painting challenge - post 5

Its New years eve and I have had an excellent day at the paint station. I have started another project, earlier this year myself, Kev and Kelly started adapting Muskets and Tomahawks to play a Zulu Wars skirmish level game. We played a few test games with my amended figure statistics and units. Kelly then surprised me with a box of British figures for me to paint up whilst he would paint the Zulus. Today saw me start the first two units of these figures.

The eagle eyed among you will have seen my new blog header and profile picture, a new look for the New Year.
I have completed my first Napoleonic unit and am now basing it up, hence the photo taken from a distance as it will appear on Curt's blog in the New Year.

I have also done the first two stages of flesh work on the first 10 commissioned Vikings and all the outer clothing.
I'm of now to get a stonking hangover as I see in the New Year, I wish you all good health and prosperity for the coming year.

Painting Challenge - post 4

Well the Christmas break is over and I have been back to the brushes.

First up I completed my last 2 points of Norse Gaels for saga. These have a nice mix of stripes and plaid to emphasise the Celtic influence of this faction.

I may go back to this faction later and add the sons of death unit, but for now I have enough Vikings that can supplement these if I want to play at 6 points.

I am almost there with my first 28mm Napoleonic's unit as I return to the scale. Currently the last 6 are on the workbench. I have started another set of 28 commissioned Vikings ( in case you haven't guessed I do like Vikings) the first 18 are now under the brushes.

I have also started to prepare the Perry plastic hussars, these fall a bit short of my expectations, it is probably me being fussy but the necks and shabraques have some big gaps so I have had to break out the liquid green stuff ( Thanks to Games workshop for something useful and worth the money)

Right thats me updated for now. I will leave you with a picture of my test figures for the next Napoleonic units. I hope to complete the first unit of Napoleonics by Tuesday and have them submitted to Curt.

2012 comes to a close.

I started the year with some big ambitions for projects in 2012. I failed on most fronts as the butterfly effect and real life meant that many did not get off the ground and those that did rarely got completed.
On the Fail list are Orcs and Lizardmen for warhammer, Anglo-Danes and Saxons for Saga. Almost everything else fell short of expectation.

The highlights are the completion of :
200 points of Rangers for Muskets and Tomahawks.
12 point force of Vikings and 6 points of Jomsvikings for Saga.
2000+ points of 15mm DAK tank forces for Flames of war.
16 assorted dinosaurs for my new Blood bowl team.

I also started to accept commissions this year, some thing I have always refused to do, mainly for fear it would ruin the hobby aspect of painting for me, however I have found that I quite enjoy it as long as the customer accepts my terms. Especially as I can be slow.

I have been steadily building my own terrain over the year, as I concentrate of being able to have plenty of terrain for any games I want to play at home. A key focus is terrain suitable for the American civil war. I have completed numerous 15mm fences, log piles a section of sunken road and have built two 6 x 4 tables. For 28mm gaming I have three new perry buildings for my AWI needs and 4 woodlands. I have a lot more to do over the coming year. I have also built 2 tables for Craig and another two for Kelly which I still need to flock for him.

One of the big partially completed  projects is the American Civil war, which is steadily increasing in numbers and you can expect to see it feature more on this blog in the coming year.

In view of the failures above and my announcement of refocussing the direction of my hobby earlier in the year I started a new page, my painting project list, this has so far kept me clearly focussed on my own projects. It allows my to track my progress and highlights for me what remains to be done.

Currently I am giving my full attention to these projects and using Curt's analogue hobbies painting challenge as a motivational tool to hit my target of 1000 points before 20th March.

So plans for 2013-- more to follow in another post early in the New Year.

Painting Challenge - post 3

I have put a link directly to the analogue hobbies challenge blog on my page just to the right so you can easily navigate there and see the latest scores and wonderful models being painted for this.

Now as regular readers of my blog will know I have a thing for Dark Age figures in particular this year it has been Vikings, so when an opportunity came up to purchase an unpainted amount of Foundry figures, I caved in to the temptation and bought them. I had no idea really what I wanted them for as I have plenty of options when it comes to Vikings to do any of the Saga lists. However in a flash of inspiration I decided that the new figures would be Norse Gaels.

My Norse Gaels really deserved to be a little different to the rest and so have set about making a 4pt warband which I can make to 6 points by using some of my existing figures if required..

First up for you is the new Warlord ( Yngvar ) and his trusty sidekick ( Oddlog ).

Next up are his 8 Hearth Guards ready to fight or reach the halls of Valhalla with honour.

Finally 4 figures which I can use to expand either my existing warband or add to the Norse Gaels.

The Warlord and the 8 Hearth guards all have shield transfers from little big men studios, its the first time I have used them as I do enjoy free handing my designs. They however were not designed for Foundry shields, so I had to do some serious grinding with a Dremel to completely remove the shield rims before finishing with a diamond file. That said the finished product is easy to apply and a good time saver. The bases  are all finished with the new tufts I mentioned in an earlier post.

Righty ho folks thats my last post and painting for a couple of days, whilst I do my bit as a Dad and husband over the festive period. I wish you all the best for the festivities, Eat Drink and be Merry. I will be back hopefully having made a further rather large submission to Curt shortly after Christmas.

painting challenge - post 2

My preparations for the challenge have served me well so far, also I have been aided by the fact that I had been having a prolonged episode of insomnia. Thankfully I got some sleep last night.
My first submission to Curt for the analogue hobbies painting challenge, was my freshly completed 15mm Battlefront SDK250/9 (prime mover) this is the 5 point recovery option for my Flames of war DAK tank company.

The next picture is a size comparison next to the Tiger, the prime reason for the 250/9 being needed I can be relied upon to fail a bogging check when required and it will always leave my Tiger or command tank stranded, this should help me recover my vehicles and continue fighting.

The second part of my submission was a foot battery of 18mm Polish Napoleonics, I found these languishing  in an old cardboard box in a drawer in my workshop recently, along with two 24 figure battalions of Polish infantry all unpainted. They were to be an addition to my 18mm Saxon Corp that I have painted up but the move back into 28mm has meant that I will be selling these and the infantry on to fund the new project.

I have sent my second submission to Curt already I will post details 24 hours after it has appeared on his blog. I am on with another batch of Vikings, one of the Polish Infantry battalions and the Neuchatel battalion at present. Howeever I can be erratic and often flit between different items, so there are no guarantees as to what order these will be finished.

Heres the current state of the workbench, subject to change as my attention wanders from one unit to another.

A Tuft time of it

Today saw me submit my second batch of figures to Curt for the painting challenge. Insomnia is great for getting extra painting in but that is now curtailed for a few days or I risk the wrath of SWMBO.

Anyway I digress the real reason for this post is, I recently did some internet searching for alternative grass tufts for my bases. Until now I had been firmly in the Silflor camp but that has changed,  I have of late become disenchanted with the quality of Silflor products in the UK and having opened a box of new large tufts recently to find 85% of the large sheet useless I thought I would compare some alternatives.

I have to say now that normally I would not do a review of products in this manner but I have been very impressed with the purchase, and the customer service I received prior to purchase that I felt it right to share these with you all.

I settled on a seller I found on Ebay who had his own products for sale, after an initial enquiry I was pointed in the direction of his web site where I could purchase direct still usuing my preferred payment method of PayPal.

Today whilst basing my latest submission, I had my first opportunity to use my recent purchases from Tajima1. I purchased 5 different versions of his tufts of which I have to say are great and arrived in perfect condition and in a handy box in which to store them.

wild grass

medium green

red flowers

Each box has 120 tufts or flowers on a self adhesive base, and costing from £5.95 a pack are cost effective to use.

tufts in front on both bases are wild grass, the tufts behind are large green on the left base and medium green on the right base, each base also has one flower tuft in this case red and yellow.

I would highly recommend these tufts, they are easy to apply and certainly make the base look stunning so follow the link earlier in this post and see for yourselves.

Im off and running - Challenge post 1

I have submitted my 1st entries into this years challenge to Curt at analogue hobbies - as per the rules he will post first and I will do a follow up in the near future.

My work bench is currently running at full tilt due to a bout of insomnia I went to bed late couldn't sleep and have been at the brushes since 1.30am this morning in addition to a good stint yesterday.

Vikings and Napoleonics all in 28mm on the go

They are off !!!

The analogue hobbies painting challenge started today and the 47 Ronin can now pick up their finest bamboo brushes and apply colour to models. My day began well with me applying the base colours to a full 36 perry 28mm French that will become the Neuchatel battalion. I will be working them in groups of 6 from here on in though, while I get a couple of 18mm Artillery pieces with crew and a 15mm half-track completed alongside.

Yep I have started to many things at once but what the heck I have to try to reduce the primed figure pile somehow.

Here's wishing all my fellow Ronin's the best of luck over the months ahead.

Seasons Greetings

Well its almost time for me to celebrate Yule this happens on the 21st of December this year. 
Yule is the Lesser Pagan Sabbat that acknowledges and celebrates the rebirth of the Sun. In our symbolism of the Year as a constantly turning Wheel, this is the spoke where the Oak King (representing the light half of the year) vanquishes the Holly King (representing the dark half of the year), and thus ensures that the light and warmth of the sun will begin to increase each day. 

Known also as the Winter Solstice, this is the longest night of the year often beginning in silent darkness and ending in a blaze of light, fire, and laughter. 

While Yule is most often aligned with Christmas today, Yule and Winter Solstice celebrations far outdate the Christian Christmas celebration. December 25th, the popular date to celebrate Christ’s birth, which was also the birth date of Mithras, the ancient Persian Sun god of light and the guardian against evil. Christianity didn’t even celebrate “Christmas” until the fourth century, and even as late as 1740, it was a normal workday for the Puritans in the New World of America. They viewed Christmas as a Pagan holiday, and forbid any celebrations and/or decorations of acknowledgement of the day. 

Try as one might, one cannot erase the Pagan aspects of this holiday. Most of today’s Christmas traditions are Pagan in nature, derived from both old Yule and Solstice traditions, and include holly wreaths, decorated christmas trees, the Yule log, kissing under the mistletoe, and the jolly old man himself, Santa Claus. 

So however you choose to celebrate over the coming days I hope you eat well, enjoy your festivities.

Only 5 days to go !!

Ronin number 1 sat after having primed his figures for the challenge ahead contemplating his next move. Having been prohibited from painting historical figures until the 20th of the month what would he do. Brushes needed to be kept lubricated and spirits needed to be maintained. Solution next years Blood Bowl team although historical , this ronin doubted they would be a qualifying entry for the challenge so set about the task of completing the entire team in a week.

May I therefore introduce

Yes the team name is very cheesy based rather loosley on a real team name as is the law. The annual club tournament kicks off on the 3rd of Feb and I am now ready to go with my Lizardmen (cunnily disguised as Dinosaurs).

The team consists of 1 Kroxigor, the big fella in the centre with red sail on his back. 6 saurus, 3 at back on left and right. 9 skinks the little guys in the middle, a score marker the flying dactyl at the back. and two nests one for re-rolls and the other for turns. 

Figures here ,figures there, Figures every Bl**dy where!

I'm well into the preparations for Curts painting challenge at the moment although my base coat brush now resembles a stump due to painting lots of armour. So I will be out to buy a couple of new ones in the week. I am rapidly running out of both room and containers to store the prepared figures in though, and I have ordered even more that will arrive this week.

Ignore the elves in the background here they wont be featuring and have been there 4 months already.

more vikings in total 53 of these so far

4 tubs of prepared Napoleonic French  84 figures and 4 packs of British Hussars not yet started

French Carabinieers

15mm fallschirmjager

more fallschirmjager

I was asked to set a par score by Curt for this event, and not ever having attempted to paint in a competition, I have nothing to measure or set a proper target by so I have aimed at 1000 points painted for a total, I may fall short of this but will give it every effort. I will also use my painting project list as a focus point for the whole competition. My priority will be the French Napoleonics, and Vikings over the coming months and will paint other items on the list to provide something different along the way.

A bit of this and a lot of that

This week has been a strange week, mainly due to the distinct lack of putting colour on many figures.
I have given the blog a tidy up, and hopefully improved the viewing experience a touch. There is a new page that should help me stay on track with my painting over the next few months as I take part in the painting challenge.

As the rules of the challenge prohibit the addition of colour to any models before midnight on the 20th, I have  been busy sorting out the lead and plastic pile, cleaning, filing and priming in preparation for the off.

I have completed a few figures this week that had already been started and they will be on Ebay tonight.

First up is a unit of double handed axemen for Saga. Next are 4 more Bannermen.

The benefit of this downtime is I can get to work on the Blood Bowl team for next year, as although they are of a historical nature, I think the Jurassic era and colour scheme of my dinosaur themed team may be a bit tough to claim points in the challenge with. I will post an update on this little project when I have them completed.

Throwing my hat into the ring

I wanted to enter this last year, but unfortunately found the blog a little to late.. So this year I decided to apply and have been accepted to take part in:

This event is hosted by Curt over at analogue-hobbies. I have chosen to enter this to give me a good focus over the coming months as I tackle a large Napoleonic project, and of course lots of Vikings. Further more I wanted to enjoy the experience, I am un-likely to win as there will be some very stiff competition. In the form of many good and prolific painters. The Dettol duo Ray & Fran (of Dont throw a 1, and The Angry Lurker fame), John de Terre Neuve, and Christopher (aka Axebreaker) to name a few there are many more. 

Even if you are not interested in competing Curts blog would be a good place to follow over the coming months as there will be plenty of eye candy from some excellent painters. You can see my progress or lack of it by following my blog too.

Napoleonics in 15mm

Continuing with my plans to refocus the direction of my gaming as mentioned in my earlier post HERE. I have been busy basing up my un needed 15mm Napoleonics miniatures ready to sell on ebay. They will be listed tonight.

Heres the finished results.

SORRY OUT DATED PAGE

Every time you see me, that Hammer's just so hype

Today I present my finished version of the Foundry Thor miniature.

Thor is a God who is mentioned heavily throughout the history of the Germanic peoples, and the height of his popularity was during the Viking age. Emblems of his Hammer Mjolnir were worn in defiance of the spreading Christianity and Norse pagan names bear witness to his popularity.  Thursday ( Thor's Day) still carries his name.

Some sources state Thor is the son of Odin. Generally described as having red hair and a red beard also being fierce eyed. Thor slaughtered his foes and had fierce battles with the serpent Jormungandr, both were killed by each other during Ragnarok.

Now the vague description of Thor does not help me too much when painting apart from giving me a colour for the hair of which this model does have a lot of. The obvious item is the Hammer, I decided to keep the overall colour palette more neutral with a feature being made of his cloak that bears a runic inscription which I hope I have spelt correctly and grammatically got right.