Finishing up 2017

This post has been a long time coming, but I guess better late than never.

Even though I haven't been posting anything, I wasn't completely idle in the last few months of the year. I ended up finishing my Soviet project, painted a few battalions and batteries of Napoleonics as well as got started with a quick few minis in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The end of the year also saw me switch jobs, which lead to a rather busy December and start of the new year trying to get on track with new responsibilities and new products in an industry I haven't worked before.

Numbers wise 2017 wasn't too impressive with the lowest numbers of miniatures painted and games played in years. My painting slump that started in the last half of 2016 continued through 2017 and I didn't really start to get my painting interests back until the autumn. As well as a distinct drop in the quantity of games played the variety also came down as my schedule didn't really fit our Wednesday gamedays which included more varied game systems and mostly could just fit the Flames of War gamedays in and those only partly out of responsibility as I'm one of the guys running them and opening the club for others. 2018 should hopefully bring a change to that with a new Napoleonics campaign finally starting as well as changed schedules at home allowing me to participate more in different game days at the club.

To finish off the post a quick gallery of the  stuff that I managed to finish up in the last couple of months as well as a group shot of the whole Soviet project. 11 more T-34s, a Katyusha battery, the two battalions of Prince Anton Regiment and two batteries for my 1813 Saxons as well as some wild animals that I started my Painting Challenge with.

Frostgrave monsters

After finishing my warband for Frostgrave I needed some random monsters to populate the tables. I bought quite a few random minis at Salute with this in mind and dug into my archives for old random purchases to paint up.

As Frostgrave usually only has a few monsters on table at a time and I was under some time constraints to get them finished for our game day these were mostly speed painted with drybrushing and washes. Luckily skeletons and furry creatures are easy to get decent looking that way.

The Skeletons are from Wargames Foundry from the Casting Room Miniatures range and present the two Skeleton characters pack. Lovely sculpts with some very imaginative poses. Unfortunately they are very fragile with only a millimeter thick spine and due to that one of the pack is missing as he snapped and I couldn't get it fixed yet.

The Bears are from Foundry as well and the succubi an older Reaper sculpt that I got as a freebie from Caliver books for buying some Frostgrave items from them.

And the final four are some of the more random miniatres that I had in my collections. These are Tom Meier's sculpts from his own company Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures. He has a line of miniatures sculpted from the stories told by his young daughter. The missus wanted some of the ballerinas riding unicorns and carrying bombs so I figured I'd order some minis as well. 3 Bushwoolies and a flying sabre-toothed mole completed my order and finally after a few years in the cupboard I actually got them painted. Considering that I prepped them for the 2014 edition of Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge it's a bit embarrassing how long it took to get them painted. Especially as they only took a short time to get them all painted.

That's the first half of my monsters. I still have quite a few Heresy Miniatures and Reaper Bones left that have now been based and basecoated. Haven't managed to do any painting in the last two weeks though so not much progress after that. I'm leaving of for our summer cottage in the weekend and a hobby bag has been packed. We'll see what I find the motivation to paint there. Epic 40k, Flames of War, Napoleonics and Frostgrave stuff is all packed up. I'm just going to paint what ever strikes my fancy when I'm there, so it remains to be seen what's ready next :)

Painting Challenge entries 11 & 12: German WW2 personalities and guards

I've been keeping busy with another two entries again. As they are similarily themed and due to Curt's holidays were posted just few days apart instead of the normal week I'll just post them here at the same time. I've been working longer hours since starting at a new job in the beginning of the month so no spectacular progress on the painting front, but still something to show for a few weeks of work. With these done I'm at 999 points with 1000 being my goal. The entry mini is still to be finished as are the 4 Infinity models that I started already in December so I'll be achieving my goal even though I didn't paint even half of what I had lined up in the beginning. Then again I've painted quite a bit of things I had no plans to do when the challenge started.

I painted these up for a club Bolt Action games day where I was hosting a game featuring a British assault on a German HQ and needed some guardsmen and other miscellaneous figures. The first batch is Warlord Games with their Feldgendarmerie and "Guarding the Chateau" packs both included here as well as some extras like the surrendering Jerry and Sgt Steiner. Quality wise these "new" packs are definately of a lower quality than some of the previous Warlord metals. The difference is very apparent especially in their faces. Might be a new sculptor or then these are some really old moulds that they've just dug up again.

The second batch is from Wargames Foundry. These are some of their older Perry sculpts and do include some wonderfully characterful poses. Especially the guardsman with his arms crossed, head held down with eyes almost closed while trudging along on his route, is just perfect and pretty much sums up what most soldiers feel when having to stand guard.

Painting Challenge entry 18: Mop-up

Time for my last entry for the challenge. This was more of a mop-up of the last minis on the painting desk. The challenge desperado and dino were in a half finished state for over half the challenge and I only got them done last weekend.

First up is the entry fee. It's a Foundry Lawman that I got off a clubmate. Turned out quite nicely in the end and I think the blue pants really give some nice contrast without being too far away from the earthy colors on the rest of his clothing.

 The next fella is a Gripping Beast Bard for Saga. Not sure if he's going to get any use in games as his rules can make your Warlord a brutal killing machine or a total time bomb waiting to ruin your game. Still it's a cool mini and adds some nice narrative into the games.

Finally Danny the Dino! 2 euros from some local store. I filled his huge mould lines and mismatches with greenstuff and repainted with my airbrush. He was sort of a therapy project that I did on and off when I was bored with everything else and had the airbrush out. Everything except for the eyes, teeth  and nails are done with an airbrush. Turned out rather nicely even if I say so myself. Good practice for some Warhammer Chimeras that I have lined up. Now I just need to figure out some scenario for In Her Majestys Name that I can use him in :)

And for those of you who don't read the amazing Analogue Hobbies blog here is the artist and video behind Danny's name. Watch at your own risk as it's just horribly bad.