The 'Monstrous' Theme is Now Up! (and Curt's 'Monstrous Wulfen')

Hello Everyone!

The fifth and final Theme Round of Challenge VIII is now up for your viewing pleasure!

This fortnight's theme is 'Monstrous' and we have 35 folks who've submitted entries for your viewing enjoyment. There are many entries in this round that are quite spectacular, so I'm looking forward to reading the reactions of the visitors to the gallery.  

Please click here, or on the 'Bonus Theme' link in the navigation bar above to take you to see the efforts of the participants. Again, once you're there, please use the links on the right sidebar to navigate through the entries. As I've mentioned before, there is a bug in Blogger in how it displays multiple entries over several pages on a single day, so use the links in the sidebar so you are sure to see all the entries.

Finally, remember to take time to vote for your favourite submissions. You can vote for as many as you like. The top three in votes will get additional points added on to their total for the round.

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I had a two or three entries on the go for this round, but decided to run in with this lupine fellow as he reminds me of a time when I thought the scariest monster by far was the werewolf. 

I was born and raised in northern Saskatchewan, which is pretty much as rustic and remote as it can get here in North America. My hometown was the last bit of civilization before you headed off into the Laurentian Plateau and the sub arctic beyond - literally on the edge of nowhere. One autumn, when I was 9 or 10 and staying out at my grandparents farm, a pack of timberwolves came hunting into our area. During the week we could see them at night in the farmyard, and I have to say, they were pretty magnificent creatures - scary as hell, but magnificent all the same. Anyway for those few days that they were around, my grandfather, shotgun in hand, would meet me at the end of the road where the school bus let me off and then walk me back to the farm. As a young boy you can imagine how that impressed me.

Later, when I was a teenager, the movies 'American Werewolf in London', 'Wolfen' and 'The Howling' were all released in 1981 and while they scared the absolute bejeezus out of us, my friends and I absolutely LOVED them.  We would often stay up late at night and tell our own scary stories of werewolves and work ourselves up into a terrified frenzy. It was great fun.

My favourite of the '81 werewolf movies

Anyway, when I first saw this figure I knew I had to have it as it reminded me so much of those carefree teenage days where primary concerns were avoiding being ridiculed by girls, the next scheduled D&D game and scaring yourself witless watching monster movies.  

It's a Forge World resin model, which I believe was released for a special GW event back in 2012. PaulS entered a wonderful rendition of this figure as part of the 'Myth' theme round during Challenge V, and after expressing extreme covetous of the model he kindly sourced me with another that he had acquired (thanks so much again Paul!).

I shaved off most of the silly GW Chaos iconography and painted him as a black timberwolf. The gore effect on the poor Reiselaufer, who's being toted around as lunch-on-the-hoof, is a triad recipe from a Citadel ink set that I've had since 1987 - back in the heady days when GW used containers that actually sealed...

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Now, I invite you again to visit the theme gallery and enjoy the wonderful entries for 'Monstrous' and remember to vote for your favourite submissions (voting closes next Saturday at 11:45pm).

Have a great week everyone!

From TeemuL: Slambo (5 points)

After not winning the side duel, I have been slowing down. And still running out of prepped minis and hobby time. But as always, I managed to get something done on this week (in addition to the bonus round entry). Let me present mister Slambo to you.

Slambo has visited this challenge blog earlier this year, too, but he has just seems to like attention, so here's my interpretation of him. Although the two axes might hint to the Khorne, I decided to paint him Nurgle colors. Quite strangely, with the current rules of the Age of Sigmar, he can't take Mark of any Chaos god, he then fights for all of them - or no one. He is the one man army anyway.

He is a resin model from the Games Workshop. Sculpted and released last year, but based on the original Slambo miniature from the 80s. I really like those old plastic Chaos Warriors, so he fits nicely with them.

Painting was actually quite simple and fast, but looks very good - in my opinion. Especially the horns on the helmet are something I personally like.

He is a big taller than average 28mm miniatures, but I think 5 points is good for him.

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What a beast Teemlu, you certainly wouldn't want to upset this chap in a bar!  Lovely use of colour, especially the blending on the horns.  Nicely done Sir. 

From AlexS: terrain 25 points

Hello everybody. My name is Alex, I'm from Russia, and I really like to do the terrain. I was always inspired by one person who in his blog laid out the terrain made of ordinary things. He used a shell of nuts, children's toys and much more.

His name is Michael and he's my curator on this event and first reads my entry. This is very exciting! And today I present my small project. I am the father of two children and they are always breaking toys. Recently they broke the "tumbler". I did not let my wife throw it away.

I decided to make it an element of the terrain for games on post apocalypse or science fiction.

After I glued it again, I primed it and fixed it on the stand.

Then I painted it with an airbrush.

Then I thought for a long time how it would look better. There was an option - to cover the whole surface of the jungle with artificial grass for aquariums. But then I decided to paint it out by making an idol toy, which is worshiped by local wild tribes. Or a special border post that marks the territory.

Finally, I could not resist and made from this area an artefact of my childhood and youth.

Miniature 28mm, so you can feel the size and pathos of the terrain. He reminds me of a bear from the novel by Stephen King.

The size of the terrain: 9x6x8 inches
I think it's 30 points.

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Thank you so much for the kind words Alex,  many of my creations are in turn inspired by others so delighted to pass it on, as it were.  I just love this, so creative and I can just imagine this new idol being the centre of a Post Apocalyptic tribe.  Fabulous fun and a good reminder to never throw anything away! 

With regards to scores, I am going to be a little mean and suggest that it is a 25 rather than a 30 point piece.  It is wonderfully tall, but the volume is such that I think that it would only just fill a 6"x6"x6" cube - sorry!  

From ByronM: Robots, Mecha, and Terrain (120 points)

This week I prepped and worked on a lot of stuff for an upcoming project, and for the theme week entry this weekend, so my submission is a little light.  However, I am keeping on track with something every week, so that's good!

First up, I continue to expand my 30k Mechanicum army (which really was meant to be a small auxiliary force not a full army!) with some fast attack robots.  Here are 6 Vorax class battle-automata.

These things are pretty short range with only dual rotor cannons (light weight versions of assault cannons) and lightning guns.  The rotor cannons are range 30" but only strength 3 so not much to write home about, and the lighting guns are 18" strength 7, so that's where they can cause some pain.  Once they get close they have power blades mounted under their guns that cut through marine armour like butter.

They are fast units with high movement so getting into combat should not be an issue.  Especially since their shooting is not a huge threat, most enemies will be more worried about gunning down the big plasma mortar guys in my backline than these little guys, until it's too late, or at least that's my hope!

I painted them in my normal method (meaning mainly airbrush) but then added some brighter red highlights as I did for the smaller guys I posted recently.  I am now thinking of going back and adding a bit more to some of the bigger guys as well, but we will see.

I did leave a lot of gun/ammo belts off as they were a pain in the $@# to bend correctly to get in place and would have blocked a whole lot of painting access.  I had meant to add them after but I actually like them without the added clutter of an ammo belt from each arm to the back ammo cases and from the back generator up to the lightning gun.  Who knows I might change my mind, but for now they are staying off.

Next up is a piece that has been sitting around for the last 2 years waiting to get done.  I had picked up 2 Tau giant stealth suits a while ago and painted up one for the challenge last year or the year before, then never did the other one.  Since it is such an easy and basic scheme, I banged it out while waiting for washes and stuff to dry on other models over the last few weeks.

It matches the old one pretty closely with lots of mecha style hard highlights and chips.  I then based it with my normal winter basing pattern.

Lastly, a set of Fantasy Flight terrain quonset huts that I picked up a few years ago and just never manage to get too.  I actually have about 4 more sets as they were clearing them out and I got several sets as they were about $10 a set or something.  I had plans to do a summer, winter, and dessert set for myself and then have some spares hanging around but then never got to them.

So here is my summer set, finally done.  Normal army green with highlights, all done with airbrush and all super simple, but effective.

Also, as you can tell I spent some serious time figuring out lighting and camera settings to finally be able to give some better pictures.  I have been getting really tired of putting up pictures that do not look like what I have been doing, colours are wrong, contrasts wrong, which all led things to look no where near as goon as they do in real life.  Hopefully I can continue to make this setup work as to my eye these l look much closer to the real life figure.

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Once again it is such a treat to see these amazing models and so beautifully painted, I'm more than happy to agree your thoughts on the scores, but it was your maths for the terrain that had me roaring with laughter so much so that I'm going to have to share the equation with the group.  Fabulous work Sir.

The inclusion of terrain this year has left a few of us minions scratching their heads:Terrain -They are each 4" long and 2" tall - so 1/2 * π * r squared * 4" = roughly 25.135 cubic inches

A 6" cube = 216 cubic inches = 20 points so.... 1 cubic inch = 0.0923 pointsSo points = 6 * 25.135 * 0.0923 = 13.964 points

From PeteF: Old School Minifigs 61st Ligne (120 points)

This is the second battalion of French Ligne that I've done for this Painting Challenge. Project 1 is Mo' French! so that I have enough crappoes* to take on the Anglo Allied 100 days army I inherited from my dad and my brother. I've based and flocked10 battalions of various Dutch Belgians and Hanoverians in the last couple of weeks - making the need for some opposition even greater.

Vive L'Empereur

These Minifigs are new castings that I bought from Calivers Books in the UK before I discovered the 2nd hand market of unpainted minifigs - I've picked up a few more battalions of French (and for reasons of lack of self control some Prussians - now project 13) but I'm always on the look out for more - the centjours website lists 55 regiments of Ligne - most with 2 or 3 battalions. This takes me to 10 battalions - so just a few to go - maybe I should change scale?

On that subject we tried out ESR with 2 bases per battalion and my wargaming group liked the rules. Even though ESR probably looks best in 10mm, 25mm is what I've got so I've gone for strong magnets on each base - 2 bases can be fitted to a metal base that will take either 8 infantry or 3 cavalry and the whole base can be lifted up by any one figure. This will work for Blucher as well.

Flexible Basing

I used the centjours website to decide on the details - the voltigeurs got yellow over green plumes, the ensign an all blue coat and the drummer blue coat with white lace instead of green. I have the impression the minifigs standard ligne are more peinsular or 1812 - but they'll do.

It's always a pleasure to put paint on minifigs - it takes me back to my first days of wargaming - I can even vaguely remember the smell of Humbrol and turps.

Skirmishers out

Hard to believe we're in the last month of the Challenge - I wish I'd had more time, especially to meet people live on Google as brushes are twirled and flocking flocked. I'm down to the last battalion and a bits and pieces that I primed way back in December with some hope of getting them all painted by the 20th. Good luck to everyone else as we hit the home stretch!

24 x 25mm foot - Minifigs - 120 points.

* crapaud - toad.

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Fabulous job Pete, what a wonderful sight!  Like you I can't believe that we are in the final throes of the challenge.  Great to hear that you have nearly achieved all that you hoped and best of luck in the final push.

Thank Goodness it's Saturday!

All teachers love the snow, well let me beg to differ!  Far too much excitement this week so really looking forward to wrapping up warm and getting some painting done.  Don't forget to get your entries in for the final bonus round.

From DebD: Lorus Hightower (6 pts)

This guy has been sitting on my desk for three weeks now, just waiting to be blogged.

Scale: 28mm
Mfg: Reaper Miniatures
Product: 02771: Lorus Hightower
Material: Metal

I think the dragon head on the staff is a bit weird and thought maybe he should have been wood color, but my imagination got the better of me and he became the color of an icy sea creature. 

Since I was in the icy sea creature mood, the base became icy as well.. but the icy blue color looks kind of magical.

His cloak had to have the galaxy pattern on it.

I am not sure what spell he is invoking with his sea creature staff and scroll, but it seems dangerous to be on this side of it...

1 x 28mm = 5 points

Thanks!

Deb

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Beautiful work once again Deb. 

I really like how his wooden staff transitions to the mythical creature's head - lovely effect that. I also very much admire the starfield on the back of his cloak. With his hirsute face, arcane shopping list and trippy staff, he definitely looks the image of a heavy-hitting magician.

6 points, with a pip added for the great basework. Thanks for sharing Lorus with us Deb!

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From DaveX: Some Winter Terrain and a Base for my Trees (50 Points)

Its been a busy couple of weeks for me however I have managed to get a fair bit of Hobby done, especially for the next bonus round but you will have to wait and see that.

I have been meaning to get more of my winter stuff done for Frostgrave plus WW2.  I had the Warlord Games ruined Hamlet Set that came with the Band of Brothers starter box set.  I thought it would be ideal for Frostgrave plus somewhere in either Eastern or Western Europe.

I used a variety of winter weathering products on it.  Citadel technical paint, Wilder Snow Effects and Woodlands scenics snow flock.  They produce a very nice result.

These are about 8 inches by 5 inches each so I am not sure what that converts to points, (sorry Curt!) I am guessing around 20 points each based on the 6 inch cube guideline but as the ruins are small maybe 15 points?

Next up is a stand for some trees.  Sick and tired of my trees being knocked over,  and wanting to create a terrain feature that can block line of sight, I grabbed some left over plasticard and cut out a rough shape.  I designed and 3D printed some circlets about 61mm in diameter to fit my 60mm diameter trees.  I probably need to adjust this to 62mm as once painted and flocked its a tight squeeze.  The trees can be replaced by team weapons that I use the same bases for and looks pretty sweet.

A PAK 26 Looks rather nice

This tree base is about 6 inches across on all angles extremities so again I am not sure of points. Maybe only 10 points as it does not fill a whole 6 inch cube.

Till next time...

Dave X

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Ah, some more excellent terrain for us to enjoy, wonderful work Dave! I've seen several renditions of this Warlord building set and am now convinced that I need to get one for myself. I really like your inclusion of tufts with the patchy snowfall as it lends a very natural look to the scene. Also, well done on using the 3D printer to make rings for your tree base. It looks great and I like how it harmonizes with the base of your PAK gun. Ace!

Your estimate on scoring seems sensible to me, so let's go with 50 points for the lot. Again, great work Dave!

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From ArthurS and SanderS - King Arthur! and Thief (37 points and 5 Points)

Hoi There!

At the Crisis last year Arthur and myself were standing at the Wargames Foundry Stand, he had brought some of his pocket money to buy some figures to paint for this Challenge. So I asked him what kind of figure he wanted to paint. So he says "Knights!" and so we walked over to the rack displaying all kinds of medieval figures. Arthur went in and looked at all the blisters very carefully and took out this one. 3 mounted Dark Age knights, the label read: "King Arthur".

Coincidence or what?

Anyway here are the painted figures.

The Poldercon goodie bag contained a Mantic sprue of Elves. Arthur wanted to paint one for his mum. Now his mum does not approve of war, weapons and rough playing with sticks and the like. So getting her a figure she'd like would be hard. Arthur thought long and hard and came up with an answer: give the man a banner or a music instrument. In the end he opted for the banner because it could take more different colours being larger. And here it is.

I myself have only finished one figure this week because I am hard at work on the camel challenge side duel with Dave D.

It's a North Star Frostgrave thief which I painted as an assassin for one of the kids in the School club.

So that will make 35 points for the lad and 5 for me ;-)

Cheers Sander

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Arthur, you've done excellent work on all of these figures. King Arthur's scarlet cloak and golden sword really mark him out as the monarch in this group, while his banner bearer with the red draco is very majestic as well. I also really your choice of figure for your mum, especially the red, blue and grey shield. Bravo! Great brushwork Arthur. Now you need to do something for your dad, perhaps help him out with something Napoleonic. :)

Sander, I would be the last to cast stones at anyone who submits one figure in a week - you are in very good company here. :)  It may be one chap, but he's very nicely painted. His flashing, gold-hilted dagger and red mask provide wonderful juxtapositions to the grey and black of his garb. Great work.

So that makes it 37 points for Arthur (with a few extra added for the banners and hand painted shields) and 5 for dad, who plods resolutely behind. Well done lads!

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We Call It... 'Friday'

Enjoy your Friday everyone! :)

Curt