From KeithS: An End and a Beginning (85 Points)

Painting was a little slow the last week, as other activities kept encroaching.  Still, I got some stuff done, and have finally made my long awaited (procrastinated?) transition out of fantasy.  But first up are these three Beholders.  The left one is Reaper, the right one might be Grenadier (not sure).  I'm not sure on the middle guy.  I've always thought of Beholders as purple, probably because I have a 30+ year old bottle of Poly S paint called Eyestalk Violet.  Needless to say, it finally got to fulfill its destiny on the rightmost two, followed up with a blue ink wash.  However, I wanted at least a little variety, so the left one was done in Burnt Umber and other brown tones.

Lineup.  "Did you see which one of these did it?"  The left guy has a bunch of eyes in its body, in addition to the stalks - kind of weird.  Sadly, these will be the last monsters and almost the last fantasy figures I do for the challenge (I have a Curtgeld dude finally picked out and will slip that in before the end, one that will fit with my fantasy/adventurer work this year).

So, finally, I started my Scottish army for use with Saga.  These are 28mm figures from Gripping Beast and I think they're great.  The figures are nicely sculpted, easy to paint, and look pretty good.  I have 41 total to paint and decided to use these dozen archers as my test subjects.  There are four not-quite-identical poses.

The big effort on the Scots, of course, was tartans.  I did a little research on dark age tartans but could not find much in the way of depictions.  I went with the idea that they'd be basic colors and not insanely elaborate.  Seems reasonable to me.  I also did a lot of stripes and other decorations, including tattoos.  Being lowly archers, I didn't want to overdue the number with elaborate tartans - I'll plus up the proportion of fancy duds for the more elite guys.

I played with some cross hatching and other designs.  For the bases, I did NOT put brush on yet like I usually would.  I have a friend hitting Cold Wars in a week and asked him to get me some heather I could put on the bases instead of the bushes I typically use.  I think that will make these guys a bit more dramatic and unique.

Three more designs.  These were the first ones I tried, thus the first tartans I've ever painted.  The left one is a bit dark but I really like it.  The center one was supposed to be simple.  I'm not sure what happened - I guess I did the grid way to close together as it was supposed to be a fairly open look!

Some other styles.  As I said, these were experiments and practice for the elite guys that I'll be starting this weekend. Oh, and of course a few had to be soulless gingers.

Next up will be the remaining Scots and my Curtgeld figure.  That might still leave me enough time for some other small things before the end, though I'm not sure what I'll do!

Oooh, an end and a new project! I did wonder whether you might run out of fantasy miscellany for us Keith. Still, what a way to finish but with a few floating eye-blobs with teeth. Really nice painting on the Saga Scots, this has the makings of a great project. I hope you've a lots of pots of 'tartan paint' to choose from! Really nice work on the tartans here, so looking forward to see what the higher-ranked warriors are decked out in!

I'll score two of the Beholders as 28mm and the other as 40mm, which with the Scots comes to 77 points, and I'll round out to 85 in respect of the sheer amount of work that the tartans take (I know, I've been there). 

Phil