MattW - Sweet Sixteen is a wrap!

 Sweet Sixteen is a wrap! 

Another painting challenge complete, a big thank you to Curt and Sarah for hosting a fine event this year, the last rapid fire event felt like a blur, with posts every 15 mins or so on Friday night. A big thanks to the minions, as I was in two time zones several times I missed the cut off by a day either side…..

Bryon Bay bit of the holiday 

I set a very modest goal this year of 600 points as I knew I would be on holidays skipping the European winter. This winter we were Australia for two months laying around a pool relaxing over the challenge. I did not reach my goal for points this year as the holiday homes and hotels had no where really suitable to paint….. well that’s my excuse. On the home front I finally moved into my painting room and I think in six weeks the chateau renovation on the third floor will be finally complete (painting, fabric wall insulation, then decor happening for the coming five weeks) which will mean my library will finally be back in place and my hobbit hole will get a rebuild. 

We are taking bookings for 2026  at Wargames holidays/ L’Hotel de Hercé . If you and your partner or a couple of mates are looking for a personal Normandy battlefield guide, a wargames or historical cultural holiday in west France, Normandy, Brittany or Pays de Loire please consider us. We have 21 tours and 60 Battlefeild sites locally from Caesar to ww2. 

On the painting front, my desk looks like a bomb zone when I commenced cleanup yesterday about 4 projects did not make it to the Final Cut, 4 hours packing stuff away into project drawers and I will compete a few pieces this week …. For the 16th challenge really happy with my 20 odd Judge Dredd additions including some early figures from the Citadel 80s collection, LOTR, Napoleonic, ACW and ww2 pieces. 

My favourite piece I completed, Treebeard Merry and Pippin

Half of the Hurley gang

Me raging about construction dust in the painting room

After two weeks on the Gold Coast eating Banana’s and mangoes 

The oldest thing I painted circa 1983 a Paranoia/citadel blue trooper

Perry dragoons, fifteen years in the project drawer at least 

A gift of figures whilst in Oz by my mate Greg, actually received love early

My Christmas gift was a Halfling Bloodbowl team, as yet unnamed any ideas? 

Somehow I think this is what I would look like in a gridiron outfit

I had big plans of completing my 9th SS 20mm…. Not to be

Cheers everyone I am looking forward to next year

Cheers

Matt

FROM JohnB: Whats that coming over the hill is it a monster?

Nope its an AHPC wrap! Mind you "The Automatic" (welsh indie rock band) hit was a cracker Well I have had my best year at AHPC and its my third year on the trot signing up. With a photo splurge what have I learnt? I have again learnt a lot from the other 70 odd entrants plus their figure and basing ideas as well as some of their figure/painting combinations all inspiring me to buy and paint yet more figures but actually paint more! woohoo 700 plus points worth or 13 micro projects if you like. plus I started to do stand up painting! yep stood at a bar style bench set up and doing sprints - short paint sessions of 15 minutes - 45 minutes, which led to my mini paint palette method as I tended to use one colour.

ok this paint is 4 days old but the method does work on small amounts of paint used over say 24 hours oh and the tissue is meant to be kept wet!!!!! On with the results - I am particularly pleased that I painted the ECW Tumbling Dice unit, maybe that project will get a kick start now.

Finishing the 1848 Hungarian Steam Engine having scratch built it for AHPC15 was very satisfying. You need two airfix rockets.........and a lot of cursing.

The Irish Brigade unit using Strelets Louis XIVth range was also a hit - I have admired their range for a long time - too long and never painted any. Now that has been fixed maybe more will follow.

I hope you all have seen the error of your ways and realise that injection moulded plastics in 1/72 is the way to go - queue woops of laughter about this madness of mine. Seriously I hope you have all enjoyed painting what you like and love.

That said I am glad I painted my 40mm Vikings to celebrate Ian Kay's retirement at Irregular Miniatures - I am happy for him yet sad to see such a vast traditional figure range sail off into the sunset.

And I painted my first printed figures - Italian support weapons in 20mm from MarDav.

Plus ca Change! And I sorry for my Minion Peter who was hoping to see my French Dragoons completed - I am off to the allotment for the year so this is as far as I got! Lets hope those red monsters don't get me.

So a big thank you to everyone who took part and of course especially to Curt and all the minions and duel runners and anyone I have missed. Hope to be back in the 17th challenge later this year.

from Paul O'G: Season 16 Wrap up

Aloha everyone!
Another AHPC Season comes to an end - this was my 11th but the first I've entered while living overseas (which was quite challenging!). World events and work travel cut into my time but that made my brush time all the more enjoyable for its restorative effects.

Somehow, it always feels like more while I'm painting it! :-)

This year saw me tackle some different projects: Dystopian Wars, Astronauts and Cosmonauts on the moon, a new Crimean War army, and some Retro- SciFi figures. Naturally, the broad shift away from GW figures meant my skull count was well down this year!

I tried something different with a YouTube video of my output. Click to play!

I really enjoyed the return of the Bonus Rounds this year and entered all three. I was thrilled to pick up a shared second place in the "Toy Story" theme with my Moon Walkers.

Overall I posted 828 points, exceeding my 500 point target and surpassing a 'career tally" of 9,000. Perhaps next season I can attempt to crack the 10,000 point milestone!

The struggle is real: well done Alan!

Thank you fellow challengers for making it such fun, particularly our ANZAC paint and chat crew for the banter (and having Curt dial in for the start was especially cool!). I hope we can continue these sessions post challenge. 

Some statistical analysis to keep Miles happy!

Accolades as always to Curt, Sarah and the fabulous minions who enable the entire enterprise. I deeply appreciate the time, effort and focus you deliver with a wonderful sense of humour.  

Aloha & Mahalo! Until next time everyone :-)

LeeH: My Winter War Soviets are ready for the offensive!

So, how do I wrap up this year’s Challenge? If I’m being totally honest, I didn't get quite as much painted as I originally hoped. My "to-do" list was definitely more ambitious than my "done" list! But you know what? I got the essentials finished, and in this hobby, that’s a win in my book.

Despite the slower pace, I managed to hit two major milestones: My personal 600-point target was officially crossed, and I'm happy with that. Of course, no competition compared to the top of the leaderboard, but I'm happy with what I got done.  Second, I completed everything I wanted to get done, meaning my Winter War Soviets: These guys are complete and will give me plenty of options when list-building for games of Bolt Action or Chain of Command. They were the missing piece for my collaboration project with RayR, and I’m thrilled to have them ready for the table.

The dream now is to get my Soviets and Ray’s Finns into a proper scrap. However, we’ve got a bit of a "one in, one out" policy happening right now. We have a few urgent projects that need to be cleared off the workbench before we can play with these guys. Our big focus for the immediate future? Two 1812 Retreat from Moscow games. We're working on a skirmish ruleset with a friend, and alongside this, Ray and I want to run a big battle with our collection for a demo game at Broadside in June. Once we have these playtested and polished, the second half of the year is looking very clear, and very wintery!

From NormS - mostly Napoleonic Austrians - wrap up

I signed up for 400 points, which due to a lapse mid way through, became a bit if a stretch, but in the end I got there and here are the rewards of that effort.

3 x Austrian Infantry Battalions (from 9th, 35th and 38th Infantry Regiments), 1 x Austrian Artillery Battery, 1 x Austrian Commander (Prince Liechtenstein), 2 x Austrian Colonels and to get me my final 10 points, I painted up a couple of 28mm Soviet soldiers, just to see whether this is something that I want to do in the future for the Rapid Fire Rules (oops, just noticed they did not make the photo!).

Seeing them all together makes me really pleased that I did this. My Napoleonic French forces had been steaming ahead and the Austrians needed to do a bit of catching up - and now they mostly have.

Thank you to Dallas, Curt and the rest of the team behind the Analogue Hobby Painting Challenge for hosting the Challenge, so kindly giving up their time and to all those fellow hobbyists who commented on the Challenge blog, supporting the various entries.   

From DaveD - Challenge Wrap-Up - the what I did post .

 Another year , another Challenge laid down. My 15th . Blimey where do those years go eh . 

This has been a decent year of production . I am normally fairly focussed on a winter paint plan - this sort of went out the window. But being a long term painter I know to go with the muse. That muse this year was the creation of my Bolshevik army . I really enjoyed it. I had painted everything in stock by early January and had to tap the supplier for more , then some more , and yet more . 

I did revisit my 15mm cold wars with the finale of my French force . Along with a back to the Sudan for some commission work - the muscle memory of these is still strong.  There  is still yet more to do. The best bit is I will be playing with the new stuff in a large 4 day campaign  with them later in the year. I also managed a couple of Ardennes 44 bits too. Just North of 2000 points worth as well. Time for a bit of storage wars again.

I forgot to set these bits up , so here they are:-

The prepped pile of potential is very healthy and there will be some of this cracked off from next week ., some may even make  an appearance next year . 

 

I have really enjoyed my painting this winter . It’s helped to keep the real world chaos at bay. My painting desks have been cleaned and tidied . Paints have been replaced and the brushes cleaned . I’m ready to go again after this weekend off.

I have also been doing minion duties after a few year off  which has been great too . The  Sunday Crew have been productive and I must thank them for contributing consistently - everyone managed to avoid the cut , and on at least one day they did 3000 points. We have had a good few paint and chats and it’s good to see painting mojo enabled.  Hopefully Miles gets the stats done - always fun to read them  .  

For those of you that have enjoyed the Bolsheviks I can recommend the Beevor Russian Civil war book , and the Anna Reid A Nasty Little War . It’s a period that learning about has been educational . 

I will see you lot next year … the prep is already started 

Huzzah! 

From SylvainR: Zen In and After Chaos

 

Absorbing the positive "qi" energy of freshly painted miniatures. 

Note that seven (a very sacred number) "double trays" are lying around me in half circle, channeling positive energy towards a center point where I sit. This is an utmost satisfying place to be. 

A thousand thanks to Curt and Sarah, gracious hosts to the annual painting party. You are most generous with your time.

Thanks to the Minions, especially to PeterD, leader of the Tuesday Terrors, and to Miles, the patient spreadsheet guru.

Thanks to the Wednesday Crew for being so patient with me. Sorry I did not spend much time on Discord.

Challenge XVI is now over. I don't know about other challengers, but this year I found that time spent painting helped me stay "zen" in the chaos created by some people's "guts decisions". I will not elaborate. A few days ago, paint jars and scenery material were still chaotically piled up on my paint desk, but now I just finished cleaning up. This recovered state of order and balance makes me feel "zen" too. Enough introspection, let's see what new toys I got to play with:

2023: 12 trays of 6mm WW2

2024: 11 trays of 6mm WW2, 3 trays of 28mm D&D

2025:   7 trays of 6mm WW2, 4 trays of 28mm D&D (1051 points)

2026:   4 trays of 6mm WW2, 6 trays of 28mm D&D, 4 trays of 1/300 boats (1355 points)

I was able to paint all the miniatures I prepared. The D&D project is over, after three years, and I will certainly miss applying bright colors to cool monsters. I'll have to find another "colorful" project for next year. The completion of core Cruel Seas flotillas for the British, German and Italian makes me very happy. These sea bases are lots of work, but the final look is so worth it. I will now start preparing miniatures for the next Challenge.

Thanks for reading and see you next year! 

Sylvain

The Close of Challenge XVI - Final Three for 30K Killteam

Brushes down and lift your paint water in a toast to the conclusion of Challenge XVI!

With 743 entries submitted over 13 weeks, we've managed to paint an insane amount of minis and terrain!

We also hit another landmark mid-Challenge with the submission odometer ticking past 10,000 entries since Challenge V (back in 2012). So, I'm pretty chuffed about that.

I was hoping for something a bit more in-theme for my last post, but time ran away from me and as a result I've circled back to one of my earlier entries to do a final flourish.

This is the final three figures for my 30K Killteam, built around the Shattered Legions storyline.

As I mentioned in my original post, this squad is meant to depict a group of survivors from the Dropsite Massacre. My crew is mostly made up of Raven Guard, but two of this trio are from the Iron Hands and Salamander Legions.

Similar to the first three figures, I've really dirtied these guys up, reflecting the desperate out-of-supply, out-of-support situation they are operating in. Each is sporting a jet pack as I wanted to depict a very mobile Assault cadre, conducting hit-and-run missions behind enemy lines.

The Raven Guard figure required it to be mounted on a flying base, which I sourced from my magnetised stocks.

Crossed fingers on his continued survivability, but I'm not entirely confident. Nevertheless, he's armed with power claw back-scratchers so at least he'll go down fighting.

Next is a Iron Hands 'Immortal'. These guys are breacher specialists meant to serve in the front ranks, soaking up fire with their enormous shields.

Accordingly, I heavily scarred up his shield and power armour to give him the look of a grizzled, shot-magnet, veteran.

Finally we have a Salamander 'Pyroclast' officer. These lunatics loooove heat-based weapons and huge honkin' hammers (you know, as one does).

Again, he's very grimy and sooty, ready to BBQ heretics with his flamer and then pound them into paste with his tenderizer. Funny thing is, in the 30K universe these guys are the most temperate and emotionally balanced of all the Legions. Yep, GrimDark indeed...

And a final shot of the Killteam as a whole, with Greg's wonderful Optae in centerstage.

These three fellas will provide me with a very modest 15 points, but I'll happily take them as, hey, the weren't done a few days ago and that's what the Challenge is all about, right?! Right.

__________________________________________

In closing, I wish to take cap in hand and give a deep bow to our marvellous Minions: (in alphabetical order): Byron, Dallas, Dave, Greg, Millsy, Peter, Sander and Sylvain. To all of you, thank you so much for keeping this silly event moving in one direction - It goes without saying (but I always will) that I could not have done it without you.

Finally my thanks to all our participants. This event would be nothing without your participation, talent and good nature. It was an absolute treat to spend the winter with you all painting figures and having a great time.

I ask all participants to email me your three nominations for Challengers' Choice (deadline end of day, March 29th). From that list I'll post a voting poll and on April 19th we'll make the announcements for Challenger's Choice, Sarah's Choice and my own Snowlord's Choice.

Finally, as per tradition, I invite our Challengers to post a final round-up shot of what they managed to achieve this year. Come now, don't be shy in showing your hard work and fabulousness! 

Best

- Curt