Painting Challenge Review

Well... So it ended. Three months of winter painting madness ended last week and how challenging they were!

But first things first. It all started in November when Curt announced his 4th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and I was lucky enough to receive one of the sixty slots he offered. It was a completely new experience for me and I found it very difficult to calculate my point target. Finally I intended to pass all seven bonus rounds, added some units I wanted to finish definitely during the three months of the challenge and aimed at 600 points.

My first entry was kind of unspectacular. Just a sleeping monk as a quick finger exercise:

But afterwards the first bonus round "Non-Combatants" was to fulfill and I entered a vignette made of AWI Perry figures:

During Christmas and New Year wasn't that much time for painting but at least I managed to finished my entry for the second bonus round "Villain": A Warhammer 40K Broodlord:

Simultaneously I started with the preparations for our "Retreat 1812" game White Death which we presented at Tactica in Hamburg and so I painted some Frenchmen
 for this background. Funnily a theme which other painters went into as well...

Now the "Vehicle" bonus round came close and I decided to enter the largest 28mm model I've ever painted: A Horsa glider

While Tactica draw near and we were in need of some more miniatures for gaming. So I finished General Desvaux de Saint-Maurice for the "Heroes" bonus round and some more French retreaters and entered them to the challenge:

Afterwards I finished my -for the moment- last model for the 1812 retreat theme: a sledge with exchangeable load:

Then another bonus round was to tackel and Curt asked for "Casualties". I decided to realize a project I had in mind for some time and presented the death of Colonel Christian von Ompteda at Waterloo:

Then I turned my interest slightly towards Saga. The excellent news of the upcoming publication of the German rulebook gave me a real boost and I finished a unit of Berserkers, a unit of Hirdmen, my new warlord that fulfilled the "Last Stand" bonus round and a unit of Bondi to complete my 4 points warband:

 

But between those Viking raiders another bonus round conquered my workbench. A "Favourite Character" had to presented and I decided to paint good old Monty for it:

So the end of the challenge was approaching slowly and time was running out for me. But at least the British redcoats I promised to paint for "Bloggers for Charity" were finished:

Well then... That were my entries. Nearly!

Because besides all these entries I was able to chose myself there was one duty for our honorable host to accomplish. Curt asked the challengers to present him a miniatures related to the movies directed by Sam Peckinpah. While some fellows chose to paint WW2 miniatures representing characters from the Steiner movies I stayed obvious and painted a Wargames Foundry cowboy as delegate of Peckinpah's numerous western movies. And he is presented for the very first time on my blog:

The miniature is from Wargames Foundry and actually his name is "Lonesome Dexter" from the "This town ain't big enough". But this time he shall represent one of the countless cowboys immortalized in Sam Peckinpah's movies. Curt asked for such an act of appreciation and I hope my humble work bestows honour to his concern.
This fellow was the first Wild West figure I ever painted. And it was great fun. It is well detailed and sculpting as well as casting are of top-notch quality as usual for Wargames Foundry. Once again I employed Vallejo's Model Colour range to paint it but skipped Quickshade this time because I didn't have the time to let it dry long enough. To give the miniature a little special 'something' I didn't only decorate the top of the base but the bottom as well.

So these were my sober entries for this extraordinary challenge. Altogether they earned me earned me 701 points so I exceeded my target to a considerable degree. I'm really satisfied with that because actually I'm a rather slow player.
Besides the point target I had two side challenges running. Firstly honourable Michael Awdry and me agreed to pass all seven bonus rounds. We both stood the test so many congrats, Michael!
Additionally I joyned Ray's, Fran's, Lee's, Dave's and Clint's 600 points club. Fran was the first of us to complete his points so I owe him a painted miniature. Drop me a line via the contact form,  Google+ or montys[dot]caravan[at]googlemail[dot]com to discuss the details, mate! It'll be a pleasure to fulfil this debt of honour!

So my review ends and it's time to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH above all to our host Curt but to all other challengers which shared this winter - Scotty for you rather summer... - madness. It was great fun to participate and I enjoyed the company of you excellent painters and modellers a lot. Many congrats to Andrew "Loki" Saunders who won the challenge with unbelievable 4.180 points! Additionally those three months let me learn a lot about my very own way of painting and pushed my skills forward.
It was an honour to see my humble work presented alongside the pieces of art you fellows submitted. For next winter I'll definitely reserve a time slot for the next painting challenge hoping to snatch a slot again. I hope you like this little sign of appreciation.

If you didn't find the time to browse all the entries until now then have a look at Curt's blog. It's definitely worth it:
http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.ca/

There you'll find a link to the fortnight bonus rounds as well as a huge number of entries for the usual entries.

Have fun !

A unit of Viking Warrios for Saga

There are two entries for the Painting Challenge which I haven't presented here by now. The first are eight Bondi for my Saga Vikings:

All eight figures are metal ones from Gripping Beast's nice SAGA range. Some of them look slightly old fascioned and stiff but altogether they are really good.

As all SAGA miniatures I know so far these Bondi have open hands to glue the weapons in. So most of them got spears. But I used steel wire spears rather then the leaden ones provided by Gripping Beast. Absolutely outstanding are their faces which make it easy to bring out some expression.

As usual I painted the figures with Vallejo Model Colours and shaded them with Armypainter Quickshade (Dark Tone). The fine artworks on the shield are decals from Stephen Hales' Little Big Men Studios. For the bases I used my habitual combination of sand, static grass and tufts.

The other entry missing here on the blog is the desperado I painted as "Curtgeld", the entry fee for the challenge. But I'll save this one for my review of the painting challenge I'll post during the next days.

Painting Table Saturday #20: Two shades of grey

Another week passed by and it's saturday again. So here is what was on my painting table today:

Pegasus Bridge

Actually this afternoon started very promising. Mrs Monty and our daughter took a trip to Düsseldorf to visit the puppet theatre there with a friend of Viktoria's and her father. So I thought it would be a good chance for a first airbrushing session with the Pegasus Bridge. Since I was sure to need more than one layer of paint to cover the bridge gapelessly so I chose not to undercoat it. Warlord Games recommend dark grey as base colour which I hadn't at hand unfortunately but I mixed a suitable colour with neutral grey and german grey and started in good spirits.

But I didn't imagine how much paint is needed to colourize such a huge terrain piece. After an hour of constant airbrushing I ran out of grey with just half of the parts covered. Vallejo doesn't sell their paints in litre bottles, do they?
Anyway a good part of the job is done and I'll proceed sometime during the week...

Have a nice sunday !

Bloggers for Charity: 44th Regiment of Foot

The 44th Regiment of Foot 

The regiment was raised in 1741 and firstly bore the name of its founder Colonel James Long and was originally the 55th regiment of foot. After first employments during the Jacobite Risings of 1745 and the Flandeers campaign in 1748 the regiment was renumbered as 44th Regiment of Foot, actually as part of a large reorganisation of the British army. A few years later the regiment was brought into action during the French and Indian War where it fought in important battles like the Battle of Carillon, the Braddock Expedition and the famous siege of Fort William Henry. Above all it served in the Battle at La Belle-Famille which the "Bloggers for Charity" want to restage this year at several events to collegt attention and rise funds for the charity projects "Help for Heroes" and "Men Matters".

For this excellent venture I agreed to paint a unit of redcoats which will represent this heroic regiment. It consists of twelve figures manufactured by AW Miniatures who is establishing a quickly growing 28mm range covering the FIW. Overall the miniatures are very nice. The casting quality is good at most parts although some thin details like the loading stick are damaged on several miniatures. The sculptings are crisp and clear and make it rather easy to distinguish the different parts and layers of the miniatures. Unfortunately a lot of the finer details (especially the lacing) are left out and must be painted on. The faces are quite good but don't have the excellence and expression the top-notch manufactorers (Perry, Wargames Foundry, Front Rank et al.) usually provide.

 As usual I used Vallejo Model Colours and Armypainter Quickshade to paint the figures. My main source for the uniforms was C. E. Franklin's "British Army Uniforms from 1751 to 1783". There I read that officers used to wear waistcoats in their regiment's facing colours. Therefore I decided to give them that individual blot of paint. This time I didn't base the figures because James and Andrew preferred to do that themselves.

"Last Stand" - Gudmund the Dauntless inspired by Cynwit

How time flies !

It seems that Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge just started but in fact that was nearly three months ago. Because all good things come to an end we're coming down the streth now. There's just one week left and last weekend the final forthnight bonus round took place. This time "Last Stand" was the theme.

Actually I wanted to enter some Napoleonic troops for this round. Either some more 1812 French or Old Guard for Plancenoit or some riflemen of the 2nd Light Battalion KGL definding La Haye Sainte. But during the last weeks the Vikings conquered my mind and I pored on Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories once again. In the first book The last Kingdom the author describes the Battle of Cynwit and has the main character, fictional Uthred of Bebbanburg, fight and kill Ubba Ragnarsson. So the idea of an epic fight between two Viking warlords caught me and I wasn't able to stand up to painting some SAGA figures to replay such epic quarrels.

So we have my new Viking warlord Gudmund the Dauntless accompanied by his last surviving followers, a group of eight Bondi warriors. They are surrounded by a huge force of Anlgo-Danish foes. These are lead by a gruesome warlord who raided Gudmund's settlement and slaughtered all other Vikings without mercy. At the height of the battle Gudmund and his last fellows drew back to a hill nearby and the two warlords meet in an epic fight.

They dance around each other exchanging blows while the warriors make way for their warlords. With the last of his strength Gudmund manages to overcome his enemy and turns the turns the tide of the battle. Discouraged by their warlord's death the Danish line crumble. Finally the Vikings win the day and banish the attackers...

I hope you like this little story for the last theme of this painting challenge. The figure is a metal one from Gripping Beast's nice SAGA range. Although some of the older figures look a bit stiff I like this warlord very much. He looks very dynamic and eager. There are two tiny conversions I made: I changed the hand to a more detailed plastic one and I added a shield with additional spears to have him look even more dangerous and daring. Absolutely outstandingly sculpted is his face which makes it easy to bring out some expression.

As usual I painted the figures with Vallejo Model Colours and shaded them with Armypainter Quickshade (Dark Tone). The fine artworks on the shield are decals from Stephen Hales' Little Big Men Studios, but for the first time I dared to paint some freehand embroidery on the cloak. I used brwonish and yellowish colours to create an idea of embroided Viking runes.
For the bases I used my habitual combination of sand, static grass and tufts.

Saga-Hearthguard: Viking Hirdmen

Simultaneously to the Berserkers (these here) I was working on a unit of Hirdmen:

The full quartet.

The miniatures are by Gripping Beast and belong to their nice range of Saga figures. Actually I like them a lot although the sculpts are slightly old-fashioned. They are rather dynamic and have excellently detailed faces. Their hands are a bit tricky because the weapons have to be glued inside. On the one hand that seems a bit unfirm but on the other hand it offers the chance to equip the guys individually. As Hirdmen they are kind of elite warriors and so I wanted to have them different from the Bondi which are mostly equipped with spears so I gave them swords and a two-handed axe.

Very exciting to paint were the faces of the figures. They've been sculpted with a lot of expression and fine detail in them. So it wasn't too hard to work out the eyes, the beards their hair. The tunics are rather plain so for the gifted painter they present lots of space for freehand sketches. I didn’t dare to experiment too much there so I left it at some careful braids in contrasting colours. The result really encourages me to try more patterns from now on.

 

As usual I painted the figures with Vallejo Model Colours and shaded them with Armypainter Quickshade (Dark Tone). The fine artworks on the shield are decals from Stephen Hales' Little Big Men Studios. For the bases I used my habitual combination of sand, static grass and tufts.

 

 

Painting Table Saturday #18 - BfC British 44th Regiment of Foot

This evening my father will celebrate his 65th birthday so we'll be on the road after lunch. Thus here's a very early Saturday Painting Table post from me. Actually it's kind of nearly finished post since delivered the last strokes of my paintbrush to the current inhabitants of my painting table yesterday night:

Twelve figures which I promised to paint for Bloggers for Charity. They'll represent the 44th Regiment of Foot during the BfC presentation game "Battle of Belle Famille":

The red dozen...

The command...

Firing pose...

At ready...

Actually they're nearly finished. During the last evenings I put a lot of time into them to come to an end with that unit. Although it was great fun to contribute some work for the BfC project I'm a bit torn about the miniatures themselves. They're very well cast and actually a good set of figures but on the other hand the sculptor left a lot of details for the gifted painter to realize. That brought me to the limits of my skill but I'm rather satisfied with the result.

Besides these brave redcoats there are twenty Vikings, one cowboy and a couple of KGL riflemen inhabiting my workbench. Some of them are reserved for the last bonus round in the painting challenge, the cowboy is the fee and the Vikings... For a Saga session next weekend. I'm curious how many of them I'll finish in time...

Have a nice weekend !

Monty approaching - Perry special miniature painted !

Last week there was the bonus round "Favourite Character" in Curt's painting challenge and I decided to paint a very special miniature a friend of mine presented me to my last birthday:

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery

1st Viscount of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC

Monty as special miniature by Perry Miniatures

Monty, as he was called by his troops later, was born on 17th November 1887 in Kensington, London. He was the fourth of nine children of his father, Reverend Henry Montgomery, and his wife Maud. After a colorful early life with a long stay in Tasmania where his father was bishop, Monty returned to England in 1897 and visited the King’s School in Canterbury and St. Paul’s School in London. Afterwards he attended the Royal Military College in Sandhurst and graduated in 1908. As second lieutenant he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served overseas.

When Word War One began Monty was first lieutenant and adjutant of the 1st Btl of his regiment and saw action during the very first battles of the war in Berlgium. During these days he received numerous injuries from enemy fire and was decorated with the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) for his gallant leadership. During the following years of war Monty climbed up the career ladder and in the end he was Staff Officer in the 47th Division.

Although he lost his temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel he stayed in the army after the war and commanded different battalions, served as Staff Officer again and spent some time as instructor at the Indian Army Staff College during the following years. In 1938 Monty was promoted major-general and took his first divisional command: In Palestine he commanded the 8th Infantry Division and ended an Arab revolt there.

Details of his expressive face.

But it was in World War Two that Monty gathered immortal fame. In August 1942 Monty took command of the 8th Army and competed against his famous opponent Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. After a hard campaign and the decisive second battle of Alamein the British and American forces won Africa and prepared the liberation of Europe. This major operation began with the allied landings on Sicily which Monty planned and where he commanded the British forces. During the next months Monty took part of the further battles in Italia and started to prepare D-Day in early 1944. For Operation Overlord he commanded the 21st Army Group and worked in General Eisenhower’s Supreme Command. While the war turned to its final chapter Monty lead his army group through different battles and finally on 4th May 1945 he accepted the surrender of German forces in north-west Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

After the war Monty scrolled through different assignments. For example he commanded the British Army of the Rhine in Germany, was Chief of the Imperial General Staff and served as Staff Officer for the NATO. Aged 71 he retired in 1958 but stayed public with several appearances and with the publication of his memoires. Not all of his utterances were unquestionable. For example his attitudes about apartheid and some statements in his memoires caused discussion. In 1976 Bernard Law Montgomery died at his home Isington Mill near Alton.

Although Monty is a difficult personality with lots of rough edges he was one of Britain most important leaders of the 20th century. His military genius and his gallant way to lead his forces has been fascinating me for years. Despite his flaws and the few backstrokes he is one of my favourite military leaders of all time and so I proudly present him for this Painting Challenge bonus round.
The miniature is by Perry Miniatures. It was delivered as bonus for ordering three sets of plastic Desert Rats but I had the pleasure to receive it as a birthday present from a dear friend of mine last year. As usual I painted the figure with Vallejo Model Colours and used Armypainer Quickshade for shading it. This time I didn’t paint eyeballs or pupils because I liked Monty’s screwing up look. It gives me the impression of an experienced leader looking over the battlefield with rough wind in his face. The base is held in sand colours because I wanted to represent Monty in the moment of success over the Desert Fox after the Battle of Alamein.

The picture that inspired me to the paintjob.

 

Some guys going berserk...

The good news about Saga (read here) last week gave me a real push for my own warband. Finally I finished some further figures for a unit of Hirdmen and a unit of Berserkers.

Today for the Berserkers:

My unit of Gripping Beast Viking Berserkers.

The miniatures are by Gripping Beast and belong to their nice range of Saga figures. Although some of their figures are slightly old-fashioned these berserkers stick out a bit. They are very dynamic and with the wolf hides over their shoulders they look really fierce. Only their hands are a bit tricky because the weapons have to be glued inside. On the one hand that seems a bit unfirm but on the other hand it offers the chance to equip the guys individually. So I chose to substitute the leaden spears with steely ones.

Very exciting to paint were the faces of the figures. They've been sculpted with a lot of expression and fine detail in them. So it wasn't too hard to work out the eyes, the beards their hair. The clothes - if present at all - were rather plain so for the gifted painter they present lots of space for freehand sketches. Although I wouldn't count me to this illustrious category I'm really pleased with the striped trousers. The result really encourages me to try more patterns like this from now on.

As usual I painted the figures with Vallejo Model Colours and shaded them with Armypainter Quickshade (Dark Tone). The fine artworks on the shield are decals from Stephen Hales' Little Big Men Studios. For the bases I used my habitual combination of sand, static grass and tufts.