Almoravid command stand

It's been ages since the El Cid collection got any love, but, one of the Challenge Island challenges over at the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge site is "Docherty's Dock" which involves painting a vignette with a came. Well, I'm sure I have some camels of unknown provenance in the bit's box, but what to do with them?

It's been an absolute age since I added anything new to my Almoravid horde - checks, blog, nearly 3 years - but a scouring of the lead mountain revealed not only ten camels, but some left over Gripping Beast minis, including a mounted drummer who could be bodged onto one of the camels, although is pose is a little awkward, having ridden a camel though I think sitting awkwardly on them is the default.

Of the two rather splendid commanders the one on the right is Abid al-Docherty, ex of the Black Guard and now serving as leader of this merry bunch, on the left is loyal bodyguard Jaysh al-Millsy.

The ensemble is completed with a spearman and standard bearer.

All are done in the white/blue/gold scheme that is the theme throughout my Berber horde. It's quite propitious as I think I needed to do a few more command stands anyways.

You can view my entry in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge here.

Spyglass Miniatures "Chick"

Chum Drew gifted me this miniature and I was rather at a loss as to what it was or what to do with it. It came with a card insert that pointed to a broken URL, but a bit of Googling for "Chick Challenge Four" turned up that it was produced for Spyglass miniatures as a limited edition sculpt by Steve Buddle.

It appears that you can get some of the old Spyglass stuff, but not this one, from Heresy Miniatures.

As she is wearing a Hussar jacket I wanted to paint her in a pastiche of an 11th Hussar with pink leggings in some Flashman like tribute.

I really don't like slotta-bases, especially these with the void in them, but I decided that I wanted her stood in shallow water, much like in Stranger Things when Eleven goes into sensory deprivation, it's a layer of gloss gel, painted with black and grey shades, then another layer of gloss gel on top.

All in all, a nice figure to paint and she earned me a balloon ride over on Challenge Island on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I think she came out much better "in the flesh" than in these shoddy photos, after four attempts I gave up trying to get the lighting right.

Che Guevara from Wargames Illustrated

Although committed to joining the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge I've been on a moratorium on buying new lead for a few months now, so had a dig in the lead pile and found a Che Guevara model that was given away by Wargames Illustrated at Salute and Historicon in 2014

It's rather a nice model and was and a simple paint job in his combat gear.

As part of the challenge, there is a side event - Challenge Island.

Che will be my prize figure for the Island and has they don't get much redder than Marxist Che I'll start off at Sander's Sand Dunes and shall be declaring the Peoples Republic of Challenge Island and forming a revolutionary committee to ensure that the plans for the capitalist exploitation of Challenge Island are thwarted and their running dogs sent scurrying.

Sorry, got a little carried away there....