Painting Challenge entry 4: Pulp Character

My entry for the Villain category for the Painting Challenge was one of the Lead Adventure minis Pulp Investigators. Kind of a impulse buy as I just ordered him at the same time with their VSF Ottomans. There is just no way you can resist the call of Cthulhu. Originally he wasn't even supposed to end up as my villain, but I had totally forgotten the fortnight challenge and would not have had enough time to finish converting and painting my Nurgle Demon Prince.

Anyhow here is Mr. Edwards with his pet Bolivian flying toad. Not everyone has been convinced by his claims that it is truly a normal species found in Bolivia, but with the emergence of new species found by the brave explorers of the Empire you can never be too sure. However incidents with various cultists and "magicians" have seemed to be on the rise ever since Mr. Edwards came back from his latest research trip.

ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

This was actually quite a quick paintjob as I only had an hour or two to finish this off in time for the end of the round. I decided to go with a completely black suit in part to practice painting black and also because it was faster than starting to to pinstripes etc. :) The suit is actually black only in the greases with everything painted in various shades of grey. I tried keeping the contrast between the shades and highlights as that seems to work best for blacks and whites. Taking a picture of it seemed nigh impossible though so the colour seems quite monotone at least on my screen.

World Champions! (and some painting too)

Finally after 16 years the Finnish youth hockey team managed to take gold in ice hockey! And what's even better it was against our beloved arch enemy Sweden! The team was originally thought to be pretty useless as most of the stars were playing in NHL etc. and couldn't participate, but showing true finnish Sisu they managed to drag themselves to the finals and eventually to a victory. Some minor interferance from the Canadian and Swiss referee duo who decided to hand out 3 quite shaky and disputable penalties in 7 minutes while Finland was leading the game helping the swedes in making the score even. Some great playing on overtime by the Finns finally secured victory though so maybe we can forget the blind zebras.

The traditional Swedish hockey face is even better than winning. 2011 Finland won the championship with the men's team and now with the youth team. Both against Sweden.

To go with today's theme and our national sport, I finally got started with painting the Winter War Finnish troops that I got just before Christmas. First squad under the brushes, with another already basecoated and the last two based, but without any paint.

I'm going for a dirty look to represent troops that have been on the front for quite a while. I don't think I ever saw a white snow uniform while in the army and I'm going for the same look with these by building from a sandy color upwards. I've now got 3 layers done and still 2 to go. Still a bit unsure if I should paint dirt on the knees and elbows or not. During Winter War it was unnaturally snowy so troops wouldn't trot and lie on the ground and get dirty, but then again all that artillery fire and fighting in trenches would throw quite a bit of dirt everywhere. Maybe I'll do one guy as a test to see how he turns out.

I'm not sure if painting the bases brown was a good idea or not. Makes leaving bare ground on the bases a lot easier, but I'm a bit anxious if my snow mixture will leave the brown shining through or not.

Challenge progress

Painting is progressing, albeit quite slowly as I have to work on my Master's thesis to finally get out of UNI. I also only just realized that the next fortnight challenge is ending on this sunday and not next week so I had to jump another project in front of the ACW stuff. I won't have time to paint a Demon Prince as the Villain so I went for something that might be even better.

Here we have an Investigator mini from Lead Adventure with a certain familiar pet. Quickly did the skin and the mini Chtulhu (or Rare Bolivian Flying Toad as the character keeps claiming to everyone) as I have friends coming over today for beers and hockey and tomorrow being booked for playing Zombicide. I think I'll just paint a black pinstriped suit so that shouldn't take too much time tomorrow to finish him up.

ACW isn't completely forgotten either. The guys are only missing the metal parts for their rifles and some beards and then they are ready for basing, all 140 of them. The next batch will probably be slightly smaller to make them a better "snack" in between other projects. Pretty hard to take a decent picture of them with only my cellphone as I'm too lazy to get the DSLR for just 1-2 shots.

Muskets and Tomahawks test game

Some members of my gaming club were playing a Last of the Mohicans campaign game yesterday using the Muskets and Tomahawks ruleset. I went to join in on the fun and to try the rules for the first time. The rules seemed quite simple to learn and they were fast to play, so a great evening game. I especially liked the card activation system that the game uses as this brings some additional suspense to the turn sequence. I think this could be a really nice 'Beer & Pretzels' game to start. Maybe in the future when I've managed to clear my table at least a tiny bit... Anyway thanks to Teemu and Mikko for setting this up!

Sorry for the image quality. I only had my cellphone with me so not too much eye candy here :)

The game itself focused on the British escorting the Munro sisters through a wooded path. Little did they know that the French were waiting with their Indian allies intent on taking them prisoner.

 The Brits advance cautiously along the path while their Woodsmen scout the other flank.

The trap is sprung with Indians and French irregulars streaming from the forests. Things look good for the British as their first volley immediately drives an Indian warband away from the area. However the French return fire and send one of the British units fleeing.

 While the British infantry ties down the enemy, the officer driving their cart (borrowed from some local Persian re-enactors) makes a dash for safety only to run into another hidden Indian unit. The Indians promptly assault the cart managing to drag one of the girls away.

The cart gets stuck in a muddy part on the road while trying to get away from the attacking Indians.

 Magua shows his true colors by attacking Major Heyward who was waiting for his help to release the captured girl. After a quick struggle Heyward is captured as well.

 The French move in to support a group of Indians attacking the cart while it's still stuck in the mud.

"Au revoir!"
Against all odds the last Munro girl and her guarding officer beat back the Indian assault to dash away towards safety.

Chingachgook and friends arrive and dash to help the British, but are  they too late?

Meanwhile Magua and his friends make off with Major Heyward and one of the Munro girls.

The carts escape was cut short just inches from safety by some lucky shots from and Indian warband who decided that dead girls are better than escaped girls.

French along with their Indian allies quickly mop up the remaining British and move out before Chingachgook can come to meddle with their plans.