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...

Completed Army

The army has been completed for a long time and honestly I forgot about the blog for a while. Life and other hobbies have largely kept me from painting. I've learned that I really need to be in the mood to paint well and that the correct colours are key to a good looking army. Trying to substitute can turn out very poorly. For a sense of closure here is a picture of the completed army.
The full list is below and is more than one will need for a good size game. It does give you options

• HQ with two PIAT teams
• 2 transport jeeps (these never get used)
• 3 full size Airlanding platoons
• Airlanding Platoon, Royal Engineers with Supply jeep
• Airlanding Recce platoon (which also rarely gets used)
• Airlanding Mortar platoon with four tubes and two observer teams
• Airlanding Anti-Tank platoon with four guns
• Airlanding Light Battery, Royal Artillery with four guns
• Airlanding Armoured Recce platoon of four tetrarchs
• Armoured Platoon with three Shermans and a Firefly (representing the DD Armoured Platoon)

I am hoping to start posting again.  I still have the German Festungskompanie along with some support options.  The goal will be to have an opposing force for the British Airborne completed by D-Day of 2015. Mostly the blog will be used to remind me of the colours I chose or substituted and to remind me of any techniques I found useful. I've picked up new brushes and a bunch of new colours. The fieldgray colour is hard to match with GW paints and mixing really slows down the process. I also got a new desk lamp with a magnifying glass.

This has been quite helpful and I haven't got seasick while working with it like I have in the past. Here's hoping the Festungskompanie posts work out better than the Airborne ones did!