Some HäT testshots

Hoi,

While the last weeks of the Challenge were still in progress, I received some testshots from the United States. These were the eagerly awaited British Peninsular Cavalry (both heavy and light dragoons) and WW1 Belgian Infantry sets. The latter are today's subject as I found some time to get them painted up.

So let's take a look at the figures. First up is the regular line infantry set. All figures are uniformed in the early war (i.e. 1914) uniform. What I specially like is that there are 3 figures in seated or prone positions as to indicate the need to seek cover, something often overlooked in WW1 sets. Here are two pics of the figures:

Next up are the Heavy weapon set figures. These include a prone Light Machine Gun being fired by either Carabineers or Jagers (Light Infantry) I painted them up as Carabineers on bike. There's a dogcart with Carabineer handler and an officer firing his pistol.

The HMG is based on a resin scenic base from the 36th Chamber, a very nice range of trench-themed bases can be obtained from them.

Some close ups of the heavies set:

Hope you like them as much as I did.

Cheers Sander

Annalogue Hobbies Painting Challenge Review or there and back again...

Hoi,

Yeah I know: I have been absent for a month or so....this has been due to several facts, not the least of which has been me suffering from a respiratory infection; not funny at all I can tell you.
Anyway I am back and will try to resume normal services on the blog. First up will be a short recap of the Challenge I have attended and enjoyed very much!

For those of you who have missed the event you find it through this link. As you can see, about 72 people signed up to compete and of all those I managed to come in the 14th place with 1476 points. Quite frankly I have no idea how I managed this, but I am mighty pleased all the same.

This year I entered in two side challenges, one with Ben from the excellent Rosbif blog. We decided that whoever managed to get 200points worth of 1:72 plastics painted would win, that turned out to be me. The other side challenge I crossed brushes with Anne from O'Leary's Miniatures in order to paint the deadliest Femme Fatale and she beat me fair and square. 

I managed to enter a contribution in each of the Theme Rounds and two of those managed to get in the "runner-up" places to the winners. 

Curt, the great organiser did a tremendous job in putting the show together and he deserves all the credit and applause. That said the Challenge also has brought me in contact with a lot of wonderful ladies and gents who paint beautiful miniatures and vignettes. There are too many to mention them all but I'd like to thanks each and everyone one of you for making my first Challenge an event worth while remembering fondly and if Curt, time and health permit it, I will certainly join again next time.  

Curt did ask us to sent in pictures of the stuff painted during the challenge and even though not all the miniatures were actually available to be photographed (quite a large portion of my collection is on display at the school where I work right now) here are the pictures of the stuff I have painted during the Challenge.

An overview:

 A close up of the 1:72 plastics I've painted and, in the back, a vignette of 28mm Warlord miniatures depicting the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Next up are quite a lot of 28mm figures I've done up as Theme Round entries as well as some Star Wars miniatures from West End. Also included are some of my Victoriana, which is a project I really like a lot.

The last picture shows my collection of Barsoom related figures (in the back) and some more West End Games Star Wars miniatures as well as some HäT Bengal lancers. 

So what are the plans for next year? The experiences of the last Challenge really got me thinking, so here are my conclusions, whether I will be able to fulfil them will depend and only time will tell.
- I'd like to set my aim at a points total of 1500, a number I have just missed by a small margin of points this year.
- I'd like to finish in the top 20 again, but this is a real long shot I do realise that.
- I will try and pick a project to finish during the Challenge. Kinda like Dave Docherty who stunned us all with his Sudan project. While you could say I have finished my Barsoomian project along the way, this was only a small one and I'd like to take on a larger project so as to clear a larger part of my unpainted-mini's pile. At the moment I am seriously considering my WW1 Allied armies for this. 
- I'd like to run the Femme Fatale Side Challenge again. Curt, Anne and myself have talked about making it a recurring item for the Challenge but we need to wait and see whether Curt is able and willing to host the Challenge again next year.

So how to go on from here? I did suffer from a paintersblock or loss of Mojo shortly after the Challenge. Some of the nice people on the Analogue Hobbies FB page suggested I would jump right back in with a new project. I did... more on that will follow on these pages in due time. This project got me back into painting and I managed to paint up another 1:72 Austrian Regiment for the 7YW and am in the process of finishing a Prussian regiment for the same conflict. The new project is on it's way nicely as well but I have a basing problem so am a bit at a loss as to how to go about that but will figure it out in the end I guess.

More Victoriana are also ready awaiting painting on the desk as are some more Star Wars mini's, so enough in the pipe-line to show you people in the coming months.

Honesty does prevail on me to mention that I really have a bit of a blogger's block as well since posting a blog will mean taking pictures and I really do s*ck at that. So it might take a while for me to post up another entry here for a while.

In the meantime take care!

Sander