E-boats Complete!

It's been almost three months since I started this challenge. Despite the lack of posting I have not been idle. I've definitely not been on track either.

The Cruel Seas miniatures are nice and easy to paint. I had both the e-boats and torpedoes ready within a week of posting the vospers. 

The camouflage pattern is not my favourite, but it helps distinguish the two units when playing a game. I also painted the torpedoes in two different schemes for the same reason. 

Below is a shot of my Cruel Seas starter set completely painted. 

The 15mm half-track and the squad of grenadiers that go with it are on the painting table. However I was not destined to stick to the schedule as I had an opportunity to paint some Warhammer 40k buildings for a local games store. 

These things were quite big. Fortunately, the painting challenge counts the size in the calculation of points. I started off with black followed by grey basecoats using rattlecans. The bases are wood covered in sand and wood glue  the sand did soak in some of the paint and glue this caused some flakes to come off during the painting process.

The tall building was first to hit the table there were so many skulls to do. 

Originally I painted each skull a leather brown, followed by a yellowed bone and then white highlights and a light brown wash. This was quite onerous and I later switched to yellowed bone to start followed by the brown wash and a quick dry brush of bone or pure white.

For the stone I selected a couple of grey paints that formed a gradient and dry brushed over the base. Selective washes were applied to give the effect of burn damage, rust runs, or dirt. Any exposed metal was painted in a bright silverc, which caught the eye even after I washed it in a red brown. Computer and door panel details cannot be seen in these pictures. These were easy enough to paint using GW contrast paints over white or silver.

Dollar store acrylics were used for the base. I was generous with paint since the sand soaked it up.

All in all I thought they turned out ok. 

My progress thus far is as follows. 

Progress: 110/350

40mm

0/1 earth elemental    7
0/1 werewolf    7
25mm
0/4 WWII German grenadiers 20
0/2 Union Generals Mounted 30
0/3 Confederate Generals Mounted 30
0/8 Confederate Cavalry 80
0/1 Union Cannon 4 Crew 10
0/16 Confederate Infantry 80
0/16 Union Infantry 80
15mm
0/1 German half track 8
0/6 German grenadiers 12
Off plan painting
25mm
3/3 Warhammer 40K Buildings 80 (estimate)
10mm
3/3 Vosper MTBs 6
4/4 E-Boats 8
16/16 Torpedoes 8

Clearly I have trouble staying on track with my projects. This trend does continue as the challenge progresses...

Painting Hobbies Challenge

 I wasn’t able to get into the official Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge  this year, but I’m going to give it a go. 

This year my goal will be about 300-400 points following the guidelines given in the link above. 

Here’s my plan:

~350 points target

The initial list of minis:

40mm

1 earth elemental    7

1 werewolf    7

25mm

4 WWII German grenadiers 20

2 Union Generals Mounted 30

3 Confederate Generals Mounted 30

8 Confederate Cavalry 80

1 Union Cannon 4 Crew 10

16 Confederate Infantry 80

16 Union Infantry 80

15mm

1 German half track 8

6 German grenadiers 12

Of course I’ve immediately deviated from the plan. Last week I picked up an inexpensive copy of the  Cruel Seas starter set. It represents the small ship actions that took place in WWII and has an interesting but easy set of rules and just as easy to paint miniatures. 

The set comes with a painting guide for the 6 Royal Navy and 4 Kriegsmarine ships. This is great because it took some of the guesswork out of choosing colours. I didn’t have all the colours indicated in the guide but I used online paint  conversion websites to match colours. I think it worked out pretty well. 

My first entry for the painting challenge are these 3 Vosper II MTBs in 6mm.

I used 3 different grey paints for the hull and superstructure: Citadel (GW) Mechanicum Standard Grey, Army painter (AP) Ash Grey, and AP Uniform Grey. A wash of GW Nuln Oil and a highlight of Ash Grey are necessary to define the boundaries between different parts of each ship. I then picked out the details such as the guns, ropes, and life preservers in whatever AP paints I had to hand. The windows are GW Talasar Blue of GW Corax White. The contrast paint gives it an effect I’ve found difficult to free hand. 

Prior to the 21st I completed the 3 Vosper I MTBs. These ones do not count towards the challenge. Here they are altogether.

6 points for the first day. I’ll need to complete 3 points per day to meet my goal for March 20th, 2023. 

Next in the queue are 4 e-boats and all the torpedo markers from the start set.