Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII Submission #8 More Challenge Studio Projects.

It has been a while since I posted any of the AHPC submissions on the Fawcett Avenue blog. My anti-virus program keeps preventing me from logging on due to detecting malicious URLs on the site. I am not sure was is going on, but it seems that I am still able to post, so here goes.

First up are two 28mm figures of William the Conqueror and his brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeaux, that I picked up decades ago which then languished in a drawer until now. If I recall correctly, these are some early sculpts from Gripping Beast, but if anyone recognizes them, let me know. I am not planning on painting up a Norman army in 28mm as I already have one in 15mm, but plans can change. They seemed appropriate for the movie, 'The War Lord'.

 I mounted them on fender washers which are the same diameter as the Games Workshop cavalry bases, and then used some spackle to get a smooth transition between the figure's base and the washer. As with all my other figures, I glued some fine sand to the base with PVA, and then primed the figures black with an airbrush. I used Vallejo acrylics to paint them, along with some Citadel washes, primarily on the horses.

 

 

 To go along with the figures I built a tower that was inspired by the one that features in the movie. I had a thick cardboard cylinder in my terrain building hoard for years. It measured 5.5" high with a diameter of 5". I didn't think that was tall enough to be Chrysagon's tower, so it was augmented by three layers of 1.5" thick blue styrofoam, plus a layer of thick cardboard to form the floor at the top to give a total height of 10". I originally thought I would clad the entire structure with stones cut from more blue styrofoam, but it was taking too much time, and I only did as far as the top of the foundation, as well as the stones around the windows and the door. The rest of the 'stones' were made using self-adhesive address labels that I cut into smaller lengths and stuck on the cylinder with slight gaps in between. It's a technique I used when I refurbished a Vauban style star fort a few years ago. The floor and the door are coffee stir sticks, and the iron banding on the door is made from strips of thin card. Once everything was glued and pasted, the whole thing got painted with black latex house paint, followed by a dry brush with medium grey paint and a final dusting of light grey. I used acrylic craft paints for the brown on the floor and the door, and a green wash on the stones of the foundation. All in all, it was approximately eight hours of work to get it to this stage. At some point I need to build a dedicated ramp and/or bridge to get up to the height of the door, but that is a future project. If I build one of these again, I am going to get a Proxxon hot wire cutter first. 

 

  Next are some old school Miniature Figurines which I have painted up as the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers and the 79th Cameron Highlanders. The Fusiliers were a gift from a student who had gone to England on holiday and brought back a box of 'toy soldiers'. The paint job was pretty sketchy, including painting the drummer in reversed colours, something that 'Royal' regiments didn't do. The Highlanders were picked up at Keystone Hobbies in Winnipeg back in the early 1980s, and at one point I thought I would do a small diorama with them. So the sketchy paint job got stripped off, and then all twelve minis were primed black with an airbrush before painting them with Vallejo acrylics. The Fusiliers were quite easy compared to painting 'Cameron of Erracht' tartan and diced hose on the Highlanders. Once they were painted, I mounted them on 40mm x 60mm pieces of Masonite and completed the ground work.

 

 

  The last set for this submission is 'The Hero's Journey' starring Aragorn as he progresses from Ranger to Captain, and finally to King in 'The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King'. The figures are three different versions of Aragorn done by Games Workshop depicting him in the Attack at Weathertop, at his encounter with the Army of the Dead, and before the Black Gate. 

 Thanks for stopping by. More to follow.