Hardboiled Detective and the Long Goodbye to the Painting Challenge

Well the Painting Challenge came to an end on back on Friday and I submitted my last entry just a bit earlier than that. I still needed to paint up an anti-hero to send to Curt as my entry fee. I knew going in that I wanted to do a Film Noir detective and to try to do him in greyscale. I found the perfect miniature in the Reaper chronoscope line and got him ordered in.

I've never painted a miniature in greyscale before but I thought back to my boyhood art classes that mostly consisted of two tasks; mixing colors to match paint chips and painting still-lives in monochrome. So I broke out all of my greys and off greys and set to work. I tried to keep each piece of clothing in a separate tone to break it apart and give it that look of colors translated to black and white.

I gave the end of the lit cigarette the only touch of color. From looking at other peoples work it seems like that touch of color is what really sells the grey scale. Plus I think it looks cool.
I'll be trying to ship him out this week. Hopefully the cross border postal system will be kind to him.

I've really enjoyed my time in the Painting Challenge. Its been the most fun I've had painting in years and a special thanks to Curt and all of the other participants for making it so. I got figures done for several projects that have been sitting idle. As fun as that was I think the highlight for me was the Bonus rounds. I got to work on a few figures that I probably never would have otherwise. I'm particularly happy with the pennyfarthing cyclist that I sculpted. He along with the Uhtred conversion I did each got me a second place finish in the voting. I do regret missing out on two of the rounds however, and hopefully better planning next year will see me in all 6 rounds.

As far as overall production I think the past months of the Challenge have seen me paint more figures than I did in the previous year and possibly two years.

35 15/18mm infantry
1 15mm vehicle
1 28mm/ 15mm giant monster
Martian Tripod and drone
19 28mm figures (3 with their diorama base)
1 54mm scratchbuilt Cyclist



After this I'm going to be taking a bit of break from painting. I actually have a few started miniatures that didn't quite get done for the Challenge so they'll probably be trickling in. But for the most part I'm going to concentrate on sculpting and getting some terrain done. At least that's the plan for now.

Bonus Round 6: Uhtred of Bebbanburg

For the final bonus round the theme was Anti-Hero. I actually had a plan for this one laid out a while ago but forgot to get the correct miniature ordered in time. ( When he does arrive this week he'll still get painted up and submitted as my entry fee.) I was left looking around for another option as
I didn't want to miss another bonus entry round.

Fortunately I had just read the latest book in the Saxon Stories series by Bernard Cornwell. I still had the command sprue from the plastic Gripping Beast Thegns and figured I could turn the leader into the indomitable Uhtred of Bebbanburg. First up the figure need a couple of modifications. I sculpted some fur onto his cloak to give him a bit more savage appearance and of course changed the prominent cross on his chest to an amulet of Thor.

 

I couldn't remember a good description of colors from the books but I always imagined him in grays and other dull colors so I went with a sea grey for the cloak but gave him a touch of color on the hem of his tunic. I hand painted on a wolf's head for his shield as the traditional heraldry of Bebbanburg and gave him overall a little bit of weathering to give that fresh off the battlefield look.

 Don't forget to check out all of the entries and vote for your favorites!

 

Martian Tripod

My first full sized Tripod is done for All Quiet on the Martian Front. I think the colors actually work better on the bigger version than they did with the drone.

The kit went together very easily once I managed to track down some instructions for assembly. And painting was pretty quick for such a large model. I really like the size of the model compared to the 15mm infantry. He really towers over the human figures and gives a nice sense of implacable evil.



The Brits I painted earlier look like they are in a difficult situation standing alone against the tripod.

After posting him up for the Challenge earlier this week Curt raised an interesting criticism. He was of the opinion that the face has a sort of goofy look to them, even likening the noble Martian war machine to a clown's face with the eye as a big red nose. I have to say he has a point, and it comes across especially in pictures. Since I have two more to build I might try to recess the eye into the face plate instead.



Malevolent eye or clown nose? You decide!

It got me to think about other Martian designs I've seen before and I have to admit I like other more sinister versions much better than this one. One of my favorites is actually from the JLA cartoon and had a much more organic and asymmetrical look to the tripod. They even gave Superman a hard time for a while up until the end of the episode when they were destroyed by the handful.

The other picture was pulled off of Wikipedia and I think this is more in the theme I wish they had gone for in All Quiet. Its much more menacing looking with a more organic styling to the machinery. Its not that I don't like the tripod as is, I do think it has a nice retro-futuristic style to it, but now all I can see is that damn clown nose.

 

 

Armored British Infantry

I managed to finish up my squad of BEF infantry from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I had started three of them back in the fall but sidelined them to work on Painting Challenge entries. Now they and the other seven got their time on the painting table.

I had a debate with myself on how to paint them but finally went with basically the same as my regular infantry with the addition of grey/white for the helmets and breastplate. That way they will fit in in with the rest of my British ( all 6 of them HaHa) but still stand out on the battlefield from them.

My favorite out of this group is the Coil Gunner. I wish all of them had the same look. There is just something about the heavy armor, and the massive gun and backpack that just really speaks to me. I might try to make more of my own version of these troops based on his design.

For my purposes they are guys are going to be the specialist troops for the British Empire tasked to fight the various weird occurrences happening both at home and around the globe.

The squad getting down to work!

Bonus Round Entry 4: Merlin and Pal

The fourth bonus round is now up. Check them all out here!

 This time the theme was Myth and I knew just what I wanted to do. I had purchased a set of Sub-Roman British Arthurian characters from Musketeer miniatures (now Footsore). These are for use in my dungeon delving set that I'm still in process of building. I don't have Arthur but I picked up all of the foot figures.As you might guess one of the influences of this project is the The Warlord Chronicles by Cornwell, so I tried to paint the pair of them up to fit with the books.

First up is Merlin. I wanted to keep him in black Druid robes so the rest of the colors went around that. I initially tried doing the feathers on the cloak like they came from various birds but it didn't read very well so went back to an off white. I also spent some extra time on the fur cloak. I guess it must of come from some giant bear based on the pattern I painted but if anyone could get one it would be Merlin.

The other figure in the pack was Lancelot. In the books Lancelot is not exactly hero but I do like this sculpt alot and I'm going to be using him as a more generic hero anyways. I decided to try my hand at freehanding the shield emblem and settled on a pair of fish. I've been considering how to work in the Christian/ Pagan conflict that is a big part of the books into my dungeon project, so I thought fish would be a good neutral symbol that could be used for either faction if I need too. Fish of course lend themselves to his colors being a sea blue.

I need to try to make some more of the dungeon pieces for the project next. I have a few started but they'll probably stay on the backburner till the Painting Challenge is over. Hopefully I can get a couple more of the figures done however.

Dagon and his Spawn

When I went to finish up the rest of the Khurasan deepones for the Painting Challenge I was in for a bit of a surprise.  There were two extra minis than I expected. The pack came with 12 deepones in 6 different poses not 10 as I remembered. I also found this Reaper bones fishman I had purchased some time ago to go along with them and thought he would work great as Dagon, lord of the Deepones. Or at least some sort of titanic fishman leviathan.

This is as close to a beach as my scenery gets.



I painted them up pretty much the same as the first three but with some variations in shades for the skin. The big guy also got his armor plates painted up in a pale greeny bone color to emphasize them. I like the way he looks like the prehistoric armored fish the Dunkleosteus. Actually the local museum here has a nice set of the fossilized remains on display and I always enjoy taking a look at them.   

Time to add that Innsmouth look to this town!

I also paid some extra attention to his eye. If I've learned anything from watching Godzilla movies its that the eye is a great focal point for giant monsters.



All 12 of the Deep Ones and Dagon

I tried to do the bases up as sort beach like this time. I included some pool like areas on a few of them and some simple water effect with some gloss varnish. I suppose I need to do a beach or waterfront board at some point for them but I need to finish my regular ones first.


If you add in the Shoggoths I painted earlier its a pretty sizable force.

I also need to stat these guys up and try to find some more fish cultists or miniatures to use as hybrids to round the force out.

Bonus Round Entry 3: Victorian Cyclist

The third theme round was Victorian. Now I had quite a few options for this one since most of my 15mm stuff could have fit in that category. But I really wanted to do someone riding a pennyfarthing. The problem: I don't have a miniature for that and I've already decided to try to do the Challenge without buying any new minis. The solution: brought about by the suggestion of my wife who shares my fascination with high wheelers, to sculpt my own.

Sculpting progression. I meant to take some more pics as he progressed but as usual I forgot.

I started by finding a picture to use as reference and then working out an armature to start sculpting on. He wasn't really designed around any scale just off the picture once printed out. After measuring he is about 54mm, which has worked out to a nice scale to work in. All in all the sculpting took most of the two weeks but by far the most difficult part was making the bicycle. A couple of things didn't turn out exactly as I envisioned, and there was a good bit of trial and error in there to get a finished product. Also quite a bit of swearing especially in the construction of the front wheel.

While the pose matched the reference, I gave him a new outfit.

If I was doing it over again and didn't have a time limit this time I would figure out a better solution for the wheels first and go from there. As a self critique I think my usual flaws are still in evidence with this guy, mainly face, hands and proportions. The moustache hides alot of the flaws on the face and the painting some on the hands but his head still looks a bit small to me and his upper arms are too bulky. On the plus side I think my technique is getting better and the rest of the body is in good proportions. Using a good reference was a big help there.

Once sculpting was complete painting was pretty quick. The bike was done in blue to honor my first bike when I was younger. The rest of the color selection went from there. I wanted to do a fancy patterned waistcoat but after a first failed attempt I realized I wouldn't have the time to do it justice. After painting 15s recently doing a larger figure like this is quite a pleasure. You get alot of canvas to work some subtle blends in without driving yourself crazy. Not a scale I would game in but one I will be coming back to for modelling.

 

I don't usually talk too much about the photography but I'm really happy with the way this one came out. I don't have any terrain to scale to go with a larger figure like this so instead used my usual 15mm terrain. I pushed it to the far back of the photobooth and made sure my camera settings would blur it out into the background. As usual special thanks to my wife for the assistance with post processing.

 

Remember to check out all of the other entries for the third round and vote for your favorites!

 

The Martians are Coming!

After having received the goods from the Kickstarter almost 6 months ago I'm now starting on working on the Martians from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I've previously painted up a handful of the human infantry and have some more on the worktable but I've avoided the Martians as I hadn't really figured out a scheme for them yet. Since I have 6 of the metal drones I thought I'd try out a paint scheme on one first.

I debated between doing a glossy black or an all chrome effect but wasn't really sure if I could reliably pull either one off. I expect I would get really bored or frustrated doing either one. I decided to try out a scheme with  a little more Victorian/ Steampunk flavor and opted for a metallic blue-green and brass.



With my recently painted villagers.

The metallic is pretty straight forward as I painted a base coat of Vallejo Gunmetal mixed with a bit GW Coelia Greenshade ink. (As an aside I've had good luck with the new GW inks but not really as inkwashes. They don't have as much coverage or sink into the crevices as much as the old line but they work really well as glazes or filters and also as color mediums to add to paints. The new names are terrible and impossible to remember. I had to check the pot several times to make sure I wasn't misspelling it. For normal ink washes I've found Army painter's tones to be really nice.)
After that was dry I gave it a wash of the same ink. I drybrushed it up with Vallejos natural steel next and then another ink wash of the blue green. Finally a drybrush of Vallejo silver on the edges to bring back the metallic glint.


The drone with an actual All Quiet infantry figure. The All Quiet range is really closer to 20mm than 15mm.

The brass followed my usual pattern of Vallejo Bronze, Strong tone wash, and highlight with Vallejo Brass. On bigger surfaces it will get a Vallejo Old Gold final highlight. I went with an orange for the eye and after some debate the tentacle arm was painted up in grey since it doesn't really look like its made out of metal.

If you look closely you can see that this drone has run afoul of a dastardly stray hair attack.

 

I like the look so next up I'll have to try out one of the larger walkers and finish up the rest of the drones.

Lower Fickleham Vigilance Committee

These five were part of my latest entry for the Painting Challenge. I'm separating out my Martian drone as a shameless way to boost my blog post count.

I need to touch up the edges of those bases.

All five are from a Khurasan miniatures modern zombie pack featuring some hikers, a zombie dog, and some locals. I've previously painted one of the villagers up and this time finished up the other five. I'm not sure what I can do with the hikers as they are both obviously modern with puffy jackets and shorts. The dog will probably get used at some point as he should be a quick paintjob.

 

I went with a muted earth tone scheme in an attempt to make them fit in more as Victorian citizens. The woman had an scandalously short dress on ( ankles and even calves were clearly visible) so I made it a decent length with some putty and then added an apron so she could be painted up as a domestic. I'm not really sure if a woman of that era would wear a coat like the one she has so I figured I 'd paint it up like a canvas slicker she grabbed in her haste to run out into the streets.

"That sweater is so ugly I might just shoot you!"

The second figure I had doubts with was the gentleman in a sweater. My research didn't really turn up if tartan sweaters were made at that time but that's the effect I went for. I think it came out looking more like an ugly Christmas sweater. I probably should have gone with the fisherman sweater that I put on the other guy but I didn't want them to all look like they just wandered up from the dock. This is one of those strange times in miniature painting where a lack of knowledge of historical haberdashery has led to some suboptimal painting choices. He'd also probably look better if I had added a hat.

"Run for it!"

Bonus Round Entry 2: Mount and Riders

 

It took me quite some time to figure out what I wanted to do with this one. I trolled through my lead pile but came up with a disappointing selection of cavalry models. None of which sparked much interest in me. As much fun as the diversion of the first round was I wanted to get back to my main projects as well.

Union Land Ironclads are marked by both a production number and bear the Union shield.

Inspiration struck while going through my 15mm stuff as I had socked away a few models to form the core of my steampunk Union army. So I ended up working on a unit of dismounting Horseless Cavalry.

 

C Troop of the 9th Cavalry dismount on the edge of the poisoned zone.

The vehicle is actually a steam-tankette for 28mm from RAFM. When I first saw it I though it would scale much better as 15mm vehicle. I ended up extending the under chassis with some plasticard as it looked a little sliced off and awkward. I also added some extra bits to it including a new hatch on top and some towing attachments to the rear. Thus was born the Adams class stern-wheeler land ironclad.

As a frontier unit the 9th still hasn't received its full supply of new Prussian Green uniforms. Some still wear the older Calvary Blues.

I'm guessing that this is an older 3D printer model. It has some heavy layers from print layers on them. I kinda wished I filled them in a little better as the contrast between it and the flat plasticard on the bottom is rather stark. I did put some Mr. Surfacer on it in an attempt to blend it together but I guess I needed a couple more coats.

 

In progress shot to better see the extended chassis. I thought it gave it a bit more bulk for the scale. Would of liked to put all of those little rivets on it though ...

The Adams class Land Ironclad has become the workhorse of the plains fleet and central to the development of horseless cavalry units. This unarmed version is usually referred to the John Adams while the turreted one is the Sam Adams.

For the riders I'm using some of the US armored infantry from All Quiet on the Martian front. I figured these guys wouldn't want to walk around in all that heavy armor and might want to ride in on a vehicle like the Russian tankodesantniki from WW2.

The newly issued "Stevenson's Iron Lung" breathing equipment is vital for operation in the poisoned air of the Disputed Territories.

I converted a couple of the models so they could still be riding on top and one hanging on to the side as he is dismounting. Most were painted up in the Union's new Prussian Green uniform* but I also painted a few up in the older blues of the army.

* I just made that one up, but since my version of the Union is hostile to the British Empire I figured closer ties to Prussia might occur and the adoption of British styled khaki would be frowned upon. Plus I want my Confederates in khaki if I ever get to doing some.

Current Army doctrine is for Horseless Cavalry to dismount from towed carriages and advance into battle on foot, in practice most troopers have taken to riding directly on the ironclads.   

Don't forget to check out all of the great entries for the second round over at the Painting Challenge Blog.



Will the troopers discover the reason this homestead was abandoned?