Here you will find all the spectacular entries to the Painting Challenge Theme Bonus Rounds. Enjoy, vote and please leave comments for the participants!
I
was stuck with this bonus round, I didn't have any miniatures that
seemed to suggest the Far East or the Eastern front or even a good
rabbit figure for Easter. Finally I remembered this fellow from the
Brigade Games Town folk set. A mariner with a sextant.
I
had been at a loss as to what to do with him the action he his engaged
in is distinctly tied to being on board a ship. One generally doesn't
try to work out latitude and longitude when on land (OK maybe if your
on an overland trek say the Sahara you might).
Further
more other than his breaches his costume is distinctly outside the 17th
and 18th century dress of the rest of this set of figures. He found
life in this bonus round. I live outside Boston a city with a rich
Maritime history if you set out by sea from Boston you start off heading
East, you just can't help it. Your destination might be Europe,
California, or Asia but but you start off heading east.
The
uniform colors are of my own creation, inspired by a number of images I
found though I did not do an extensive study as I only decided on this
figure on Tuesday and painted him up in one night.
I
will probably use him as a display piece or he might find his way on my
friend Mike Paine's Pulp table which he calls "Hanghai", He'd look good
on any number of the ships in the harbour.
As
far as I'm concerned, the modest range of retreat from Moscow French
produced by the Perry twins are among the most beautiful and evocative
miniatures available. Put them together with the perfectly compatible
range of Poles from Murawski Miniatures, and it is now possible to make a
sizeable force for the retreat of 1812. In the last couple of
challenges I have painted up some infantry, but the combination of Sharp
Practice 2 and the East Bonus round has inspired me to make a conerted
push on the figures I have left.
The
twelve cavalry here belong to three groups. The first are Hessian
Chevau-Leger, some who have lost their impressive hemets, engaged in a
desperate charge.
Then there is a group of French Chasseurs à Cheval. The Hessians and French are from the same set, which comes with a range of head options.
The
final roup of three horsemen are skirmishers - a hussar, a cuirassier,
and what I assume to be a lancer from the Vistula legion. His czapka is
missing the distinctive plate on the front though - has it just fallen
off in the retreat, or have I mis-identified the trooper?
With
these figures I think I have finally come up with some decent snow
basing. I'm always intimidated trying to do snow with all you Canadians
looking on, and especially Curt 'Snow Lord' himself. For these bases, I
mixed Woodland Scenics snow with PVA and a little water, added a little
white paint and the merest whiff of blue ink. Somebody have a glance out
your window and let me know whether it looks realistic. The
weather here has been stifling hot, so I had the strange experience of
painting these cold looking figures while sweat was running down my face
and threatening to drip on them.
For
my east round submission I umm'd and ahh'd for a good long while as to
what to paint. I have a WW2 Japanese force, for use in Bolt Action or
Chain of Command, that needs painting but I am still undecided has to
how I want to go about painting them. I have some confederate infantry
for the American Civil War that I thought may fit the theme if I
stretched it. But I just wasn't comfortable with either of these. Sure I
could have just done up some more of my Arabs, "they're from the middle
east, too easy right?". I thought that wasn't in the spirit of a 'bonus
round' so went back to thinking.
Again sorry for bad photos :/
Then
I remembered that I had one of the assassin models from the Games
Workshop Lord of the Rings range, the one that was meant to be from
Harad. Brilliant! Yes I know the Haradrim are also called Southrons and
an Easterling would be more appropriate but this model will be more
useful and can be used, as of recent year, as a typical 'Eastern
Assassin'. (Perhaps one with a creed or too?)
The
Hasharin (pl. Hasharii) were a Harad Order founded in Sauron's name.
The despotic lords who ruled Harad exercised their will through them. To
question or contradict the will of a Hasharin led to death, whether by
public execution or through the quiet application of their murderous
skills. On the battlefield, the Hasharii acted as assassins, seeking out
enemy leaders and slaying them with poisoned blades. A Hasharin
wore many layers of clothing, concealing all of his body and most of
his head - only his eyes could be seen. Many weapons were tied to his
waist with a fabric belt.
- Games Workshop, The Lord of the Rings: Strategy Battle Game.
I
plan to use him in all manner of ways. He'll serve well as a target in
some skirmish scenarios or as a scout model for others. Or maybe just to
place near my opponent's general to make them feel nervous. No matter
what I use him for I am happy to have him painted after having him in a
box for oh so very long.
In
the Russian language and culture of the East consistently associated
with Asia, while the West is associated with Europe. The problem is that
my country is both in Asia and in Europe. Ekaterinburg City, where I
live, is located in Asia, and a summer house in the village, which is
already located in Europe.
Almost all of its history, my country has to
choose which way to civilization closer to her - European or Asian. And
in the end I chose something in between. In the words of one of our
philosopher: "Appearance we have a European and actions - Asia". And
provided you a miniature meets this duality. Its author - sculptor of
the Czech Republic (European country with Slavic population). It depicts
a dwarf (a typical representative of European mythology) in the image
of Russian BOGATYR (hero), which is characterized by parts of the armor
and clothes of Asian origin.
That's
the way I decided to translate the theme proposed by by Curt. I hope
that my association and my job will seem interesting.
When
I began to plan for this challenge I had no real idea other than to
rummage through my bits box and hope inspiration would hit me. Well it
did in the form of some miniatures I had acquired through a mystery 50
metal miniature lucky dip box I had purchased from Northstar Games.
These guys are from a game called A Fist Full of Kung Fu and formed part
of the Yakuza Gangsters set. I had no idea what I would do with them
when I found them in the lucky dip and had placed them into the bits box
for perhaps an eternal slumber. Well
this painting challenge to the rescue and when looking at them I was
inspired to make a gang with a lot of inspiration from those terribly
bad yet amazingly good 1980's Police V Yakuza movies. The Yakuza was the
arch enemy of every Detective for a good few years, you know the
detectives who were top tier martial arts experts trying to atone for
losing there partner in a gun fight and were just returning to work
after being shot themselves type, or a Green Ranger Seal. So
I bring you the Nakatomi Yakuza Gang in this East v West battle, a
ruthless group trying to muscle in on the drug and gambling trade of the
New York China Town district. They are led by Tsukuda Yoshimatsu, the
son of the clan leader who is trying to prove himself to his father and
earn the respect of the clan. He is supported by his loyal followers and
treats the local Police Department with disdain, if they can't be
bought off they will suffer the consequences with meddling in his
affairs!
The Nakatomi Gang, yes I loved the 80's.
Kubo
Kado (The Sumo) - A rising star of the Sumo grounds in Japan he fled to
the US after it was found out he threw a fight for money. Adopted into
the Nakatomi Clan he acts as Tsukuda's personal bodyguard and his
signature move is crushing people to death with his bare hands.
Sawa Yoichibei (Onmyōji) - Sawa is the Gang's sorceror, summoningShikigami
to manipulate their enemies or gather information. It is said Sawa is
over 1000 years old and has been sent by Tsukuda's father to keep an eye
on him.
Tsukamoto
Ukon (Uzi) - Tsukamoto loves his Uzi submachinegun and is his weapon of
choice when taking down the Gaijin. He moved to New York to study but
found himself drawn to the gangster lifestyle and was recruited to the
Nakatomi Gang by Tsukuda when he found him playing Double Dragon at the
local arcade.
Toma
Kane (The Doctor) - Toma is a medical student who acts as the Gangs
medic, doubling as the torturer when the gang needs those skills. He has
been known to cut his victims up just to practice putting them back
together, it is rumored he is acing his medical studies.
Tsukuda
Yoshimatsu (The Leader) - Tsukuda has been given this assignment from
his father in an attempt to secure a foothold in the US. Educated at the
best schools and universities Tsukuda is a highly intelligent person
and knows it, often mocking his victims before offering them single
combat with his preferred weapon, the Katana. Painting These
guys were such fun to paint, the scheme was simple yet effective
(hopefully) and suited a bad guy Yakuza gang that were the stereotype in
all those movies. The background was all free hand painted by myself
other than the three posters I have printed off and glued on. The dragon
is a copy of a wall mural I found online and the graffit is just random
ramblings.
I picked up Samurai Battles
a few years ago, and have found painting the miniatures to be somewhat
intimidating! The 'East' theme was the perfect excuse to confront this
demon.
Samurai Battles is a Commands and Colors hex
game variant. The figures are hard plastic 20mm multipiece. Here is my
command stand for the yellow side. I have enhanced the sabot base with
some 1:100 jinmaku curtains from Eureka.
The daimyo's banner is 'artificial', ie it is only there for game purposes rather than historical accuracy.
Painting the lines on the sashimonos is a chore. The chrysanthemum mon is a transfer.
The
horo was a bamboo frame worn by messengers and is said to provide
protection from bowfire from some directions. I suspect that visibility
and identification play a big role in its use.
A foul smell
had been assaulting the village from the East. It grew stronger and more
acrid each passing day. Eventually dust was seen on the horizon. A few
days after that a terrible tale of a demonic horde was told by what many
thought was a lunatic who burst into the village in rags and filth.
Perhaps just a bit more filthy than most regular villagers. In any case,
filth aside, he told a tale of a mounted horde in endless numbers
laying waste to all in its path. Later that night the village was woken
by the terrible screams of coinciding nightmares of a Dragon arriving
from the East and consuming all within its terrible wraith.
Dragon
is from Wyrd Miniatures and Mongols (28mm) are FireForge. The Dragon is
on a home made 75 x 75mm base. I purchased this beast to count as a
Dragon when I use my Mongol collection in a Fantasy setting (proxy as
elves because they have good archery). I was searching for an Eastern
Dragon or beasts for some time and when this pooped up in a newsletter
email I had found my beast.
I
was thinking of calling him Ess. Because he looks like the letter S
from certain angles. My daughter has told me that it looks like a Dragon
Ball Z dragon. If you comment please suggest a name.
After
having a grand plan for each theme round, and then backing out of it
this week not once, not twice, but three times, I finally came to a
decision on a fourth figure to submit! I
started out planning some Malifaux Ten Thunder Archers ( an Asian based
faction), then painted my Napoleonic Artillery and decided that they
could be eastern based as they were on campaign fighting Greg's evil
Austrians, I then finished my Rhino for Arena Rex and since it is based
on an Eastern Black Rhino and since I fell in love with the paint job I
planned on submitting it. Any of the three would have worked, but then I
finally cracked through some roadblocks on a fourth figure that I have
been playing with since day one, and decided to use him. May I present to you Ur-Kek of the Morituri, from Arena Rex.
"A trainer for the Morituri, Ur-Kek never lost his taste for competing in
the arena, and regularly joins his charges on the sands. His skills
have been tempered by years of experience and refined with the intricate
knowledge of combat that comes from having to train others. It seems
there is no trick he has not seen in battle -- he has used most of them
himself. Unimpressed by the ceremony and fanfare of the munera, Ur-Kek
lives only for the opportunity to dominate worthy foes in single combat."
He
started off as a test model for my Morituri faction for Arena Rex to
try out getting a sort of olive based middle eastern skin tone. While
not a dark skin tone I believe this shows as a light middle eastern tone
with some shaded not found in normal Caucasian skin tones, so am happy
with it. Ur-Kek is a huge man (both tall and wide), and to help show
that I purposefully left really dark shadows in the areas between his
rolls of flesh. While not super realistic, at table distance it really
looks right.
His
skin also had several cuts on it, so I shaded these various reds and
browns to look either fresh (the one on his lower left hand side) to old
(across his face). I then purposefully left one eye white, and painted
in the pupil as a light grey. The idea was to show that it was damaged
and he lost sight in it some time ago, not sure it is quite right, but
its close.
Once
I was happy with the skin tone I made the decision that I should try
NMM (Non-Metallic Metallic) on his blade. I have done small pieces of
NMM in the past, but always struggled with it and was never quite happy
with it, so why not try and do it right this time. DUMB decision! I
struggled with that blade alone for over 10 hours on and off over the
last month. Trying something, correcting it, sanding it down,
re-priming it, trying something different, rinse, repeat, rinse,
repeat. It just wouldn't come out quite right. Finally, when I was
just about ready to paint it with silver paint and wash my hands of it, I
tried one last try, and it started to work. About 4 more hours of
glazing later, it was done, and I was happy with it. There is not a
single transition line (other than the hard black shadow line and hard
white highlight line) on that blade. It was then time to go and wreck
all the smooth transitions by adding scratches to it, which I kept to a
minimum amount.
Once
I was done with the blade, I came to the realization that since I
painted that NMM, I had to paint his bronze shoulder guard and bracers
as NMM, and all the gold trim on his neckpiece and arm band as NMM.
Sigh.... remember me saying it was a dumb decision earlier? Beyond the
time it took for the blade, this just made it worse. I now had to learn
how to do the NMM bronze and gold, which took at least another 4-5
hours. I also came across two little rings (once is clear on his back
holding straps together) that needed to get the NMM treatment. As
I have said, I have done small bits of NMM before, but none of them
came out nearly this well. The secret, take your time, and be prepared
for many many layers of paint. The bracers were probably 20'ish layers
to get it right, and they were easy. The blade due to the huge size of
it (it is 30mm top to bottom) took probably 100 layers of thin glaze to
get it that smooth.
For
anyone thinking of doing NMM, DON'T!!!! Unless you are doing it for a
Golden Demon entry, a Crystal Brush entry, or a big Model Soldier show
(like the one in Chicago every year), then go for it, the technical
skill required to pull it off well, will get you points when competing
against top painters and is almost a requirement. If you are painting
for a wargame to play with, doing it on every figure is just doing it to
stroke your ego. I am happy I learned to get a good result with this
technique, but I don't think there is any real reason to do it now,
other than for painting competitions. DON'T let anyone make you think
you need to do NMM if you are just wargaming. If you want to learn it
like I did, then by all means go for it, it will help you learn to blend
better than you ever really need to know how to do, but do not let
anyone tell you that it "should" be done this way, it's only an ego
thing, there is no need for it.
Finally,
I was done with all of that, and could move onto the leather straps,
which I kept very dark with some strong highlights so that they would
show up against his skin. At least that part of him was simple. Then
I moved onto his loincloth, which I wanted to ensure had a rough old
woven look. I started with a khaki base and moved up to a light tan.
Then had the brilliant idea to put in some weave marks with a darker tan
before doing the final while highlights. It took over an hour to put
in hundreds of little tiny lines on all the folds. I then started the
white highlights as glazes, and while the weave marks show in person
"when you look for them" they don't show in pictures almost at all, so
it was time completely wasted... sigh.
So
he was almost done but I had no idea what colours to use for his neck
piece. I have a terrible sense of colour, so always harass the wife or
my youngest son to help as they both have good colour sense (even if I
don't always chose to follow it). My son suggest turquise and red and
it seemed to work when I put the test colours on, so I stuck with it. I
then had another brilliant idea to alternate the inner bands segments
rather than all being red. UGGG!!! After alternating the colours, it
looked better, but too plain, they each needed to be treated as a
gemstone. Double UGGG!!! 54
individual sections each getting the 7 colour gemstone treatment (base
colour and 3 up, 3 down). And since I wasn't steady I think I ended up
painting each one twice!!!
With
everything done it was onto the base, which I did the same way as the
Arena Rex Beasts I posted the other day (you can find details here:
Arena Rex Beasts). I was then done everything, FINALLY and ready to clear cote and post. Despite
going through a lot on this model, and spending WAY to much time on
him, I am supremely thrilled with how he came out! I think he is one of
my better figures, which is both good and bad. Good because it means
that this old dog can still learn to improve, and REALLY BAD since I
have 6 more gladiators in his faction that will now need to be done to
at least close to the same standard! WTF did I just do to myself!
<sigh> I hope you guys like him, despite the issues and time, I really do!
I've
had an enduring passion for the American Civil War since a boy really
and just about every challenge I try and include at least one ACW piece and while I
was reading up on Antietam again the idea came to me for the "East"
bonus theme round.
Just to set the mood I thought I would include the soundtrack "Ashokan
Farewell" in the youtube clip below assembled by Curt Franz made famous
by Ken Burns monumental American Civil war series. Enjoy the photo's in
the clip and listen to the song while you read the post if you wish.
Personally I find the song just seeps into your bones and pulls you
right into 1860's America.
Antietam or Sharpsburg as known by the confederates occurred on
September 17, 1862 and was the bloodiest single day of combat in the
American Civil War resulting in a staggering 22,717 dead, wounded, or
missing. This was the South's first invasion of the North and resulted
in the confederates achieving a remarkable tactical draw when one
considers the enemy commander had your plans and had considerably
superior numbers of 87,000 men to your 38,000! That said, it was a
strategic victory for the union as the confederates were forced to
withdraw the following morning having not the men or materials to press
the invasion.
So how does the East Woods fit into all this some may ask? The East
Woods is where the first infantry engagements took place during the
battle starting with the evening exchanges between pickets prior to the
battle and moving on into a full on infantry slugfest in the morning
between parts of Hooker's Corps and Jackson's division. This went on for
about 3 hours with each side changing control of the woods until
reinforcements of the union 12th Corps finally pushed the confederates
out, but at high loss of men including their commander Gen. Joseph K.F.
Mansfield.
"The shells crashing through the trees and fluttering
overhead as well as the musketry… all contributed to mark the time, and
place, fixed in one's memory forever." Diary of Sergeant Charles Broomhall, 124th Pennsylvania Infantry
Ambulance Corps
Other then disease and direct combat soldiers often died simply by
waiting for medical attention while wounded on the battlefield. Wagons
were employed to gather the wounded to cut down on losses, but the
problem was that often these early wagons had issues with corruption of
the drivers who required payment to carry wounded, stole from their
passengers and some were just flat out to lazy to gather the wounded.
Also it didn't help that often the wagons were so lightly constructed
that riding them was very uncomfortable due to damage to the roads from
weather and shells not to mention some even turning over causing further
harm to the wounded
The situation dramatically improved with Dr. Jonathan Letterman's system
which increased the weight of the wagon, number of horses and increased
passenger load. Additions were given to the wagon like compartments to
store medical supplies, stretchers, water, and removable benches and
seats that adjusted with the number of passengers. Also units started to
train ambulance crews and have routine inspections. Letterman's system
became so effective that all wounded were gathered within 1 day at
Antietam and inspired the formation of the ambulance corps after the
battle. The confederates adopted a similar system, but was not as
effective mainly due to shortages of men, supplies and wagons.
The uniforms of medical officer/surgeon was dark blue frock coat or
whatever coat he liked with emerald green epaulettes with "MS" inserted,
emerald green sash and an 1840's medical staff sword. His
stewards(NCO's) usually wore frock coats with inverted half chevrons of
emerald green with yellow edging and a red sash. Privates typically wore
normal union infantry uniform with perhaps a green trim on the kepi if
at all.
The
model itself is from Perry miniatures and has been on my to do list for
some time. A bit tricky to construct and clean, but works out nicely in the
end.
I painted the piece using mostly Foundry colors with some Vallejo and MIG pigments for the stones. I decided to have some
fun with the horse and went for a "painted pattern Appaloosa". Appaloosa
horses are something quite American so I included one to round out the
piece.
Thought I would include an old fashioned looking sepia picture to further add to the atmosphere.
All are 28mm so I think this gives me 15pts for wagon, 30 pts for full figures, 5pts for
lying down figures, 10 pts for the horse and 50 pts. for the bonus
round for a total of 110pts.
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Perry Miniatures
