from Ray R - Ol McDonald had a......................

Farm!

Its all about the animals for today's post.

These will be used for any 25mm period I paint up but mainly for the D word!

First up are some Warbases Mouflon Sheep

Again from Warbases some Anglo Nubian Goats!

Warbases again this time for some Geese.

Chickens from Warbases and Pendraken.

Tad blurry, but Warbases yet again, we have some Deer

KenR British Cavalry Unit for WW1 Mesopotamia

Here we go with the final post of the Q Challenge, a full unit of Cavalry for my WW1 Mesopotamia collection.

I've spoken about these figures before, 28mm Great War Miniatures with head swaps from Woodbine Design Company.

So points wise is the darts favourite of 180 ! (I'd done 6 before the Challenge began) giving me a Q Challenge total of 1618 which was a lot better than my winter challenge score.

I always forget how big a proper size 28mm Cavalry Unit is.

There we go, the end of Q Challenge, Thanks to Curt for organising it, thanks to all you lovely people who have commented on my stuff over these strange months. I hope you all keep well and will no doubt see most of you in the Winter Paint Challenge.

This madness carries on all year round and I'd love to see you all down on the Yarkshire Gamer blog

From Barks: Blood Bowl Black Orcs

This orc project has been a real marathon, I can't say I've enjoyed the process. But I am getting there. Herewith, four Black Orc Blockers for Blood Bowl. They're meaty, on 30mm bases.

From Mike W: Border Ruffians - The Hired Help #1

This week I have been able ton finish a batch or 16th Century (possibly could be stretched to 17th Century) Highlanders who will act as paid heavies to bolster one of the Border Ruffian Families my-self and other club members are putting together for a forthcoming campaign when we all get allowed out to play again!

Once again, I'm afraid that I'm not sure of the make of these figures, as usual I sourced them as a job lot from eBay. The lot had them listed as Redoubt Miniatures figures and having checked their online catalogue - that certainly seems to be the case.

A cross section of some of my favourite figures from the batch

Four men armed with Calivars, 

Same guys, from the opposite angle

These figures were fun to paint, all with a basic ochre / yellowish theme to represent unbleached or un-dyed materials woven into shirts and other garments.

Four more 'Humblies' armed with Calivars, some of the poses are very dynamic

And the same guys from the front. Note how some Highlanders often
dropped their Plaids to fight, whilst others wore them for extra protection against sword thrusts. 

 There were 21 figures in the lot, 20 are shown here, the last one which is also painted will be showcased in part two of the Hired Help posts , sometime in the future - just because to me he looks like an Irish Chieftain, rather than a Highlander. I'm probably wrong!

Another three Calivar men, two in Plaid, one without. At this time there were no specific Tartan 'Setts'
 for each clan / family just locally weaved cloth made to the maker's favourite pattern.

Closer view of the Calivar men, I did the plaids by blocking in the base
colour then adding the lines using fine nibbed felt-tip marker pens

So my understanding is that Highlanders were often brought in to help add strength to the Border families when they felt out numbered and at risk of serious harm. An alternative to Highlanders would have been Irish mercenaries, which as noted will be subject of my next painting batch...

A group of Highland archers

Archers from the front view, not all the Plaids were chequered, so I left a few plain, for variety.

One final point, these guys came undercoated in black, it was pretty tiresome having to re-undercoat in white, my preferred undercoat colour but that's the joy of sourcing figures on eBay.

The command team! Two drummers, a Piper and a Young Chieftain.

Final view of the command group, the Drummers look very Irish to me,
they may get a transfer when all is done on the next batch!

From TamsinP - League of Fatties and Git Burga

Just a small group of rather large people for Judge Dredd this time - the League of Fatties.

From the Judge Dredd Fandom Wiki:

"Fatties are bored citizens who have turned to gluttony as a means to pass the time. They are so gigantically fat that they need a belliwheel to prop up their prodigious gut.

In the future, fatties can count as athletes: competitive eating is an international sport, ranging from the Olympics to criminal back-street eating games. Some contests even have fatties eat items like bedspreads and car parts. Mega-City One has fat camps where parents send juves to gain weight and poor citizens may try to bulk up in the hope that eating games might be their ticket for prosperity.

The intensely fat were still a rare sight in 2080. The first eating championships started around then, attracting people with its 'good times' decadence.

Fatties were commonplace in the 2100s, when gluttony was one of the few traditional pleasures that weren't illegal. This gave rise to both the coveted Mega-City Fats award and the first one-ton man, Big Lard Ringer (who was swiftly arrested after he rolled downhill).

When food rationing was enforced following the Apocalypse War of 2104, the fatties were left distraught. Begging and fraud spread throughout the community. On the flipside, many norms began assaulting them for being fat when others were starving (and some suggested eating fatties as a compromise). A group of Fatties called the League of Fatties began stealing or looting extra food to keep up their prodigious girth. In order to restore order, the city passed the Fat Control Law: all Fatties were restricted to four special blocks and not allowed out until they were below 300 kg [661.3 lbs]. There they had to submit to a regimen of exercise and a tightly-regulated diet. The fatties that did get out often binged on food to celebrate and ended up back in the blocks the next day.

Illegal eating championships went on for years, with fatties smuggled or broken out of the blocks.

In 2107, rationing was over and the fatties were allowed back into society. Eating championships were legal once more and attracted huge crowds.

The fatties were so common and the eating championships so lucrative that by 2123, thin juves would be sent to fat camps. The heftier juves were astounded to learn 21st century camps had expected them to lose weight."

These took a lot of work to get reasonably smooth transitions, particularly on the female's flesh.

I finished varnishing and basing the three figures yesterday and then remembered that I had a fast food stall sitting in my MDF pile. Thinking that it would make a perfect backdrop for these three, i decided to paint and assemble it. I didn't go quite so overboard with the weathering and graffiti this time, just a couple of slogans and some overall grime.

This kit is one of three from TT Combat's SciFi Utopia range.

Tomorrow i'll be starting work on some of the criminal character figures.

from RayR - Haitian Revolution - French Line

 I had a massive stroke of luck back in March at the Skirmish wargame show. I was having a chat with Stu from Col Bill's aabout my new project the Haitian Revolution. He then said he'd just bought some part painted at a show the day before. So we both went out to his van and he pulled out a giant bag of figures!!!! A right princely sum was duly handed over, saving me a fair few quid and saving the Col the time in unbasing and stripping the figures.
I cannot say that I painted these entirely, because I didn't, they'd nearly all been prepainted but been bashed around in the bag and mainly needed a bit of TLC.

So a little TLC was given, I based them on Warbases 25mm round bases and voila! They ready to go.

There was also 4 command figures with a flag already attached! To say I'm pleased is an understatement!

KenR : 28mm Buildings for Cops and Robbers mini Project

Just a quick post to chuck these buildings into the mix, a couple of them have been in the background of some previous shots but now I have done all three I thought I would present them for judgement.

I've bought and made three buildings over the last few weeks all from a Company called Purple Bob's Hobbies, I think these buildings look the absolute biz, if your interested I did a video review of them, link below.

Points wise I thinks it's around about 60, taking me to 1438. I've seen a couple of people talking about the end of the challenge coming up, I must have missed an announcement, are we going until the end of June ?

I've a unit of WW1 Cavalry waiting to be posted and I'm working on a unit of Arab Spearmen too.