'Fellowship' from MartinC: Fag Break

Wot, no Lord of the Rings set piece. No, end of conversation.

The LRDG were the sailors of the desert (no coarse joke abut why camels are called the ships of the desert  gentlemen, and especially you Tamsin). Being lightly armed and in the middle of nowhere there must have been significant fellowship on those cold nights.
These guys have stopped for a fag (cigarette) break for those non-Brits out there.

The figures are Dixon Miniatures and lovely to paint.

The original WW2 photo the vignette is based on :)

I hope Curt will like this

'Fellowship' from PaulOG: Find the Halfling!

I thought I would address this bonus round from the opposite side of the Fellowship theme, while also completing my Season IX Curtgeld.

This is Lurtz, Saruman's first Uruk-Hai Commander - destroyer of the Fellowship of the Ring.  Leading a small warparty of Uruks, Lurtz tracked and attacked the Fellowship in the ruins of Amon Hen.  While Lurtz was both defeated in his mission to capture Frodo and the ring, and killed in encounter, the Gondorian hero Boromir was slain and the Fellowship was broken.

This is a 28mm GW fig in their smaller (and nicer IMO) LOTR proportions.  I have used Vallejo Mahogany Brown as the base for the skin to fit with his dark tone in the movie.  As a Curtgeld figure I have refrained from the basing so that it can match the rest of the horde when it arrives.

Points wise that is 5 points for 28mm fig, plus 20 points for Curtgeld an adding the bonus round 50 points - that's a high yield 75 points for a single figure! :-)

'Fellowship' from RayR: Gandulf

Can't believe the Challenge is nearly over for another year???

This being the final Bonus Round " Fellowship"

As soon as I read the name Fellowship I knew my entry would have to be from

Lord of the Rings. I've got a box with all sorts of odds and ends from Games Workshop's range.

Gandulf here was at the bottom still sitting in his red backed blister pack begging to be painted up!

To be honest he was originally bought to be painted up and sold on ebay

many years ago, but I never got around to it.

Another reason for painting up Gandulf was he was quite an easy paint, being all white!!

But the most important was Gandulf was the defacto leader of the "Fellowship" in LotR, not Frodo

and if our defacto leader the SnowLord, Curt himself put on a white wig, he could be Gandulf!!

This entry will be winging its way over the Atlantic soon as my Curtgeld

so a few more points will come my way, only if Curt laughed at my Gandulf/Curt pun that is.

'Characters/Scene from' LeeH and RayR: 'Inglorious Rejects!'

When this years Analogue Painting Challenge was announced Curt laid down a subtly devilish second challenge at the same time. The entrance fee for taking part has become affectionately known as the 'Curtgeld' and this year our artistic overlord requested we submit these as joint entries, with two or more participants combining forces. I imagine this was a real headache for many people but it also got the creative juices flowing and strange ideas bubbled to the surface. Ray and I decided to combine forces, we just had to find something suitable to paint. Fortunately Ray found two excellent models based (loosely) on two characters taken from the 2009 war film Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino. This way we could submit the models in the final bonus round and as our Curtgeld.

Ray decided to paint the 'Brad Pitt' figure and I did the baseball bat wielding Staff Sergeant Donny Donowitz. Although we both belong to the same gaming group (Posties 'Rejects') we live in different Counties, so getting together for a side by side painting session on this collaboration wasn't really an option. Instead we used a phone app to keep in touch, swap progress photos and make suggestions. The resulting figures look surprisingly similar in styles and finish and I think we are both very happy with how these models turned out.

This is my figure, complete with blood splatters and sweat soaked vest. The blood was particuarly challenging but I guess all my recent work on shield designs for 6mm figures must have improved the steadiness of my hands!

And here is Rays figure sporting a beard and an SMG. Painting this black jacket must have been really difficult but I think Ray has given it just the right amount of highlight to looks like shiny leather.

Both figures side by side and I think we have managed to align our different styles really well (no idea how we pulled that off!)

The next step was basing the figures. We both discussed what we wanted and quickly agreed we wanted a joint base with plenty of the detritus of war scattered around. We raided bits boxes for items to put on the bases and I found some resin rubble piles in a local art and hobby shop. Then just last week we met up at the Cavalier Wargames show in Kent and managed to find a suitable MDF base and more stowage items to put on the base. I then took both figures home to put everything together and paint. The liberal application of grass tufts helped blend all the elements of the base together. 

There were times when this joint project felt a little 'cobbled together' but I think we are both very very happy with how the finished vignette has turned out. Somehow, despite doing most of the work separately, the whole thing works well together. I for one certainly hope that this collaboration theme can become a regular part of future Challenges.