End of the Challenge

On June 1st the 2nd 6 Month Mountain Reduction Painting Challenge commenced with all sorts of rules and so forth in an effort for blogging hobbyists to try to get rid of their unpainted piles of metal and plastic miniatures and pledge to try not to make purchases during the duration and make their backlogs bigger.

The 1st Challenge (Last year) saw me largely painting my 15mm Flames of War Canadian platoons and I feel I did pretty well as far as limiting purchases made. This year... was different - I had different projects to get done and most in 28mm. In the end I think I painted up around 90x 28mm figs and around 30x 15mm. Not great considering I've had 6 whole months to get stuff done, but it could be far far worse. I think also I ended up about even with projects completed and new purchases made. Maybe a little off even, with more purchases made - but certainly not horrendous.

It's been a fun 6 months and a busy one and I'm happy with the work I've turned out and look forward to the next Challenge.

During the last week of this Challenge I did get work done! An archer that can be used for both my Frostgrave warbands and future fantasy rpg gaming.

I think she's a late 90's early 00's Reaper mini. 

One day I'll come back to this one and add a little freehand to her cloak as that is one large boring space.

I also painted up a couple of skeleton archers for my upcoming rpg campaign. To account for extra majicks required to get a skeleton to shoot a bow, I felt the bows themselves would need a splash of sacrificial blood too. No idea how those quivers are sticking to their hips though - maybe more of the same majicks?

These are the old late 80's GW sculpts saved from my bits box. I had glued them decades ago, so  hence who the one on the left has crap looking shoulder joints.

No pic makes a blog more interesting, than that of skeleton bootie.

 Lastly, got these Saxon Slingers done. They are initially to be used for my Dark Ages (Lion Rampant) project, but I'll also be utilising them for Frostgrave as Archers or Javelineers. Simple sculpts, simple paint jobs.

And that's that. So much crap going on in my work life with Union nonsense, it's hard to feel up to painting right now. Hoping that it all sorts itself out and that the membership vote goes smoothly on Friday - wish us luck!

200th Post! (And a competition.)

As I sit here about to watch Wales versus England (AND WIN!!!) in the group stages of the Rugby World World Cup, I realise that I've been at this blogging business almost 4 years and am now writing my 200th post. Not as much as some, but certainly impressive for a lazy sod like me. So with me averaging almost a post a week and at the writing of this post having 111 followers on my widget-thingie I'm rather chuffed in this blogging effort of mine.

20 year old jersey still holding up. :)

Enough going on though. Meat and 'tatoes-wise, this post is a bit weak on substance as this week has been a tiring one at work and I've only managed to get the remaining 3 skeleton warriors finished of my original 10. Same recipe as the other seven and all together they do look rather splendid and Harryhausen-esque if I do say so myself!

Quick and dirty bone-boys

These chaps ain't got no back.

Group shot! Heroquest sorceror is happy cos he finally is seeing some action!

Now. With 200 posts and seeing other bloggers doing similar, I thought I'd put back into the blogosphere some and offer up a small contest for the occasion. So here are three prizes I plan to send out to three lucky winners, announced on.... oh... maybe Halloween (So my feeble memory doesn't have an excuse for forgetting.). All you have to do to win is be a follower of my blog, leave a comment and let me know just how much better the Welsh game was in the 2nd half compared to the Saesneg fumblings. You didn't have to have watched the game, just get creative. :) I'll pick three winners at random and will ask for email addresses once picked. Prizes will be one each and selected in the order that the names are picked out by those three. If you somehow feel you'd like to advertise this competition elsewhere, then leave a link in your comment below to said advert and I'll give your name a 2nd chance for the draw for these "fabulous" prizes. (I'll cover shipping, though I'll not cover any customs fees that might, but shouldn't, arise.)

1990's Ral Partha Ghost Dragon

A complete set of WEG Storm Troopers from the original d6 Star Wars rpg.

This book chronicling Abaddon's 13th Crusade or some such.

Thanks all for following, reading and commenting on my posts. The pleasure through these 4 years has been all mine.

More rpg figs

Painting bug is back so taking full advantage of it.

Got the rider done for the Dire Wolf I showed last post. Although he's supposed to be an orc, I painted him up in the same colours as the Hobgoblins I'd completed months ago. He'll be their leader and I hope will put the willies up my players when I plonk him down on the map. The figs are old Grenadier sculpts and the rider used to have a metal crescent shaped back banner thing, but I've long since lost that, so used a plastic GW bad moon one instead. Looks okay for what I need it for.

Hoshaar the White Crescent is a slaver who's business is thriving under the current state of things in the Riverlands.

Perhaps could have done a little more on the rear of the back banner, o well. 

Wierd sculpt on the Wolf's tail - looks more suited to a horse tail to me.

Got a little lazy on those elbow spikes and painted them the same colour of the leather. 

I then went on to finish up another trio of skeleton warriors to join the other 4 I showed last post. More of the same from last time - simple quick paint jobs on some old sculpts.

For being 30-year old or so sculpts, they still look pretty good.

Not sure what I'll work on next, there's still 3 of my skeleton warriors to go and 6 archers too. Though I'll probably get started on my 28mm WW2 Winter Soviets as Densmol is coming over Wednesday for a paint session.

Handful of rpg minis

Been trying to get through the basic block of minis I think I'll need for the initial chapter of my upcoming rpg campaign.

First up, completed ninja character mini. Again, an old 1980's Citadel Miniatures sculpt made for the original Talisman boardgame.

Huge feet obviously means, he wears huge shoes, right?

Fed up with stupid sword hand that has come off and been reattached 20-odd times in 20-odd years so it stays as is. A little wonky, but it'll do.

Next up a small group of skeletons. These are also old Citadel Miniatures from their first plastic Skeletons boxed set. Seeing as they're just going to be fodder for the heroes to take down, I didn't bother to get rid of mold lines and their paintjobs are super simple.

Blood smear on their foreheads is part of the magic ceremony to animate them!

Still 6 more of these warriors to do and a further 6 skeleton archers too.

Lastly, part one of two on this one. A "Mini-boss" and it's mount - a Dire Wolf.

This sculpt reminded me of Gmork, the wolf-villain from the 1984 film, Never Ending Story.

Skulls, for the Wolf Skull God?

The rider will be up next!

Star Wars: Armada Repaints

I'll start this post with a swift public message:

THE BLOGGER APP IS A PILE OF CRAP

*this message was brought to you by a disgruntled Dai who'll not be using the listed phone app again. Ever.*

Ahem. But I digress.

The reason for this mild outburst is from when I attempted to upload a new post using said phone app, it instead deleted my previous post (Apologies to those kind enough to add comment) and the full post I had laboriously typed up up til that point.

Enough whining about the past though.

Here are my repaints of my friend Gregg's Rebel ships so that they look better on the tabletop and also can be more easily told apart during games.

Kept one in it's original colours so the classic Tantive IV ship from Episode IV can be represented. Just gave it's markings a sprucing up and the general body-work some highlights.

Engine Glows got a touch up on all ships.

Switched the red markings on the 2nd Corvette to blue. I like it.

Complete re-paint on the 3rd Corvette. Saw one like this on the internet and decided to copy the scheme.

Blue glows on this one as orange would have blended in too much with the red. 

Gregg's 2nd Nebulon-B repainted green with orange stripe. 

So now Gregg's fleet at least looks boss, even though it's yet to win a game...

I also got these two Confederate Officers done for ACW games. I intend to use them as Brave Colonels in Regimental Fire & Fury and as Heroes counters for when I play Sam Mustafa's Longstreet rules set. Simple paintjobs on some characterful sculpts.

Blue Moon 15mm sculpt on the left, unknown manufacturer on the right.

Late last night I also started getting paint on my skeleton warriors that I intend to use in my rpg campaign. Still 6 archers to get started on too, but I'm going to let my son do those.