From IgnacioR - The Warband, Ready to Stab Backs (97 Points)

Eshin Sorcerer

Well, the band is finished, after painting the first six the rest was really easy, I was not 100% convinced with the blades and after thinking about it I´ve decided to add blood, and after that they look a little bit more dangerous rats. So the total are this: 

Verminkin

Night runners

Rat ogre

Assassin adept

Verminkin

More verminkin

Black skaven

It's great to see the rest of the warband Nacho. You're right, the addition of a bit of blood and gore on their blades makes them more of a force to be reckoned with. I really like those nasty little mutant rats, and the Verminkin sporting the rotary cannon thingy looks positively deadly.

I'm scoring the rat ogre as a 40mm figure, so this lot will give you a healthy 97 points. Excellent work!

A Barrel of Laughs! (Curtgeld - 20points)

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why the Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has proved to be so successful.  With this been my fourth year of contributing I have seen its exponential growth to the current roster of eighty eight, showcasing an incredibly diverse array of talent, styles and miniatures all combining to form a formidable hobby showcase.  

The congeniality of our host, Curtis Campbell Esq. must certainly be identified as a contributing factor to the success of the venture, as to the hugely encouraging and supportive nature of my fellow challengers.  For me, however, the thematic nature of the challenge also proves important and this year’s, celebrating risk takers, daredevils and gamblers, is no exception.  

Carlisle Graham rapid shooting daredevil

As in previous Challenges, we are asked to provide a small memento in the form of a single 28mm figure characterised as a risk-taker, daredevil or gambler and this started the old grey matter cogitating.  I can’t tell you why or how, but one morning I awoke with the germ of an idea that saw my ‘fee’ come to fruition.  The spirit of human endeavour seems to breed risk takers, people that have undertaken Herculean tasks simply because they are there to do so.  The annals of our very existence are littered with such feats, but my attention fell on one particular group of thrill seekers – those brave souls that looked to conquer the Niagara Falls!  

Given this natural phenomenon’s proximity to the fine nation that is Canada, home of our beloved benefactor in this annual painting challenge, this seemed to good an opportunity to pass up.  The list of those that have tried to tame the falls is impressive with the likes of Annie Taylor, the first person to conquer the falls in a barrel back in 1901 or Englishman Charles G. Stephens who equipped his wooden barrel with an anvil for ballast, an ingenious idea but not wholly practical – only Charles’ right arm was discovered after his attempt!

With the die cast, it was just a matter of locating a miniature that would suffice and as luck would have it ‘Hasslefree Miniatures’ had just what I was after – ‘Gambler Kev’.  Although listed as 28mm this delightfully quirky sculpt is small, perhaps more suited to representing a very short man or a teenage boy with a shaved head.  As a result, I felt I needed to add a little extra and stumbled across a rather splendid tutorial for splashing water effects.  So without any further ado let me present my homage to those risk takers, daredevils and gamblers who have tried, with differing levels of success, to tame the mighty Niagara, now winging its way to you Curt! 

I am struck speechless. Wow! What a wonderfully whacky and imaginative figure. It's just fantastic Michael and I got a good, long belly laugh out of reading this. I have to say when I saw the archival photo of the dashing Mr. Carlisle I thought someone had captured an illicit image of me getting ready for my morning ablutions! Sacrebleu!

Seriously, what a great miniature - so brilliantly conceived and executed.  

I also love the opening image of our daredevil 'shooting' the Falls - just fantastic. And thank you for providing the link to the water effect tutorial - I think I may give that a go.

Michael's 'Curtgeld' will provide him with 20 points and me with a excellent memento of his participation in this year's Challenge. Thank you Michael!

From JuanM: Hammer of Gobbos EDITED! (6 Points)

After a short break celebrating Christmas Day, here is my next entry in The Challenge, Brynda the Beautiful (because she is not bearded, I think), a female Dwarf warrior from Red Box Games/Haslefree Miniatures.

She is another small gem from Tre Manor´s hands whose painting I have enjoyed a lot. The base is from Scibor Miniatures.

Here is another picture of the shield with an small Smaug in the middle of a barbecue:

This brave small warrior can give me 5 points, I think. Some more lead in my fight with Phil...

Nice one  Juan! She is a lovely casting to be sure. I like the armour colour you've given her. It reminds me of Boromir's from The Lord of the Rings. 

This figure will give you a base of 5 points but I'm throwing in another for the excellent painted shield design. Lovely work Juan -  Three entries in a week?! You're on fire!

From TeemuL - Imperial Halberdiers (15 points)

It took longer than I hoped or expected, but finally my opening entry is here. Three Imperial Halberdiers, worth 15 points. You might remember from the last year, that I painted several Oldhammer figures, and I'll continue on that road this year as well. There'll be some Lord of the Rings figures, too. And some random figures. This time I didn't have enough time to plan or prepare the miniatures, so there the output will be quite varied. My five month old son is also demanding some attention, so my painting time is limited. Luckily he is quite a good sleeper, so I have some hobby time in the evenings.


But now to the miniatures here. Veterans will recognize them as GW Imperial Halberdiers from the 90s. I think they do not exist anymore in the Warhammer 8th or in the Age of Sigmar, but that doesn't matter: I have a friend who used to play at the time of 5th edition and as I have the necessary books, we will be playing couple of games early next year once I have painted reasonable forces. On the other side there will be Orcs, which I have quite a lot, but most of them are armed with bow, which is quite unorthodox for Orcs, so I need to paint some other models as well. The other side will be an Imperial army with Dwarf allies, where the problem is the opposite: basically all of them are armed with hand weapons. So, what did I do? I painted more of the close combat troops... My defense is that those miniatures were prepared and ready for painting. Actually I don't have many missile troops for "The Good Guys."


These three are painted in the red and white uniform, which I have used quite a lot in my Empire troops. I actually picked the color theme from the Blood Bowl ages ago, when I didn't want to paint all the troopers with same colors. This uniform emulates the "The Marauders" uniform, don't know where they come from, though. I'm quite happy with the painting, they are rank and file troops after all. Although they will be in the front row, because the other halberdiers were painted twenty years ago and I have gathered some skills after that.  

I don't like painting white, especially with the paints I have, the Citadel whites just don't seem to cover anything. Some of the faces are good, some are not. But overall they have a neat and uniformed look, they'll be happy to fight some orcs.

I have ten or so more of these, but I used my last transfers on these shields... And I won't be painting those eagles freehand! My next entry will be something else, probably I start working on with the Nostalgia bonus round entry, which should not cause much troubles considering my usual painting suspects. :)

So 15 points please, and hello to all the old and new in this challenge!

Welcome aboard Teemu - it's great to have you with us!

These are some very nice Oldhammer figures. I like the colour scheme you've chosen (those are some awesome red shoes btw) and the heraldry on the shields is a great finishing touch. 

As for whites I can recommend the Foundry three tier system ('Austrian White' #67a,b&c). The paint is very smooth, opaque and will give great coverage right from the first coat. Reaper is very good as well.

 Nice work and 15 points for you climb up the roster.

 

From SeanS - Bertok the Barbarian - (5 points)

This should be my third entry in the challenge.

For a change of pace I decided to work on a single 28mm figure.

Bertok is a metal figure from Reaper that I got as part of a learn to paint kit. I had intended to follow the guide, but came up with some ideas of my own and did it my own way.

He is freakishly big and muscled compared to most 28mm figures, especially the ones from Games Workshop in the late 80's and early 90's.

I thought I'd paint him up as a Chaos thug for my up coming Chaos army. Although my army is going to be Tzeentch, Bertok's color scheme is slightly Khorne with the red and brass/gold accents. It doesn't come across in the photo that well but his hair is Purple. I used the Vampiric skin triad from Reaper and I really like how it came out. Just a hint of purple. Originally I was going t mix purple into my regular flesh color.

In a departure from the norm I only put grunge wash on the no flesh portions. I felt the brown in the wash would ruin the lovely pallor of the skin.

I hope you like him. Chalk up 5 more point. Woohoo!

Nice work Sean! I like his purple hair and the very pale skin-tone you chose to use. Very suiting for a barbarian of Tzeentch. For those who have read the Erikson books, this figure might make a good Karsa Orlong as well, with a bit of modification.

A very nice mini Sean! 

From DavidL - Bug-Eyed Martians (15 Points)

Hoo-boy, I am shaking off the rust! I did a fair amount of painting over the summer, but it's been a few months since I picked up the brush. So a small project as I stretch my muscles by way of a Christmas gift for my dear old Dad.

He's a big fan of 50s sci-fi, and has a modestly-sized toy collection in that vein, so when I saw these figures from Hydra Miniatures I knew I had to get them, paint 'em up, and make a contribution to his collection.

Since they're meant for display, I didn't spare the garish colors and gloss varnish touches. I think he'll be pleased with the results.

These look absolutely brilliant David and I'm sure your dad must be delighted with the gift. I really like the saturated colours you went with, especially their groovy red boots and the purple rim on the bases. Very cool!

These three mean little green men will give you 15 points for your debut on the roster. Welcome aboard David!

From MichaelA - “Damn funny. Like a train... in the distance.” (40 Points)

*stops as the sound of thousands of Zulu warriors marching toward the mission can be heard*

Well maybe not thousands, but eight at least! Not wanting to let Martin Cooke get too far out in front, I have promoted these fine fellows to the head of the painting queue as my first entry in this year’s challenge and an opening salvo in our side duel ‘The Cetshwayo Challenge'.

These, then, are from the Warlord Games/Empress Miniatures Unmarried Zulu Warriors box, consisting of 32 self assembly hard plastic miniatures. The purists will undoubtedly bemoan the historical inaccuracy of these chaps wearing their full ceremonial regalia in the heat of battle, but I have to confess that I rather like them.  I have painted these with black shields and a white spot in the lower half to represent the Indluyengwe (Leopard’s Den) Regiment that fought at Rorke’s Drift.  Plenty of options to vary the poses, these dynamic warriors should see me open my account with a steady 40 points for the challenge proper, whilst contributing 32 to my tally in the side duel.

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas and a productive New Year! 

Beautiful work Michael, just magnificent. I too like the full ceremonial regalia of these Leopard's Den chaps, the purists be damned. :) Is each of your submissions going to feature a unique regiment, or is this one the start of what will be a larger unit? Either way I look forward to seeing the rest of your 'Cetshwayo Challenge'.

...and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and the saintly Mrs. Awdry.

 

From SanderS - Somewhere Warm... (64 Points)

Dear ladies and Gentlemen,

As my very first post of this year I present you about 16 of my old Revell 8th Army soldiers in 1:72 plastic. Ok 2 of them are actually HäT figures but hey who's checking, right? Anyway these figures are some of my oldest miniatures, I bought them aged 15 in our local toy store. There are some figures from 2 different Revell 8th Army boxes to whit the Scottish Infantry set and some of the Australian Infantry set.

Let's have a look at them shall we?

Some figures in fairly relaxed poses, well one isn't actually relaxed, but for him the war is over.

Some action poses.

Sitting poses with support weapons. The brengunner on the right is a Revell figure the other 2 are HäT figures.

The shooting figures and officer

Now 16 foot figures in roughly 20mm scale should be worth about 64 points. So that's a nice start for now. 

Cheers Sander

Nice work Sander! It's great to see some of these venerable plastics get a bit of the spotlight. Some of the poses are typical to early plastics and quite 'unique'. The running chap looks like he's going to pull a hamstring, and what is the fellow in the first image on the far right up to? It looks like he's either shaving or about the top himself (or maybe both?).

I quite like the arid basing you've created for these and those buildings are just brilliant (love the rug over the doorway). 

These lads will give you 64 points - well done Sander!

 

From SeanS - 20mm Goblin Warriors (40 points)

Now that I've remembered the titling convention of the challenge. Here are some 20mm Goblins. 10 of 'em.

The last of the Caeser plastic set I had primed and based. You may remember their compatriots from last challenge.

The paint of choice for my goblin flesh was being a tad problematic, so these weren't as satisfying to paint as I'd hoped.

Hopefully you can make them out in the pictures, I was a little rushed as were getting ready to head down to the in-laws.

Hopefully I can get some 28mm going soon, but I do have quite bit of 20mm left.

Best of luck on your painting today.

These are some great looking goblins Sean! They have that classic eighties D&D look about them (those ears are awesome). I particularly like the chaps with the oversized stone hammers - they look like they'd fall over if they swung them over their heads!

These 10 dungeon denizens will give you 40 points - Great work!

From AdamC - Wraith and Golem (12 Points)

Two More Frostgrave figures.

 First up is the Frost Wraith one of the stretch goals from the Thaw of the Lich Lord  "Nickstarter". I often find representation of incorporeal undead a challenge after all most classic descriptions are fuzzy on details and even the more solid ones (the Ring Wraiths of Tolkien come to mind) are more about how it "felt" to view them than what they looked like.  I went black and black/gray here for a shading effect and then did the "face" in a yellow green I have been using for other ghostly figures (probably the ghost busters influence).

The model had a lot "holes" in its "cloak" or "Shroud" so I made those yellow green as well I'm trying to suggest the ghostly light is "leaking" out through the holes in what ever is cloaking the figure. 

This next figure is one of the "Bones" line from Reaper  they call it a "Crystal Golem" its one of the figures that comes in a translucent colored plastic in this case blue.  I was going for an Ice Golem look here so I hit the figure with a black wash then a layer of glue gray followed by highlighting in jewel tone blue. The face suggest the Easter Island statures just a bit if you ask me.

I was trying to create the impression of a creature made of ice from the deptsh of a glacier, ice that is long frozen, ice with depth and life. To that end I tried not to completely cover the original translucent material so you can at point almost look into the figure. I am not sure I succeeded in creating exactly the look I wanted but even if I didn't he still looks cool.

The top down view as the crystal "spikes" on his back are best appreciated from this angle. This should give me another 10 points as both of these are 25/28mm figures.  Let me take this opportunity to with all a Merry Christmas as I will probably not get a chance to post again before the holiday.

And Merry Christmas to you, Adam! 

Two great figures here. I especially like the ice blue effect you achieved with the Crystal Golem - very 'cool' indeed!

The Golem looks to be at least 40mm so I'll score him as such. 12 points for the pair - well done!

From PhilH - SCW Nationalist Officers (15 Points)

Each Challenge, I try to get an entry in before the Christmas festivities, and family scheduling has been accommodating this year. I've had loads of painting time in fact, but haven't been able to capitalize fully because I had a few bits to finish off from before the Challenge. 

First off my painting desk is this trio of Nationalist officers for my Spanish Civil War project. First, a figure of unknown provenance in a Germanic uniform, that I did in the khaki of the Condor Legion. Not someone who would usually grace a platoon level action in Chain of Command, though perhaps he might stray too close to the front while surveying the abilities of the Nationalist forces or the effects of experimental tactics by the Condor Legion. The uniform isn't strictly right, I think, as the tunic should be open necked and worn with a shirt and tie. But never mind. As a corpulent fellow, I couldn't resist giving him the flushed look of a man who loves his Riesling and Rioja. 

Next, a Nationalist officer who was actually was the show freebie from Partizan this year, meant to represent the actor and producer Sir Donald Wolfit in 'Lawrence of Arabia'. Sculpted by Bill Thornhill. This seemed my best use for him, as he looks a bit like he is giving a facist salute.

Finally, a third hurried through in a day to try to match Juan's swift pace, a Carlist Requete officer from Empress Miniatures. Yup, I'm still chugging through my Carlist forces! 

And as a group:

And that's my first broadside in the clash with Juan's Armada, while also scoring for the Pulp side-challenge and taking the lead against Ian - though this latter is almost certain to be a fleeting lead, knowing the rate he can paint!

Wishing all administrators, challengers and observers a very Merry Christmas, I hope you all have a happy festive season.

I find it poignant that your first entry has a Spanish theme - it is proper fitting for your opening volley with our Iberian friend Juan.  I must say that Condo Legion officer is brilliant. I love the touch of Mencia you've put in his cheeks and on his nose.  I have so many projects on the go right now, but I have to admit when I saw these, I wanted to pull out some unloved SCW metal for some attention. I must remain strong!

Phil, this trio of Nationalists will give you 15 points in your duel with Juan.