Fawcett Avenue Conscripts: Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII Submission #13 - The Last of the Special Studio Challenges

This is my final submission of projects completed for AHPC XIII which consists of a grab bag of Special Studio themed challenges. For the 'Swords and Sandals' challenge I painted a 15mm Spartan De Bellis Antiquitatis army consisting of 12 stands of Spear and an optional stand of Psiloi. If I recall correctly these are from Falcon Miniatures that are now no longer in production. They were cleaned up and primed a quarter century ago, and have been sitting in the pending box ever since. Once again, the Special Challenges has cleared a project from the 'To Do' list. They were painted using Army Painter Warpaints Tannned Flesh for all the skin areas, Partha Paints Bronze Metallic for the helmets, greaves, and shields, and Vallejo acrylics for everything else. They were mounted on metal bases of the appropriate DBA dimensions that I still have in my storage boxes, and the groundwork completed. The temple in the background is one I built for a scenario that Curt hosted back in the early days of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts.

This is Sparta!

A closeup of the General's stand

Next is a figure of Alex Kingston as 'River Song' in the Doctor Who episode called 'The Impossible Astronaut'. That may sound more like Sci-Fi, but she's wearing jeans and packing a big iron on her hip. That says Gunslinger to me. This figure was a freebie that came with my order from Warlord Games back in December. Just the thing for the Westerns studio.

River Song

For the 'Book' theme I was inspired by C.S. Forrester's 1933 novel 'Death to the French' featuring Rifleman Dodd. The figures I have are two Perry Miniatures plastic 95th Riflemen that were another freebie with an issue of Wargames Illustrated that sat in storage until now. They are very nice minis with lots of detail, easy to assemble with minimal cleaning of mold lines. Their rifle green uniforms were painted using Vallejo Luftwaffe Camouflage Green, followed by a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil.

Riflemen Dodd and Harris

The last entry for the "Director's Chair" is a De Bellis Antiquitatis army for the High Medieval Period, specifically IV/13(a) Medieval German 1106 - 1235CE consisting of 1 x 3Knights (General), 4 x 3Knights that can dismount to 4Blades, 4 x 4Spear, 1 x 4Crossbow, and 2 x 2Psiloi(Skirmishers). This is another army that has been sitting in the 'Pending' tray for at least quarter century. I had bought it as an alternative to my Teutonic Order army that I had been using in a local biannual DBA tournament, but never got beyond the priming stage. It gathered dust for many years in a tray on top of my filing cabinet before being put in a storage box where it was 'out of sight, out of mind', keeping my unpainted Spartan army company until now.

The figures are all Gladiator Miniatures from prior to the line being taken over by Black Hat Miniatures. Since 2018 they have been available from Fighting15s. While some of the figures look a bit chunky, I liked the attention to detail that the sculptor put into the armour. The only down side was that the mounted figures don't come with spears, so I had to make them from florist wire. I probably thought I needed to have bright colours on the figures, so I had primed them in white rather than black so many years ago. They were painted using Vallejo acrylics, including all the shield designs. The foot figures looked a little too clean, so they got a wash of Citadel Seraphim Sepia at the end. Here is the final result.