Gunfighters and the start of an Old West town.

 

A much overdue update.

I've been meaning to get back into western gunfights for quite a while and have been eying up some games of What a Cowboy. 

When I was visiting the UK in May, at the Partizan Show I picked up quite a bit of stuff from Great Escape Games, including a pack each of Gunfighters and Gunfighters II.

They go together very well and although the faces don't suit my painting style you can churn them out quite quickly.

They come with a good mix of weapons and kit allowing a lot of variety.

Twenty gunfighters is likely more than enough for my needs, but I do already have some Brigade Games ones painted and still more in the backlog.

I was lucky enough to win a gift card from Northern Lights Terrain during the last Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge so I picked up a load of their lovely Old West terrain and have made a start.

Completed so far are all the boardwalk sections in the photos above plus three stores.

The signage and posters etc are available as a download from Sarissa Precision and look a lot better than anything I could free-hand.

There are more buildings and terrain in the backlog.

Just before we went on vacation I was able to get a game of What a Cowboy in with chum Seth. Great fun with more to follow.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI begins

 

Seasons Greetings from Scrivsland.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI has now been running a few days so I thought I ought to update Scrivsland with the progress so far.

My first entry was a small group of Napoleonic French officers and ADC's

All three figures are from Perry Miniatures, the two on foot from the Line Infantry Officers advancing set and the one on horseback from the Mounted ADC’s pack.

Day two of the Challenge saw me venture into the Chambers of Challenge for some bonus points with my entry for The Aquifier with a duckpond of all things!

The base is a 80x60mm MDF, also from Warbases the banks around the pond were built up using Polyfiller and a few loose rocks added, one of which in the pond.

For the water effect I painted the bottom of the pond a very dark muddy brown and added a couple of glazes of dark green, once that was dry the pond was filled with heavy acrylic gel and allowed to dry overnight before the reeds and ducks were stuck in place.

The ducks were also from Warbases, I'm really happy how the whole thing came out.

Day three saw me earning more bonus points in the Chambers of Challenge with my tenuously linked entry for The Golem’s Haunt.

I planned to use some left over pieces to make another Brigade commander for the Napoleonic collection so this gave me a good opportunity.

Each of the figures is made up of components from at least two of the Perry plastic sets, both the Hussars and Chasseurs a Cheval and they are painted as from the 7th Hussars.

The standard is from GMB Designs.

The final entry before my break for the Holidays is another Chambers of Challenge entry, with Hugh Jarse in The Chamber of Darkness.

The figure was a give-away by Too Fat Lardies and I already have one painted up in my Burma collection.

This figure is straight out of the Commando comics of my youth with his gangster Thompson SMG with drum magazine, perfect for being captured in greyscale.

The figure is done from a base of VMC Basalt Grey, Black Gray and Pale Gray (sorry no Neutral Grey) followed by a glaze of Black Grey then worked back up with basecoat and highlights. I was not too happy how the flesh came out so that was gone over again with a thin wash of Tamiya Smoke so he looked less like a zombie.

I really struggled with the photos, I think it took about 20 minutes to paint but 40 minutes messing around with the camera settings. I eventually settled on my usual green background as more monotone backgrounds came out terrible.

On deck at the moment are many more Napoleonic figures and I hope to have at least a unit of light dragoons finished before the end of the year.