LPL - Final Entries

With the year winding up, I'm going to include my final Lead Painters League entries in a single post.  Rounds 8, 9 and 10 saw me at the bottom of the pack, which was unsurprising.  Overall, I finished in last place, but I'm actually pretty happy with that.  Score-wise, I kept up with the competition, staying within 10 points of my closest competitor.  More importantly, I was able to get a lot more painted than I usually do, and proved to myself that I can make the time to paint if I put some effort into it.

Entry 8 - Rural Residents

My eighth entry to the contest was another set of Perry miniatures.  Most were civilian, but I believe one of the men on the right came from an infantry pack.  Overall I was pretty happy with how these turned out.  The field worker figure was my first time painting dark skin, and I wasn't sure how it would read, but it turned out okay.  Also for this round, I built a bit of background scenery, which I'll cover in a later post.

Entry 9 - Sharpshooter's Revenge

For the ninth round of the League, I assembled some figures from a few different packs of Perry Miniatures.  The man lying face down on the ground is from their plastic British Infantry set.  The man on horseback came from a pack of generals of some sort.  The two infantry men on the left started out as figures from an artillery set.  I carved off their artillery accessories, removed their right arms, and added muskets and arms from a British Infantry plastic sprue.  The crouching figure is not from Perry.  He was found in a box of random stuff I found in a drawer, and may have come from Wargames Foundry originally.

With this group, I'm happy with the poses and the overall scene, but I wasn't happy with the painting.  I rushed a bit, and the metal figures had been painted before, so some stripping and repainting was required.  I'm tempted to strip the paint from these again and make another attempt.

Entry 10 - 2nd New Hampshire Command

My final entry to the competition was a command stand that I painted up in the uniform of the 2nd New Hampshire Continentals.  I don't recall where these particular sculpts are from, but I believe they were intended to be militia originally.  After a short bit of research, I decided that I like the sky-blue faced red regimental coats and buff colored flag of the 2nd, so I went with that.

Finally, here are a few shots of the entire collection of miniatures that I painted for this year's Lead Painter's League.  Fifty figures was the requirement for the overall competition, and I managed to paint up 56.  I'm very happy with my overall output, and I like that I've painted up enough AWI sculpts that I can start to seriously look into hosting some small skirmish level games.

Lead Painters League 2019 - Overhead

Lead Painters League - Assembled Forces

British Wounded

Wounded Brits resting in a broken cart.

This little set of British wounded figures from Colonel Bill's landed me my second Lead Painters League win.  The figures are a bit squat and chunky compared to the Perry Miniatures that I own, but the poses are wonderful.  For Round 7 of the LPL, I decided to paint these up with a couple of different facings so that they could take the part of generic wounded British during games.  The cart is a Reaper Bones miniature, with a repurposed LEGO wheel substituted in for the solid medieval-type wheel that the cart came with.  I'm not crazy about the plastic used on the Reaper minis, but friends have mentioned that they really like them.  I may give another go at them at some point if I ever decide to work on any fantasy-themed projects instead of historicals.

Plague Doctors

Plague Doctors

Originally ordered for Round 1 of the Lead Painter's League, where they would have fit the "Gothic Horror" theme of the round, I ended up using this set of Plague Doctors as my Round 6 entry.  Though I ordered them several weeks before the competition started, they didn't arrive until several weeks *after* the competition started.  So many weeks, in fact, that I had decided that I had mistakenly not ordered them.  As such, it was a bit of a surprise when they arrived in the mail.

These were painted quickly, as I had my days mixed up and almost missed completing an entry by the Round 6 deadline.  The figures are from Warmonger Miniatures.  I did make one small customization, cutting down the hat of one of the figures so that it would match the flat caps of the others.

For a quick paint, they didn't turn out too bad.  The one thing that kept running through my head as I painted, though, was "This was life before vaccines..."

Camp Life

Life in Camp

Round 5 of the Lead Painter's League brought me my first win of the competition.  The figures are from Perry Miniatures, and have tons of character.  This is a set that I've wanted to paint for a long time.  Years, in fact.  It's just a scene that seems so familiar.  When I showed the finished work to my daughter, I discovered why.

"That looks like our reenacting group," she said, "That's me braiding your hair, Gerry telling a story, Dave with his drink, and Chrissey cooking over the fire."

Completely unintended, but she's right.  I think I like this scene so much because it feels like home.

Also Life in Camp...

British Command - 24th Regiment of Foot

24th Regiment of Foot - Infantry Command

For Round 4 of the Lead Painter's League, I finally returned to the British line infantry that I started last year.  For this set, I tried my hand at blacklining to bring out details.  It looks slightly better than the five infantrymen that I painted up last year.  For this batch, I was very happy with how the drummer turned out.

24th of Foot Music

Flags for the unit were found online, scaled in GIMP, then printed on regular paper.  My collection for the 24th now has 10 men completed, and another 28 to go.

Soviet Snipers

Soviet Female World War II Snipers

For Round 3 of the Lead Painters League, I purchased two sets of female Soviets from Bad Squiddo Games.  During World War II, the Soviets had a number of women on active duty within their army, including some of the deadliest snipers of the conflict.  Bad Squiddo is known for their realistic sculpts of women, and these five figures are a perfect example.

Though I lost the round, I'm very happy with how these turned out.  They are a bit monochromatic, but that fits with their setting and their purpose.  In fact, these snipers were so well camouflaged that I actually lost them on my desk at one point.  I finally found them mixed into the rubble that I call a work area.

I hadn't planned on creating a Soviet army for Bolt Action.  If I do, however, these will make a good start, with two sniper teams and a forward observer.

Colonial Townsfolk

Perry Miniatures Civilians

The second round of the Lead Painter's League has ended.  My entry, a group of civilians from Perry Miniatures was paired up against some fantasy type figures.  My opponent won the round, dropping me from 19th to 21st place overall, but I'm still really happy with these figures.

 

I'm especially happy with how the well-dressed lady turned out.  I struggled a bit with what color to make her petticoat, but the shading on her overall gown came out well.  I need to practice shading some more, but this one felt nice to paint. 

The Benjamin Franklin looking gentleman I'm also happy with, though there are some improvements I would have made had I had more time to work.  I dabbed his face a bit at the end, and the slight blue highlight on his hat turned out lighter than I would of liked.  His base also needs some touch up, as some of the basing materiel came off as I was photographing.

The lady with the basket I tried to make a little more dirty and run down.  The biggest struggle was painting the baby on her back.  I don't know if it was the sculpt, or my painting, but he still sort of looks more gremlin-like and baby-like.

The fellow carrying the barrel suffers from the same basing and highlighting problem as the Franklin fig, but I was happy how his breeches turned out.  I tried highlighting with a darker color as opposed to using a wash on this one.

Finally there's the broom woman.  I'm not happy with her face, but her jacket, especially the back, turned out well.

On to Round 3 this week!

Australian Jungle Infantry

Australian Jungle Infantry in New Guinea

Voting has ended for the first round of the Lead Painters' League, so I can finally reveal my first steps into painting miniatures for World War II.  These ten figures represent a section of of the Australian Jungle Division, organized in 1943 to fight in the southwest Pacific.

The figures are from Warlord Games Bolt Action range and, honestly, I chose them because I really liked their hats.  Never having worked with Warlord Games figures before, I was really impressed at how well they were sculpted and molded.  These really were a lot of fun to paint.

Being my first time taking part in the Lead Painters' League, I find myself seriously outclassed by more experienced painters, however, after one round, I'm currently ranked 19th out of 24 contestants.  Given that I had to give up 10 points for not meeting the first round's theme (the gothic figures that I ordered never arrived), I'm pretty happy with my standing.  Had I been able to meet the theme, I'd be somewhere near the low middle, which I feel is a respectable placement for someone painting to a tabletop level.

Lead Painter's League 13

 

Announced a few weeks ago, the Lead Adventure Forum is once again hosting the Lead Painter's League.  This is the 13th time the challenge/competition has been held, so it seems like as a good a time as any for me to take part.


The competition is basically a way to motivate folks to get their miniatures painted.  The contest consists of 10 rounds of painting.  For each round, participants paint one "team" of at least 5 miniatures.  Points are awarded for certain criteria being met, and teams are judged against each other by members of the forum.  At the end, the painter with the highest number of points is declared the "winner."  Really, though, everyone who participates gets some of their unpainted stock off their desks, so it's a win for everyone.

The first round this year includes a "gothic" challenge.  Anyone who paints a team which fits into the gothic genre receives extra points.  Not having anything like that on hand, I ordered some figures a few weeks ago, when I first found out about the competition, but so far only one of them has arrived in the mail.  With the deadline for entry coming up this week, it looks like I'll need to find a backup plan.

On the positive side, I've finished two teams at this point (to be posted later, so as to not post them before the competition), so I'm off to a good start.  I have four or five more teams worked out, one in primer, so I think I'll be able to keep up, even though I'm a fairly slow (read: unmotivated) painter.