The 15th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

The leaves are off the trees, there's a cold bite in the air and I'm ready to pick up a brush and settle at the hobby desk.  

As a reflection to my outlook on this funny old thing called Life, this year's theme will be Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. Participants can join me in journeying with Dante to the various locations of Paradise and The Inferno. Hey, at least we'll be warm!

The Basics

The Painting Challenge will extend from the first day of Winter, 12:01 am December 21st, through to the first day of Spring, 12:01am March 20th, Central Standard Time (CST).

Miniatures (i.e. figures, vehicles, artillery, etc.) can be prepared, assembled and primed prior to the start date, but you cannot start painting until December 21st. In order to gain full points. The figures should be based (if appropriate) and any planned groundwork completed. The figures have to be painted by you. 

The Challenge follows the honour system in the completion and entry of figures. 

Miniatures can be in any scale and from any genre (pulp-adventure, science-fiction, fantasy, etc.).

The Challenge provides a simple (if imperfect) scoring system so participants can establish a benchmark to work towards. To be clear, the Challenge is NOT to judge the work, but to simply help inspire hobbyists to get stuff done.

For purposes of scoring, participants will create draft blog posts of their work on the  Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog. Up-to-date scoring (or as up-to-date as we can manage) will be handled by our intrepid team of Minions and displayed the blog's main page. 

I will send out an email to new participants a week or so prior to the event to provide additional details on submitting your entries to the Challenge blog.

Note: All participants must have at least one entry submitted within the first four weeks of the event (i.e. January 21st). Failure to do so will result in being dropped from the Challenge roster. Yep, remember, this is not called a Challenge for nothing. :)

 

The Scoring

Below is an outline of how we score entries:  

6mm foot figure = 0.5 point
6mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 1 point
6mm vehicle = 2 points

10mm foot figure = 1 point
10mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 3 points
10mm vehicle = 6 points 

15mm foot figure = 2 points
15mm mounted figure, artillery piece or large crew served weapon = 4 points15mm vehicle = 8 points

20mm foot figure = 4 points
20mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 8 points20mm vehicle = 15 points

28mm foot figure = 5 points
28mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 10 points
28mm vehicle = 20 points

40mm foot figure = 7 points
40mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 15 points
40mm vehicle = 25 points

54mm foot figure = 10 points
54mm mounted figures, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 20 points
54mm vehicle, limber, etc. = 30 points 

Other scales, miscellaneous models/figures will be scored on a submission-by-submission basis. 


Terrain Submissions

Feel free to enter terrain with your submissions, but they will not be eligible to be scored for points.

Welcome to the 'Divine Comedy'!

Those doughty Challengers who wish to to gain bonus points can gird their loins to participate in Dante's journey through The Abyss and Paradise. Dante's path will feature various locations which participants can explore by completing a themed hobby task. Once you've completed the task at a location you will get bonus points and will be clear to travel on to the next location. 

Remember, participants do not need to engage with The Divine Comedy to enjoy the Challenge, it is a voluntary diversion for those wishing to try some theme-based challenges.

In a few weeks I'll follow up with another post laying out the specifics of Dante's travels, its layout, and the bonus themes. I promise it will be hellishly good fun. ;)

Our Marvelous Minions

Keeping to form, I will serve as the Head Daemon / Tormentor-in-Chief / High Dork Lord, etc., BUT I've also 'convinced' a happy group poor souls to serve as 'Minions' to help me keep this all chugging along. Here are the wonderful people (along with their assigned days) who have taken my Faustian pact to assist in this year's Challenge:

• Monday: SylvainR

• Tuesday: MartijnN

• Wednesday: GregB

• Thursday: TeemuL

• Friday: PaulOG

• Saturday: Millsy

• Sunday: Lady Sarah

We also see the return of MilesR who will be our spreadsheet guru and PeterD who will keep on top of the Duels (see below). Thank you guys for stepping up to help for this year's edition!

Signup, Personal Targets and Duels

For those wishing to participate please send me an email, providing the following information: 

1) your full name (no, not your cool nerdish handle, your actual name),
2) your country of residence, and 
3) your points target for the three months of the event (see below).

My email address is:
curtcampbell at mac dot com 

I will post a comment below when the roster has been filled and will follow-up with an email in a couple weeks detailing the specifics of the event.

Points Target: Many participants have found the personal points targets to be a great incentive to maintain their pace over the three months of the Challenge. I encourage participants to pick a target that is just beyond your comfort zone, but still achievable. As a rough benchmark, 300 points is considered a manageable amount for someone who is new to the the event and/or has a busy work/life schedule. Also remember that a significant amount of points can be secured by tailoring submissions to this year's various themes (more on this later).

Duels: Also, related to the points targets, many people have a lot of fun issuing 'paint duels' to other participants. This could be racing to meet a declared target, painting the most figures for a specific period, etc. We have our indomitable Minion, PeterD, to keep track of the duels, but more on that in a later post.

The Cost of Entry

Last year we had great success with our donations to our local libraries. Thank you again to all those who supported that worthwhile cause. This year I ask participants to donate to either to Doctors Without Borders or The Glow Mission - both worthy charities in need of support. 

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Challenge XV begins at 12:01am December 21st!

Now, sign up for the Challenge and get you minis arranged for painting. We'll see you on the start line in a few weeks!

In Celebration of Challenge XIV

'We few, we happy few....' 

Here we are at the end of the fourteenth edition of the Painting Challenge. The library has turned off its lights, votes have been counted for both 'Minions' Choice' and 'Challengers' Choice', Sarah has made her selection for 'Sarah’s Choice' and I’ve done the same for 'SnowLord's Choice'. 

Now, I suggest you get your favourite tipple and settle in for the read.

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Minions' Choice

Our ever-industrious band of heroic Minions have put their heads together and decided upon their favourite entries from the three months of the Challenge.

In third place:

Kerry for his wonderfully sprawling, and just plain wonderful Norman Castle.

Second place we have:

SimonG for his imperious and very impressive Early Imperial Romans..

...and The Minions' Choice' goes to:

PaulSS for his brilliant Napoleonic Dutch-Belgians!

Paul, for your prize you have a $100 gift voucher from Byron's Norther Lights Terrain. Congratulations!

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Challengers' Choice

We had 22 nominations for this year's Challengers' Choice with a great voting response from our participants (45 votes cast). Its always fun to take in the gallery of nominees as it provides such a wonderful retrospective of the thee months of the Challenge. 

In third place is:

Bruce with his cracking collection of 12mm ACW troops.

Runner Up for Challengers' Choice is:

My Trojan Horse/Odysseus submission (doffs cap - Thank you very much!).

The Challengers' Choice' goes to: 

Alan for his fabulous Palmyrans - well done Dux, bravo!!

Alan, for your well-deserved prize you get a $100 gift voucher from JohnS and the crew at The War Library! Congratulations Alan and enjoy!

For those interested, here are the top 10 rankings for Challenger's Choice:

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Sarah’s Choice 

Hi Everybody!

Wow! Another Challenge completed!

It really doesn’t seem that long ago that we all began this journey, yet as I scrolled through all the Sarah’s Choice entries, I am reminded of the quantity, variety and caliber of minis submitted for the Library Cart.

Time may have passed, but it certainly was time well spent!

DaveB’s Ladies of Venice from Carnevale have caught my eye… I have long admired these figures and seeing DaveB’s choice of colour palette and great brush skills has me thinking of Challenge XV...

TomL‘s contribution of female figures from Bob Murch and Crooked Dice were fabulous. A few of my favourites were the May Queen Dancers, the Duchess and The Maharani .

And huge congrats to Rhys for his veiled Elf. Wow, she’s a complex figure to paint (I got nervous just looking at all the wavy bits). Well done on the problem solving, the end result is terrific.

And now to Sarah’s Choice for Challenge XIV

ChrisW - Vampire Hunter from Blue Moon.

A very cool figure, but what drew me was the very characterful colours used - the brown tunic/vest looks leather or an oiled cloth … (very practical in her line of work), the dress shade of arsenic green is dangerous and the jaunty red hat speaks of strong independence. I can see her leading an adventure party.

I find it interesting how colour choices impact the way in which we view and interact with the figures.

Chris, for your prize please enjoy a Moonstone starter box set from Goblin King Games.

Thanks for reading and joining in on the silliness that we love with the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

Have a happy summer!

Sarah

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Snowlord's Choice

Honourable Mentions go to:

Ken's 'final unit' for his Risorgimento collection. Well done on this wonderfully characterful and beautifully realized project Ken.

Alan's Gallic cavalry. All I have to say is, 'Look at all those lovely hand painted shields. Wow.'

SnowLord's Choice goes to:

Rhys' body of work. I really appreciate having you pitch in with us this year, Rhys, as I always like seeing new, young hobbyists join the Challenge. It reminds us what a great hobby this is and what a wonderful, supportive community we've built. 

Great work Rhys! For your prize I have for you a $100 gift voucher from Kawe and the good folks over at Westfalia Miniatures. I hope we see you again with us next time we roll out! 

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Congratulations to all the nominees and winners. Thank you for sharing your wonderful work with us. For those lucky prize winners, please email me to work out the details for getting your treats. 

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Before Challenge XIV formally concludes, I’d like to thank again our brilliant Minions for all their hard work herding entries, wrangling with the Spreadsheet of Doom and generally keeping everything rattling along. Thanks to Paul and Barks for the managing the Duels and keeping track of the skull-count. I also wish to thank our Challenge Sponsors for their generous support of the event.  If you have a free moment please visit their web stores via the banners on the left sidebar and see if something strikes your fancy.  As I often say, the Challenge doesn’t need prizes to be a success, but it adds a nice bit of chrome to the festivities.  Thanks again to all our wonderful sponsors! 

Finally, and I really can't say this enough, I want to thank all of our participants. This event would be nothing without all your industry, your humour and most of all, your open-hearted support for one another. All of these make the Painting Challenge what it is. You folks are wonderful, thank you.

So in closing, I bid you all a fond farewell. I hope you enjoy the next few months 'off', and until we get together again next December...

In Memory of Felix (a most excellent boy)

- Curt 

MattW it’s a wrap 2024

 This year a more modest goal of 750 points which I manage to miss by two points…. I was on vacation for almost three months, just about all of the challenge visiting family and friends in Australia, plus a visit to Cancon Australias largest wargames convention, where I caught up with some fellow challengers and picked up 2kg of lead….. then returned to France for 6 days before going to Paris for a week, then up to the Champagne district on our yearly champagne purchasing trip (plus visiting the Napoleonic and ww1 battlefields nearby)

As per normal I had a wide mix of bits prepared but only managed to complete some due to Piss poor planning …. I prepared quite a lot before the challenge and departed with a carry bag of 100 odd hairy Germans, and a few smaller pieces. What I failed to do though was pack the correct bag of decals for my Germans….. so I based and completed what I could and entered them. Then when I returned I thought I would enter the figures I had painted by finding the transfers ….. which I failed to do because I got sidetracked, however I did get some 28mm fallschirmjager completed which was a good thing! 

No real favourites this year, but the long holiday has boosted my completion rate since the challenge with all of the Germanics completed in the last 10 days adding another 60 odd to the collection, more Fallschirmjager and completed some other bits that was prepped for the APC. 

See you all next year

Cheers

Matt

From SanderS: It aint over till the Fat Sander sang...

 Hoi there,

Another Challenge has gone by and I am rather happy with my results even though I failed to reach my set target. This was the first year in which I only painted stuff I actually felt like painting rather than miniatures I needed done or off my table. This was absolutely more pleasing and I will keep that as my motivation for following Challenges. 

It was an absolute blast participating alongside such esteemed Challengers as you all are and as such I am keenly aware I have not replied to your posts as much as you all deserve, I hope to rectify that in the future. As for what I finished together with the obligatory mug-shot:

My favourite figures this Challenge were of course the Bretonnians and while I have but scratched the top of the pile I need to do to get the force table-ready I am pleased with them all the same. 

The Library Theme was great fun and books very prominent in my Challenge experiences this year. I did buy the Legend of the Green Knight (translated by J.R.R. Tolkien) in the end and it's now on my to read pile. As a teacher I have the privilege to go on field trips and help organise them. Last year we first went to Waterloo and we got to go there just a few weeks ago again. 

This is me at the Waterloo Panorama, an oldie but a treasure all the same. I brought along my copy of Mercer's Journal and took a picture at the last known site where his battery was located on the field of battle before pursuit of the French army started. 

As for my Challenge contribution: as Martijn has already stated Dutch (and Belgian Libraries) are state funded and do not accept donations but I have tried to alleviate my contribution in two different ways: first up our school has plans to renovate and build a new building soon. Our history department will be getting lots of bookshelves and I will donate part of my historical fiction library to it in order to have the pupils be able to read about history in a more fun way as opposed to from the regular text books.

Next my wife and I (be honest mostly my wife) arranged for the 4 of us to have an animal sponsored through myfahlo.com. It's a format that lets you donate money to a cause that helps safeguard endangered animals around the world and you get to track "your"animal by way of it's GPS transponder. Both our lads are heavily into conserving the planet and saving animals so I got an elephant and Arthur a Sea Turtle. I hope you find this okay Curt! 

Talking about the great Snowlord; no Challenge would be possible without the endless energy and ministrations of Curt, the Lady Sarah and the long suffering minions: thank you all heaps from both Arthur and myself. Specially Teemu and Sylvain of course who were tasked with herding the van Straeten boys this Challenge. Oh and Sylvain you are still going to tell us how we can obtain those excellent  Musée des Fossiles mugs!

So thank you all and see you next year,

Cheers Sander