Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 2023 Wrap Up

                         

First off I want to thank everyone who contributed to The Challenge this year and also make a bit of an apology. I didn't manage to make half as many comments this year (still in therapy and that's taking up a lot of time- without denting my pain ting time though!). For that I'm sorry as there was a fine array of beautifully painted miniatures etc on display every day when I took a quick peek. 

I've decided to leave out the incidental items painted to change things up a little as I view my main project as, well erm..... my main project!

The Thematic Byzantines were a lot of fun to paint up- like I have alluded to earlier, they are one of my dream armies that I just never got around to when I was a few years younger.

All the images are "clickable" so will showe up in the Light Box on this blog- if however you want to see the images at full size then just right click and click on "Open Image in New Tab".

Army Arrayed Outside an Outpost in the Balkans- Somewhere Near the Danube:

I will be continuing painting up the army, though I'm about to jump into a Daphne Parade era Seleucid army for a nostalgic trip and a friendly Warhammer Ancient Battles "Classical" tournament run by a mate. A mere 5000 points so I'm going to have to get stuck in!

I have another unit of Tagmatic Kavalarioi half finished (it was a very close thing with that unit, nearly making the cut for AHPC, but in the end real life got in the way!) and a unit of 28 Skutatoi and Toxatoi (spearmen and with aback row of archers) who are glued to corks and have had their armour painted so those little fellows will have to be completed before moving onto the Seleucid project.

Tagmatic Kavalarioi:

Thematic Light Kavalarioi:

Tagmatic Kataphractoi:

Tagmatic Varangoi:

I suppose all that remains now is to thank everyone who took part. There were so many excellent posts- I just wish I had the time to keep up with them all and to leave a reply.

'Til next year then!

Thematic Byzantines, Varangian Guard

Many years ago, under the influence by two exceptional painters and modellers at the Edinburgh Club, South East Scotland Wargamer Club (SESWC), after much study of their work I came to realise that the secret to creating interesting dynamic looking units was to go for as much variation and dynamism as possible and to limit in as much is possible, the repetitiveness of the miniatures! I won't jump too deep into that concept except to throw in a few pictures below..... 

Anyway, with that in mind, as I started to clean up these Varangian Guards and ordered some extra sword and axe hands from Gripping Beast. With a quick-ish hand swap, I think these have reduced the level of homogeneity in the unit to make each miniature more interesting and the unit feel more "alive".

The Anglo Danish unit below is a nice example of how I strive for variation and to create as much dialogue between the miniatures as is possible with my toys. To have the miniatures "talk" to one another. There are many manufacturers in the unit which at first glance oat the list one might not think would necessarily fit together; Wargames Foundry, Footsore Miniatures (Matthew Bickley), Footsore Miniatures (Bill Thornhill), Gripping Beast, and Long OOP Gripping Beast so the variation was easy enough to create by using the various manufacturers. This was not the case with my Varangian Guard units where all the miniatures were from Gripping Beast's Thematic Byzantine range ergo the variation in weapons option.

With this in mind here's what I managed with the simple hand swaps for the Varangians.....

(Yeah, I know, two of the same miniatures has the same sword but I was having an off day!)