was sure to put a lot of wolf-themed decals on the banner itself, I have again avoided adding pelts or any of that other wolfy-wolf stuff with this command retinue. If I ever add a Rune Priest or something like that, well...SOMEONE will likely need to wear a pelt cloak or something, but for now, I like to keep the obvious wolf theme to the decals and the banner. 

From Curt: Resurfacing, a Mine Entrance and a Construction Project

Forgive me hobbyists, for I have sinned. It's been over a month since my last submission...

Yes, work has certainly amped-up, there is that, but in fact it's more about the wonderful spring weather we've been having that's stolen me away from the hobby desk. While our winters here in the Canadian prairies can often be brutal, the other three seasons can be glorious, and when this happens the paints, brushes and figures play second fiddle to the dogs, deck and yard stuff. 

Nonetheless, while I've been shamefully absent from posting to the blog, I've still managed to keep involved in a few hobby-like things. 

First, my rather uninspired submission to the QC is this protected mine entrance for my Siege of Malta project. 

During the siege, the Ottomans made very clever use of sappers who dug shafts and mines meant to collapse the island's outer defenses. I thought it would provide for a nice scenario where the defenders sally out to try to disrupt the besiegers.

This is a one piece vac-formed terrain piece from Vatican Enterprises (previously Hudson & Allen). A great piece and a good value.

The other hobby project that has been absorbing a BIG portion of my spare time has been the planning for the construction of a hobby-studio on our property.

Having a gaming studio has been a long-time dream of mine. Our home, while very comfortable, is limited in its layout in providing a dedicated space for gaming and hobby stuff. I typically host games on our dining room table (with all the frantic game preparations and laborious tear downs which that entails), and my hobby storage is limited to where I can find nooks and crannies around the house to squirrel things away. One scenario had us looking for a new house that could accommodate our various wants/needs, but we found the search next to impossible as we've grown quite attached to our existing home and were loath to leave our beloved neighbourhood. So the resulting compromise was to construct a structure on our existing property that could serve as an additional hobby space. So we contracted an excellent designer who took my notes and did a great job of drafting up a few concepts for us to choose from. Below is the one we went with.

A few views from the architectural plans of the proposed hobby studio.

It's a bit of a Q-Ship really. For the purposes of getting a building permit and local tax assessment the structure has been disguised as a 'detached single-car garage', but in reality the interior will be kitted-out for full-on hobby geekery (i.e. loads of shelving, figure storage and a decent sized game table). With us living in Canada this project involves lots of infrastructure considerations like heating, cooling, venting, vapour barriers, water drainage, property line setbacks, the works. It's really like building a separate mini-house.

One of its best features is that it features a 12' bank of glass sliding doors overlooking our deck and garden. This will allow in lots of light and provide a nice place to step out have a drink or two during games. 

Anyway, the building site has been cleared and we're just awaiting the city's go-ahead to begin foundation work and construction. To say I'm very excited would be an understatement. My plan is to have the basic structure up and enclosed by autumn with the finishing work to be wrapped up next spring. Wish me luck!

Curt

From NoelW: Playing both sides: Lord of the Rings

As time is running out, I thought I’d try hard this week to do something for as many of my outstanding projects as possible, to see how close I could get to achieving my original plan. It turns out: not very.

My son decided we should watch The Fellowship of the Ring. Dammit! I’ve been such a sucker for that story all my life, since first picking up the book in the school library in 1967. So, whenever we watch the film, I automatically resurrect a LOTR project. It's a compulsion. (You don’t want to know how many LOTR projects I’ve started. I’ll give you a hint: currently there are 11 Gandalfs in the house. And possibly some I've forgotten).

So this time I made another stab at forces for the Pelennor Fields. For the side of all that looks real Good wearing of the white hat of truth, justice and the Gondorian way, here are 12 Swan Knights, currently looking for their horses:

Whilst for their dastardly foes, representing all that is Dark, Evil and almost certainly unnecessarily smelly: 6 mounted Haradrim 

and 9 on foot:

That’s 21 foot and 6 mounted 28mm figs (all GW, of course), so 165 points, making my imaginary total for the Challenge 1454 points (although nothing for the side challenge with Stuart this week. He may have me beat.)

So far am I from the plan I began with, I'm not posting an update this week. Just imagine everything is going amazingly well, on course for a spectacular successful save in the final fortnight, then if you expect to be disappointed at the finishing line at least that expectation will succeed.

From TamsinP: Citi Def Troopers for Judge Dredd

Following on from the Justice Department, this time we have their civilian support, the Citizens Defence. In Mega City One each block has a militia which citizens can join, the Citi Def. Their role is to defend their block during time of emergency and to assist the Judges when called upon to do so. Some block Citi Defs are reasonably well trained and competent, others less so.

When you consider how bored, stupid, downright nuts and generally ornery most of MC1's citizens are, you can well imagine that giving them access to military grade weapons is potentially not the wisest of moves. They have regularly been the instigators of or involved in the frequent block wars (where citizens of one or more blocks start fighting those of other rival blocks) which occur.

However, they have played important roles fighting alongside the Judges in numerous major stories: during the East Meg Sov invasion of the Apocalypse War; and Judgement Day when the necromancer Sabbat traveled back in time (pursued by Johnny Alpha) and raised an army of zombies which attacked many cities.

I've just primed the next batch of figures, so I should have some more to show you soon.

From TeemuL: Weekly update (5 points)

Trying to keep up with the one post a week schedule and real life tasks I only have a small offering today. Finished this beauty late last night. Invisible Frodo with the Ring by talented Citadel/Games Workshop sculptors in clear plastic. Based on my usual Lotr style, brown sand all over the place.

This is from my Wacky list.

U: 0 (total 10)
N: 0 (total 8)
W: 1 (total 2)
F: 0 (total 16)
R: 0 (total 14)

S: 0 (total 2)

Points:

5 points (total 308)

From Minion TeemuL:

This kind of smaller miniatures are great for trying out new technics, I really like the extreme edge high lightning on the cloak, OSL around the Ring and NMM on the Ring itself. No wonder it took a whole week to finish!