The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge: January 2014

Well, what a start to the year. 2014 seems to have picked up the pace again, I can't believe it's mid-February already. The year is shaping up to be a great one hobby-wise, with games in the offing, a good few events I plan on going to and some fair progress on the painting front. Fair, but not particularly impressive volume-wise, I've just about managed a batch of figures and a theme round entry each fortnight. Sadly, hobby time in January was hit with DIY (again) and life admin galore  (again). But I'm just about on course to make my points total by mid-March

My first January painting was this chap for the 'Villain' theme round. Recognise him?

Ok, here's a rather less than subtle clue:



Yes, more a 'Villainous Henchman' than pure Villain, it is he of a Strange Occupation.



A fairly quick job, but one more theme round down. I'm on course to nail all seven despite my glacial rate of painting, which appeals to the completionist in me.

Next up, another unit for the Sudan project and one that I'm pretty pleased with. Another unit for the Anglo-Egyptian forces, this time the Sudanese IXth infantry. The Sudanese battalions were regarded as the pride of the Egyptian army, being professional soldiers recruited for life from Southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains. The Xth and XIth were even recruited from old soldiers that had been captured by the Mahdi, served in his Jihadiyya before escaping en masse in 1885 and re-enlisting in the Egyptian army.

Mine are officered by an Egyptian (in this next photo, painted pre-challenge), though it was also known for Sudanese to be promoted from the ranks. The IXth's conduct alongside the Cameron Highlanders at the battle of Ginnis led to them being presented a unique standard in 1886: of red silk fringed in red and gold with Kosheh and Ginnis as battle honours and a central wreath. Other Battalions carried a green standard with just an Arabic numeral. I chose to represent them with this snazzy standard, made at my request by Flag Dude. I like this product, despite some drawbacks, the ease of use swings it for me - just stick it on and paint the pole/finials to match.



The uniforms of the Egyptian army changed quite a lot between the various campaigns. I've settled on having my Egyptian units in a white summer uniform and Sudanese in a blue with white trousers. All units were later issued khaki uniforms. No doubt it will surprise you to hear that they are from Perry miniatures.

At the same time, I worked on this Command stand for my Mahdist forces: a Khalifa and his faithful standard bearer. Both were started as part of my first challenge batch but set aside part way through. I pondered a while how to paint the Khalifa, given he has such a large robe aching for some freehand, perhaps patches in the Mahdist style. But for a religious leader, I decided on the understated purity of a plain white robe with a jagged edging in blue.

The standard bearer is converted from a spare metal spearman, carefully trimming his cast on spear off and replacing it with the Flag Dude banner. 

The next theme round went down to the wire, but I got him finished. For my 'Vehicle' entry, I intended to paint the first 15mm vehicles for Chain of Command US platoon. But alas, a delayed Wayland Games order necessitated a last-minute change of heart. Fortunately, I had this Pulpy motorcyclist from 1st Corps already prepped.

He's intended to represent one of the Prof's sidekicks, the boozing buffoon and beau of young Victoria Hemingway: Flight Lieutenant Michaels, riding a purloined military-issue motorcycle. No doubt he'll find cause to be pursued by some Nazis in motorcycles and side-cars (which happen to be in the challenge box, again) - I think that would make a great scenario some day.

To round out the month's painting, I just about squeezed in these Coureur de Bois for the Bloggers for Charity project started by James and Andrew. I hope that they will be put to good use.



These were a bit of a slog for me as I'm unaccustomed to painting irregulars in an efficient way, as evidenced by my disastrous first attempt at Bashi Bazouks last year. But they came out ok in the end, I think and I'm glad to have them finished well in time to be sent off and based with everyone else's fine contributions. The fine sculpts by AW Miniatures looked quite busy at first glance, but took the paint well and have well-defined detail, though I feel they are in the classic style, with larger hands and weapons akin to some Artizan sculpts.

Well, that's January and I've just dropped the first February entries into Curt to be posted. But I really must get back to the grindstone, Mr Awdry must be rocketing ahead in out side challenge. 

The Challenge Box

Slightly belatedly, this is what my 'Challenge box' looks like after what seemed like an eternity of prep work. I had to raid last years challenge leftovers to make it up to the ambitious target I set myself: 700 points. If I get all of this done I'll be very chuffed, though doubtless I'll get diverted by something new mid-way through (including my Secret Santa, no doubt...)

Some pointers to what will be coming:
-unsurprisingly, 'quite a bit' of Sudan, both Mahdist and British
-my Bloggers for Charity offering
-a last, long neglected unit of Bondi for my Saga Vikings
-some Portuguese Cacadores for Sharpe Practice
-many odds and sods, of course

I did fail miserably at clearing the half finished bits from the queue, annoying as that included a whole unit of Egyptian infantry. They've been moved to another box to be contemplated either after the challenge of after I've hit the big 700!

Oh, nearly forgot the overflow tray of 15mm US Paras:



Right, that's reminded me how much I've got to do, I must get back to the painting table

The Bashi-Bazouks!

I couldn't resist getting some colourful Bashi-Bazouks for my Sudan project. Irregulars of the Ottoman armies, they could be found wherever there was the prospect of adventure and plunder.  As Sudan was a dependecy of Egypt, itself was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, I imagine there were plenty to be found there! They will bulk out the British and Egyptian forces and serve as irregulars and scouts. 

Bashi-bazouk chieftain by Jean-Leon Gerome, image from Wikipedia

And my version

Despite my initial enthusiasm, I had a bit of a nightmare painting these, to the extend that I started over at one point. The sculpts have bags of character, but were really fiddly to paint, being festooned with pistols and daggers. Initially, I thought I'd have them as a riot of colour with no uniform at all. This was the result of the initial block colouring with no shading or highlights:

Yup, they looked like Turkish clowns. 

Awful awful awful. I'm afraid choosing colour schemes that aren't uniform just isn't my strong point and my choices of colours sometimes leave something to be desired. Going back to the drawing board, I searched the interwebs for inspiration/or ideas to pilfer. I came across this quite spectacularly dashing unit of Bashi-bazouk cavalry from lonelygamers.blogspot.co.uk:

I really liked these so settled on a similar colour scheme, adding the mustard headscarves and a few green sashes, while keeping them far less vibrant than my initial effort.

And this is how minecame out. If I get any command, their leader will definitely get a turquoise headscarf!

Something of an improvement, I hope you agree! I'm much happier with the balance of the colours being fairly uniform, but the outfits and poses less so. They were a bit crisp and neat in my style so I grubbied them up quite a lot, though the weathering powder I'm using doesn't seem to looks as good over white. The sculpts are Perry Miniatures, the foot ones have long-rifles (and were from my secret santa) and the mounted ones with carbines were a bargain I nabbed on eBay. 

With that, I've finished the Sudan units I have so far, but oh look, it's Salute around the corner...

Update: someone on LAF asked for some close-ups so I obliged, thought I'd post them here too. 

More Weird World War Two (not a Challenge entry)

I had a few Weird War British to paint before Christmas, which was my last effort before the Challenge starts proper. Unfortunately I've been really busy recently, so I didn't get these infantry finished until a day into the challenge.

The miniatures are from West Wind's Secrets of the Third Reich range. I converted one to have a long-barrelled Bren when I first bought them many moons ago. I particularly like the officer miniature.

I've found the main 'Weird War' providers are a bit lacking in inspiration for the British and found I haven't been able to do much better. While Nazis usually get all sorts of weird science and occult offerings, the British are a bit of a mish-mash of science and the mythological with no solid theme. I might go down a quasi-religious route with mine, you'll see why I mean when my first challenge entry is done.

With their more Stompy suits offering support. 

I've also knocked these barbed wire barricades up, courtesy of 4Ground. Really quick paint job on these - just some brown ink to make the wood more uniform.

Finall, I received my bloggers Secret Santa this week. Two packages - how exciting! After a good poke and shake, I've identified that one rattles a bit but isn't Lego (longstanding family joke). I think I know what might be inside each but must leave it wrapped for now!

Napoleonics: Cavalry, cavalry everywhere

I've been slogging away at the rest of the Household Cavalry Life Guards I posted the other week. And a slog it became, but I'm out the other side - the other five are now finished.

And with the originals, to make a more substantial unit. Why nine? Well I need eight per unit, but Perry come in packs of three so I just painted the lot. 

I'm particularly pleased with the horses, they came out well. I was a little more adventurous with the markings, though kept the coat colours very dark brown or black so they are more. Inform than my other cavalry units. I also changed the yellow cord for the trumpeter, plain it was quite jarring so I broke it up with red stripes. 

Samulus came over for a game of Sharpe Practice the other night, so while I had the table an terrain out I snapped both my units of cavalry together. The Life guards weren't quite finished at this point. I didn't take any photos of the game, so no AAR for you. 

And my next madcap scheme? More cavalry!

Photo sourced here:

http://greatestbattles.iblogger.org/GB/Spanish/Dragoons.htm

Yup, I fancied adding a few Spanish cavalry to my fledgling force. The offerings are pretty dreadful, though Captain have recently released some Cazadores a Caballo, they are quite pricey. Front Rank have some but they are chunky, static and only have a couple of sculpts. Other than that, I struggled to find anything to buy so the challenge is on to convert my own. 

I mentioned the Maria Luisa Hussars before, they would be easy. But a bit more Internet research I decided those snazzy yellow Dragoon Uniforms would be nicely different to anything else. And happily, Perry French Dragoons are a pretty close fit. 

Perry French Dragoon body, head from a Victrix early French infantry (I got a single sprue from eBay). A plume from the bits box and bit of green stuff to make the bicorne a bit more prominent and voila! Pretty close I think, the main differences being the crossbelt goes the opposite way (though having just one is a start!) and the sheepskin on the horse furniture, though I removed the jagged edge of that to make it less distinctive. 

I think ill paint them as the 'Regimiento de dragones de Lusitania'. What do you think? Does anyone have a good method for yellow - I don't!

Sudan: Mahdist reinforcements

My last post showed the British and Egyptian forces so far. While I already had a number of Ansar finished during Curt's painting challenge, I did add a few to supplement those. First up, I made up some more of the Perry plastics, this time as Beja tribesmen or 'fuzzy-wuzzies' (the nickname derived from the quite excellent hair they sport...). These will tend to be represent more elite warriors in game. These were painted in the same way as before, which is really quick to do and effective to get very dark African skin tones. 

I couldn't resist these camel-riders either. Great miniatures, they will be mobile and pack quite a punch. The above are loosely painted as dismounted versions of each. Perry Miniatures once more. 

A few of you commented you were looking forward to the project developing. Well, that's it so far, this was a little skirmish side-project and was never meant to take over. I'm quite pleased I painted everything to be honest!  I have some terrain I may do more work on and write up and AARs to post. But this is the most of it for now!

 Though, as I am a bit 'ooh, shiney', I would quite like a few more packs, which I may pick up here and there...

The Secret Project: Revealed!

I've not been doing that much hobby stuff recently, mostly as my hobby time has been eaten into by some quality time with the PS3 (mostly the excellent and damnably addictive Batman: Arkham City) But, to keep the post rate up, I thought I'd do a series of posts to this summer's Secret Project. 

You may recall there were a few clues:

-small scale narrative campaign using Brink of Battle
-miniatures by a preferred manufacturer

-I already had one force painted (well, most of it) 

-some of the minis would find a dual use in Pulp scenarios. 

So, imagine yourself in Egypt, 1883. Egyptian-held Sudan is in turmoil. El Mahdi has emerged and gathered his 'Ansar' around him: the tribes Korfodan, Beja and Nile Arabs. Yup, is time to dabble in Colonials! Much inspired by forums as wells as blogs such as 'Maiwand Day' and 'Horse and Musket',  it was a small-scale and entertaining painting distraction. 

First up, some Egyptian Infantry (Perry Miniatures):

I tried a new flesh tone on these and think it came out quite well. I reckoned they will be serviceable as North/African or Turkish military/paramilitary types for 1930s Pulp. 

Next, pith helmets galore, it's the stalwart British infantry (Perry miniatures)

Painted as King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC) from the incredibly useful Perry miniatures painting guide here. 

Another mini from the pack above, painted in a khaki uniform, he serves as character for the campaign (more on that later) this would be Sir Henry Huffington (he is actually a stand-in for Huffington, as there is more suitable figure I've got my eye on...). I put him on a beveled base as he also join my 28mm Pulp characters on some adventures, as a further well-traveled friend of the Professor. 

And finally, some members of the Naval Brigade running at trail (guess what...Perry Miniatures!) 

Back to Napoleonics: 2nd Life Guards

So a few weeks ago that brother of mine Gharak (he of many hobbies) proudly declared he was going to clear his painting desk and get back to it, after many months of distraction. Much to my shock, he declared he would work on some Napoleonics. I was stunned (and sceptical, I must admit).

Well, I'm shuffling around projects at the moment, so it wasn't too much of a problem for me to dig out some prepped Napoleonics to match him. Its been a good nine months since I last did any, which was a nice break. And voila: the first batch of a new unit of British cavalry. 

Yup, they are the creme de la creme of the British army: the Household Cavalry's 2nd Life Guards. Some Heavies to crush my brothers lighter Dragoons and Lancers. Let's hope he has a box of Cuirassiers hiding somewhere!

Ok, only four of them. They look a bit lonely, I should get cracking on batch two!

They are Perry metals. I found them much less frustrating to paint than my last Napoleonic cavalry, some Light Dragoons. Probably as I sprayed the troopers white separately from the black horses, so no white-ing out was required, unlike the piping, facings and straps of the balck-undercoated Dragoons. Awful job, that was. In comparison, these were finished off relatively quickly. I'm surprised actually, as I normally hate painting cavalry. 

A note on Historical accuracy: both regiments of the Life Guards did serve in the Peninsula from 1812, though they spent many months in Lisbon on ceremonial duties. They saw some limited action at Vittoria and San Sebastian, neither of which being the sort of game I'm trying to recreate using Sharpe Practice. The large skirmishes are more suited to the scouting and harrying abilities of the lights! The Life Guards were shipped back to Britain from 1814. These Perrys are of course meant for the Waterloo campaign, so the uniforms might be a bit off, but my limited research hasn't highlighted any major changes. 

On both service and uniforms I'm not so fussed, anyway, the models are too lovely for historical accuracy get in the way of me using them. You may also note the lack of tarletons on my Light Dragoons, also being Perrys meant for a few years later... As mentioned before, I'm a contented member of the 'what-if' club of historical gaming.

And Gharak? I queried his progress a week later. He had cleared the table, unpacked miniatures and paint...and promptly put them away again. Ah well bro, nearly there! 

UPDATE: Gharak has finished a Napoleonic French unit this week, having seen the evidence I take it back! 

Short review and painting: Sarissa Precision Adobe Cantina

For the Secret Project, I bought a couple of the Sarissa Pecision Old West adobe line. I figured they were useful for a whole host of different games. The centrepiece was this two-story cantina. These are the bits out of the packet: basically, lots of precision-cut wood and a small instruction sheet.

I made two initial choices: to paint it unassembled (which is rare for me) and to leave the wooden boards the colour they were. So I started by dong a quick dry assembly to figure out how it went together before spraying everything that wasn't to be wood lightly with white spray primer. I split the walls into two batches to paint. Stage one was to pick out the brickwork in watered Vallejo 'Earth'. I used different consistency of paint and brushed it on lightly to give a varied texture. This avoided me doing any highlighting, but I may go back and dry brush some lighter shades on to reduce the contrast between the two colours. Stage two was to use watered down Vallejo 'Buff' on the lower portions of the walls and going up where walls would adjoin each other and other shaded areas (like around the beams). Here we are at stage two of the first batch:

Moving on, the walls got three highlights with 'Buff' mixed with white, up to a just off-white at the very tops. At all stages, I kept the paint quite thin to speed up the painting.  

Assembly now. I started off with superglue - don't bother! White glue works much better. The pieces all fit very snugly together. In fact, they can take a bit of jiggling and force to get them into the slots. I was a bit worried about breaking the thin pieces, but didn't so they much be quite sturdy. Getting them to fit in the right order is sometimes tricky, so test each piece before gluing.

Part assembled, I used elastic bands to hold the walls in while the glue dried. Probably not necessary, but a bit of a precaution.

And here we are assembled from the back and front. Quite an impressive building for its size. It also came with a ladder for roof access and I cut the doors out and mounted them on balsa-wood to make them openable. The kit was £18, a very reasonable price I thought!

I left off some of the window shutters of mine, but may add them later. You may notice that the second floor doesn't sit right from the back. For some reason the 'pins' holding the second floor on res on the beams rather than in the slots. So while everything else out of what was a pretty complex kit fit perfectly, these didn't. I emailed Sarissa these pics and they couldn't explain it either - apparently other kits in stock were fine and apparently I'm told I hadn't fudged the assembly either! Perhaps they were just being nice. Sarissa sent me another kit by way of apology - so full marks for customer service. In fact, service was impeccable, my order was dispatched very quickly and questions were answered promptly. With the price and custome service, I wouldn't hesitate to use Sarissa again, even among the booming laser-cut terrain market. Rather than leaving the unsightly gap, I fixed the issue with my kit by just clipping off the tags and filling in the slots with discarded tags. This worked fine and those particular noggins didn't seem important structurally - the rest of the structure, particularly the internal walls holds the second floor on.