In French, one would call this "du réchauffé", or My Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge Wrap Up

It was about time that I take a little break to dust my Nowhere. Two months off the bloging enjoyement were slowly leading me to a hobby dead end. Yes, life and work have tended to over shadow everything else during April. Also, I must say that I felt really tired when Curt's painting challenge came to an end. Almost a painting burn out, even if I could only achieve to paint a third of what I pledged to do. I managed to paint at least one to two hours every day during Curt's challenge which has been quite an achievement by itself, considering my usualy irregular commitment to the paint desk.

Anyway, to keep some consistancy in my wargaming venture, I really meant to be back on track where I left it two months ago. So, here after, comes a little bundle up of all the figures I managed to sneack into the challenge. Just for the record I finished 30th out of 47 contestents, which was beyond my expectation for a first go at this kind of event. To be very honest when I pledged to paint about 800 pts last December, I knew this was merely showing muscle, and that I be thankfull to reach an half of it. Well, with 387 pts, I almost did.

If you ever like to, click the label of the images to be directed to the original post on Curt's Blog:



28mm Franks of the First Crusade (170 points)



28mm Frankish Crusaders (144 points)



Ronin #30 (20 points)



28mm Russian Folk Hero Dobryna Nikitich (12 points)



28mm Russian Folk Hero Alyosha Popovich (10 points)



28mm Russian Folkhero Ilya Mouromets (11 points)

I have recently received new brushes to replace the ones that were brought to me in the Army Painter box set and that have already quite suffer during winter. So far, with these new tools in hand, I have been back to the paint desk for 3 weeks, but nothing new is quite ready yet. I hope to show more pics of the Crusaders in the neer future, as soon as I can get a little more job done on their bases. And hopefully new things should be released in the coming weeks.

Voilà. À bientôt!

The Bogatyrs, the back is revealed...

In order to put an end to my Russian Folkhero fancy, I thought it would be fun to show you a group picture of Ilya Mouromets, Alyosha Popovich and Dobryna Nikitich (click the names to know more about their respective story) and compare with the original canvas from Vasnetsov. I mean... It is not so often that we paint figures taken from a painting masterpiece.

Also, what I realised while painting these horsemen, is that Vasnetsov clearly avoided the hardest part by showing them stricly from a frontal point of view. In fact, I have put most of my efforts on items that are barely visible on the panel. So much, that I could have easely let these shields, scabards or kaftans completly bare of color.

Viktor Vasnetsov, The Bogatyrs, 1898

Well, I guess easy is not the way I see things when it comes to painting, hence my poor score in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. But at least I get to show you something that even the painter did not really care to pay attention to. For the first time (and probably the last) in my modest painter career, lets reveal the back!

Oh no, not this one... That one!

Now, I won't probably paint something related to russia for a while. And yet, I hope I could do the same one day with some other pieces of Art from the master Vasnetsov. His work is truly a well of inspiration for anyone who likes Russian Middel Age and Myths.

Viktor Vasnetsov, The Bard Bayan, 1910

Quite evocative isn't it? Only the miniatures haven't been sculpted so far... Well, who knows what the future holds...

Dobryna Nikitich, last of the bogatyrs

Dobryna your mother warned you, don’t go to the river for “the first wave belches fire, the second wave brings sparks and the third issues steam”. The summer day was to hot and Dobryna did not really care. He could only forsee a bath of cool water. Long did he ride trough the steppe, and reach the river at last. Burned by the summer sun, his armor was hot as a caldron. Dobryna took off his armament and jumped in the refreshing water.

Suddenly the sky turned to black and Dobryna could hear again the warning of a loving mother. Indeed, it was no cloud nor night that darken the sky, but the immense shadow of the three-headed dragon Zmei-Gorynych. The dragon was once prophecised that a knight responding the name of Dobryna would eventually kill him. Instead of waiting for is faith, he faced it and caught Dobryna in a rather embarrasing situation.

Dobryna fearing no danger swam to the bank but his horse had flee with all his equipement, only the helmet that had fell on the ground remained. The knight filled it with sand and threw it at the dragon, thus blowing one head. He then jumped at him and grabbed him by the remaining necks. Zmei-Gorynych clearly saw the exit door, and started crying and pleading for life. Dobryna felt pity for the dismembered creature and let him go.

But dragons are not the kind to be trusted. Damn it! Dobryna! lessen to your mother! The minute Zmei-Gorynych was free, he flew to Kiev, abducted the niece of the Tsar Vladimir and took the maiden to his cave, deep in the mountain.

Out of guilt or maybe in need for a good meal, Dobryna rode back to his mother to seek some advice. Lessen carefully son: “here is a seven-fold silky whip. Now go get the horse of your grandfather, the one that has been neglected for ages, and you'll be able to ride to the dragon's cave safely”.

When Dobryna broke into the cave, Zmei-Gorynych protested that the knight has no word and that he broke an oath. Well, it takes some guts to be so  arroguant. Guts and blood and venom that would soon cover the floor after Dobryna chopped the last two heads and slayed the dragon for good. After a bath in the blood of the beast, Dobryna eventually found the pincess attached with gold chains in one of the many caves of the lair. He took her back to her uncle the Tsar Vladimir of Kiev. The two fell in love on the way, and Vladimir wouldn't have been a sovereign of tales and legends if he wouldn't have offer the hand of the princess to the deserving knight.

With Dobryna ends the serie of the Bogatyrs, the three russian heros, taken from the canvas by Viktor Vastnetsov and finely rendered by the manufacturer Plastic Miniatures. With the two extra points added to retribute my effort to render the patterns on his kaftan, Dobryna has earned me 12 more points in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, which lift me up to a total of 33 pts, and a well deserved bottom line on the scoreboard.

Alyosha Popovich, a very russian hero

Today I'd like to present you Alyosha Popovich, the second horseman in the serie of the Bogatyrs, an other charismatic russian hero, who fought for the Tsar of Kiev. As with Ilya Mouromets, Alyosha is taken from the painting The Bogatyrs by Viktor Vasnetsov. Again the figure is from Plastic Miniatures company, and the design is just top notch, the figure was really clean and needed but very few preparation. The horse has been painted using GW paints for the robe and hairs, since their Bestial Brown remains one of my favorite color, and Army Painter for the saddle and buckles.

There is not so much to say about Alyosha than there was about Ilya. Mainly because, I believe the character of Ilya Mouromets slowly agglomerated the deeds of others around his rather archetypal person,in the oral tradition of tales and bylines. Alyosha Popovich, as his name indicates, was the son of Leonce the Pope. He was so strong when he was young, that when he played with other kids, he would often dismembered them by snatching an arm or a leg. One might think he really had trouble to make friend at school, but the tales indicate that it was only when he would separate a body in two pieces by the middle, that he would got into trouble, because then, his young friend would die...

Fortunately, when he became a grown up, he was presented with some chap almost as strong as him, and they became friend without an injure. Thus accompanied by Marishko Paranovich, he decided to enter the service of Prince Vladimir of Kiev. In fact, as he reach the court, his strong arm proved promptly useful when the dragon Tugarin Zmeyevich came, threaten the city, insulted the Prince and claimed his crown. A dragon as his name Zmey suggests (i.e. russian word for dragon) or simply an infidel prince son of the tribe of the dragon (or the tribe of the snake), as there could have been among the Polovets steps riders during the XIth century.

Wherever he came from, the dragon acted so crudely with the Tsar, that Alyosha took the opportunity to show his bravery and challenged him for a duel. Alyosha compared Tugarin to a cow that his father the Pope Leonce once had. The beast was so greedy that one day, she drunk a whole lake to the bottom, and eventually exploded! Then he prophesied that such outcome would happen to the dragon if he would not stop claiming a realm that wasn't his. Of course Tugarin the dragon took it bad and threw a dagger at Alyosha. And Alyosha to say: "Thank you mighty Tugarin for this dagger you give me! By it, I shall cleave your pale chest and bare your bitting heart!"

I think, he really meant so... Because, the day after, Alyosha eventually killed the so called dragon in the meadow right outside the walls of Kiev. Now, don't think it was that easy. The creature Tugarin was so evil, that Alyosha had to pray for the help of God. Alyosha may have been a really faithful knight, for God did show up this day under the disguise of an heavy rain. Well rain doesn't kill dragon, but since Tugarin's wings were of paper and coton, they became wet, and the monster could not flight and threat Alyosha from the sky anymore. Then, I understand it was as easy for Alyosha to cleave Tugarin's heart out of his chest, than it was to snatch a leg from an infant back in the good old days.

To be honest, I don't really understand what the paper wings symbolise, maybe the weaker faith of a pagan barbarian, but Alyosha surely did a great job by kicking this nasty vilain out of Kiev. For that my friend Alyosha you have indeed deserved your seat next to Ilya and an extra effort to paint your shield. I kind of think it looks a little overdown now, compare to Ilya's, but hell! I like it! Hope you enjoy it two! Next will be the last of the three Bogatyrs: Dobryna Nikititich...

Alyosha has granted me 10 more points in Curt's Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, and I am still the slower painter of this challenge. To give you an idea some of the contestants have already more than 1000 pts. Me, 21 pts!

Ilya Mouromets, onward to a new year

Happy new year 2013 to anyone who dare reading this entry. I am back from a two weeks vacation to the land of my ancestors. I haven't touch a brush nor a paint pot during the time and I am just starting to pull things back together for a new year of wargaming and painting. Well, I'd better hurry because the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is already in its third week and I have this feeling that it will take me a few days to be back at full painting speed.

Nevertheless, I wanted to begin 2013 voluntarily, reason why I have picked the character of Ilya Mouromets for this first entry of the year. The way he is staring at the horizon tells enough his determination to overcome any hazardous situation. A state of mind I wish to make mine.

Ilya Mouromets is a prominent character of russian folk stories, if not the most characterful hero Mother Russia ever infanted (although some would argue it is Vladimir Puttin... Well, I leave this thought to everyone's self appreciation). One can tell from the rough of his beard and the round of his baly that he someone personifies the very soul of his rather intriguing country of birth.

Now, Ilya took his time to become a legend. Who wouldn't with both legs paralized until the age of thirty. Some tells that the long desired son of two peasants of the area of Mourom, miraculously recovered from his affliction and was suddenly gifted with a prodigious strength. Some other believes, that it is when he reached the aged of eight-teen, that he helped a beggar to quensh his thirst and was then rewarded with unequal strength.

Of course such tremendous strengh would be waisted in the daily work of an humble farm. So the beloved parents treated him with a lance and a mount, and Ilya decided to travel to Kiev and make his most powerful arm an instrument of the faith, in the hand of the Tsar. To be honest, some other tells that the Tsar of Kiev ordered him to come, but who really cares? The important is that on his way to Kiev, Ilya freed with his sole spear the city of Tchernigov from a siege by the unpious tartars of the East. And that he could bring peace back to the whole country by expelling a group of scoundrels that had been plundering the place for too long. Had he reach Kiev, he won the trust of the Tsar by capturing a strange creature named Nightingale, whose whistling was loud enough to kill a man and was thus cursing the depth of the forest.

Yet, some other tells that this was only the first task of a larger quest he had to complete in order to win the heart of a beauty. A beauty of unequalled beauty of course, who was leaving in a far far far away realm, and was harassed every night by a dragon with nothing less than twelve heads. We would probably call it sexual abuse nowadays... What so ever, Ilya went to rescue the beauty. At the crossroads, he choosed the path of death and had to survive the cunning of Baba Yaga the witch and her sister. Only after that, could he chopped the twelve heads of the perverted dragon and put an end to his scandalous behaviour by crushing the last head. As he came back to Kiev, Ilya found the court subdued by a giant who had a head the size of a beer cauldron and answered the name Idol. Idol could devour a bull to the bones, but Ilya kicked him out of the palace by simply raising a single hand.

Ilya Mouromets as Viktor Vasnetsov painted
him in his masterpiece The Bogatyrs.

Well Ilya, with such a pedigree you really deserved a figure that would fit your prowesses. Let's admit that manufacturer Plastic Miniatures did it quite fine. The pause is actually taken from a canvas by Viktor Vasnetsov, so to stick with the legendary atmosphere, I went with an interpretation of the colours seen on the painting. This work has grant me 11 pts for the Painting Challenge and the last seat in the competition, more details can be found on Curt's Analogue Hobbies.

Ilya Mouromets

Soon someday, Ilya Mouromets... Looking forward.