Salute 2016 - Painting Competition Entry

So last weekend I went to Salute in London. For those who don't know its the UK's biggest independent wargames convention.


A few determined blog readers might remember that I was preparing something for the painting competition, but with a huge bust and not much time it was looking like a tall order. The good news is that I finished in time for the completion, the bad news is that I didn't really have enough time to get everything as clean or perfect as I would've liked. I had even less time to paint as the conversion took so long. My plan was to basically bamboozle the judges with a variety of techniques; airbrush tomfoolery, dodgy OSL, and an unintentionally leaking puddle of resin water. Unfortunately it didn't work and I didn't manage to bag a win, although looking at the hundreds of hours put into some of the other entries I wasn't surprised. Next year I'm going back to 28mm!


I was in good company as a loser though as my favourite entry across all the categories was a White Scars Heresy Jetbike. I thought it was the best thing there, but the judges didn't seem to agree. So a big shout out to whoever painted that thing.


On the upside there were a lot of cool retailers around. I bagged some Vallejo paints that I wanted for a good price. Retailer wise I have to say that Troll Trader was a real highlight for me. I have bought from them quite a few times on eBay, but seeing the jumble-sale like stall covered in great deals was a sight to behold (well it would've been if it wasn't for the perma-scrum around the place as excited hobbyists jostled for position). I picked up some Slaanesh daemons at a great discount - a brand new in box Seeker Chariot for £12 (retail £16) and a box of Seekers for £12 (retail £17.50 - I didn't realise it was such a good deal till I looked it up to write this!). They even had an entire Storm Wing box for £70, that I almost bought just on principle alone.


I was also impressed with the quality of Prodos Games' miniatures, although only having one till was a bit of a bummer, but I'm glad I braved the 20 minute queue to buy some cool stuff . I'll be looking for them in the future to add more to my new Slaanesh based project. I might do a post about them in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for that one.


There was a lot to see at Salute and as I didn't bring a camera I won't bother listing everything in a never ending stream of bullet points. Suffice to say I recommend the trip into London to really immerse yourself in the Nerdtopia for a day.





The official shot of my entry. How dare the judges side with actual painting skill over boobies!

The work in progress picture, Space marine for scale purposes - no wonder I struggled to finish!
PS. She also likes the Visual Kei band "D" from Japan, as shown by her well guarded autographed photo.

Grabbing a Nice Bust Part 2!

Hormones rage and innuendos abound in the second part of Tabletop Apocalypse's Bust Saga.

In the last episode we established what it took to make a nice bust - shapely, well formed, and certainly of a good size! In this episode we'll be catching up with my on-going project, so strap yourselves in and prepare to plumb the depths of some beautiful busts.

Those who read the previous article will know that it ended on a mostly postman related cliff-hanger (as I was waiting for delivery). Well the parcel has arrived and I now have my package firmly in hand .... that didn't sound right, I mean I've got my hands on my junk, ... my junk on a nice bust, yeah that'll do. Anyway, with the wait finally over there was nothing to do but spread it open and enjoy the goodies.

One thing was clear from the beginning; I was dealing with a very well formed bust. In fact the quality was high enough that I resolved to build and paint her to a competition standard. I was also certain that I wanted to follow through on the sci-fi theme.

The conversion begins in earnest

With my goal in mind I raided my blitz box for some suitable junk to slap on that bust (Man these innuendos are getting a bit strained). I added armour in a few places as well as other sci-fi looking details. I also decided to go sort of "Ghost in the Shell" with the styling.

Space marine for scale purposes.

One other thing was clear - I was dealing with a seriously big bust; something I could really get my hands wrapped around. In turn that would make it different than anything else I've ever painted. I've decided to try and finish it for Salute in London - where I will probably enter under the miscellaneous category- which gives me about a month of painting time. Unfortunately for the blog, I'll be keeping the final build under wraps from now on until the competition, so those crummy work in progress shots are all you're gonna get! (I know it's really gonna burn for the 20 or so people that will read this article. To appease my adoring fans here's a picture now it's in paint (I'm still not giving much away - playing it close the the chest you might say...)

Grabbing a Nice Bust!

I think I need to get something off my chest and really get abreast of this issue. You see that picture up there, well it's one of the best paint jobs I've ever seen hands down, but get ready to be disappointed - it was a limited edition from some company called "Gigantic Miniatues" who only made 50 of them - and don't bother looking on e-bay either as I already did.

Unfortunately for my wallet, just seeing the picture was enough to light a fire in my hobby pants. After painting so many 28mm models I just had to get my hands wrapped around something bigger, so with that in mind I pushed the generous mounds of hobby crap off of my table and embarked on a new adventure to unknown lands.

That's one nice bust!

I'm also blaming this new obsession on Angel Giraldez's Painting Miniatures from A-Z as it was the busts featured therein that first made me want to grab a bust of my very own (and led to several questionable bust related image searches that eventually ended in me finding this mini in the first place).

There was just one small problem with my plan - most busts are horrible!

This isn't the bust I dream of...

Some busts were so bad I had to remove the images....

After trawling the internet for a span of several minutes I realised that I was after a specific kind of bust and not just any bust would do. I mentally created a list of factors and narrowed my search criteria:

1. First of all the bust had to be well formed (writer's note - I'm running out of boob related joke material, better go watch Dude Where's My Car to get back in the zone). This factor also included not being Fugly, or some kind of historical berk.
2. Obviously only a female bust would do - and I had a real reason too (honest it's a good one). I wanted to attempt some airbrush work and a female face would be a lot better for smooth blending that than some craggy dude.
3. It had to be tasteful - this thing will probably end up on display somewhere, so no actual nudity (and if you're wondering why that might be an issue, just try looking at busts on the internet for a while).
4. It didn't necessarily have to be a bust - what mattered most was the larger scale, so I also looked at some larger scale miniatures too.
5. A sci-fi theme would be preferable as I wanted to try using a stencil to get that hexagon effect seen on the unobtainable "Hush" by Gigantic Miniatures.

It was during this search that something occurred to me - I didn't actually need to meet all of the points above - I could convert the bust to be more science fiction oriented. The only thing holding me back was my own skill level, which means that basically as long as I didn't have to sculpt large portions of it from the solid I'd be fine. After I realised that I cast a wider net and finally found a bust I would be proud to spray with the sticky white stuff (undercoat - get your mind out of the gutter!).

So here we are - a bust of Luz from Malefic (apparently). It basically ticked all of the boxes other than the theme, but wouldn't be too hard to adjust (OK it would take some work, but that would be a lot of fun in itself). Being as it's 2/3 of her body already I figure I might as well get some legs on her too as I go. It should be quite a project to work on.

I also found a company that makes airbrush stencils with a hex grid (Anarchy Models), so my dream was getting closer by the minute.

With that the first part of my quest came to an end. Now to wait for the postman and dream of the things I could do to a woman's bust! ... errrmmm I mean a bust of a woman.....

Check back later for the second instalment of this exciting saga - and you were probably thinking there wouldn't be anything this exciting till the next series of Game of Thrones was released.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these pictures, nor are they my own work. Copyright held by their original authors and all that.