Paint Table Saturday - Horses everywhere

Hobbywise last week was rather average. Although our preparations for Easter took a certain amount of time, I managed to finish my AWI Saratoga artillery piece. Anyway I haven't taken pictures until now so its presentation must wait a couple of days.

 

Meanwhile my trustful airbrush entered the stage again and I prepared a couple of horses for a kind of workshop I'll be visiting next weekend. A friend of mine asked me to come along to do some painting and he'll show me his way of painting horses. It has something to do with oil paints and sponges. Hopefully that helps me overcome my reluctance against painting horses. That would help me a lot since I'm a great fan of mounted troops...

 

However I'll keep you on the loop how it comes together. Until then enjoy the weekend and have a happy and blessed Easter!

 

Curtgeld - Oberst Kurt Steiner from 'The Eagles has landed'

As usual I've been keeping one of the most important entries of the painting challenge for last:

The entry fee 'Curtgeld' miniature

Last but not least a couple of twins:

Both version of Col. Steiner side by side

Paint Table Saturday - Challenge finished... Artillery under construction

Finally I posted all of my entries for Curt's painting challenge. This year really few figures only but at least I managed to achieve my goal of 250 points.

Nevertheless there's no time for idleness with a lead pile like mine to handle:

Risk Taker - Han Solo

When the painting challenge started I had a look at the bonus rounds and all of a sudden an idea for the 'Risk Taker' theme stroke my mind. Who could be a better choice than daredevil who is bold enough to kick a hunk of junk hard enough to make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs? Or the one who was stupid and daunting enough to pick a quarrel with a giant space slug supervillain?

As you see I chose Fantasy Flight Games' incarnation of this well-known scoundrel. It's a nice plastic miniature the company is making for their Star Wars skirmish game 'Imperial Assault'. The details are worked out crisp and clear and the casting quality is pretty good. Maybe not as good as we are used from top-notch miniature companies like Perry Miniatures, Warlord Games or maybe Games Workshop but nevertheless much better than one would expect from board game pieces. Probably the material limits the quality in a certain way. It's slightly softer than those historical hard plastic miniatures, bendable and thus more suitable for board games who might not necessarily be careful tabletop gamers as well. Altogether a nice piece and much better than those old soft plastic figures by Wizards of the Coast.

As usual I painted this chap with Vallejo colours and used Wargames Foundry for the skin tones. I kept the base pretty simple as with all my Imperial Assault figures: Just a dark grey base colour and three shades of drybrushing.

Paint Table Saturday: Final week of the painting challenge

Well then... It's Saturday again and because we'll spend the afternoon at my parents' on my fathers birthday party I'm rather early with giving a view onto my workbench. As you see the projects are more or less the same as the week before but some of the figures are finished now. Namely my entry for the 'Risc Taker' bonus round of the painting challenge, Oberst Kurt 'Curtgeld' Steiner and his twin as well as two Royal Navy captains from Brigade Games wonderful range. Unfortunately I cannot present those figures now since they haven't been in the challenge until now but next week I'll feature them.

Then after the painting challenge I'll have to tackle some half-finished things. Two of them are on the picture as well: The AWI artillery of course and those more modern chaps near the grips. At least the first sqaud has to be finished and then maybe a sixpounder antitank-gun to keep things going. This actually is most difficult because there are so many ongoing projects on my workbench and upcoming temptations: North-West Frontier, War of the Roses, Late WW1, WW2 Paras, Desert Rats, Napoleonics, AWI... It seems I need a better structure... Or I should isolate myself more to avoid distraction...

Anyway meanwhile I started a new round of photography experiments. Actually most of the time I'm struggling with illuminating my workpieces well to take good pictures. No background looks disturbing, white background darkens the miniatures in front, gradual bluish print went missing weeks ago. Unfortunately I don't have space for a permanent photo box. So I tried a medium light blue sheet of cardboard from my daughter's craft stuff. To illuminate the scene properly I took two lamps with I covered with tracing paper to make the light more diffus.

The results were pretty much alright but you have to be patient for a couple of days since I only photographed the Navy captains yesterday. So this is my prieview for next week. Additionally of course the finished miniatures I mentioned above and maybe a report of my visit of the 'Maritime Museum' during our journey to Hamburg.

For now that's it.
Enjoy your weekend !