From JamesM: Challenge 13 Wrap-up

Hi folks,

Having had a chance to tidy my workspace a little this week, I had space to lay out my completed models from this years challenge efforts. 

Such was the impact of focusing mainly on 28mm models that I set a new personal best, finishing in 36th place with 814 points. You big scale painting folks have obviously got it easy when it comes to scoring!

The main aim this year had been to work on what I'd prepped and focus on getting some gangs painted for Necromunda. As usual, I failed slightly on these goals. This failure included having converted a 'Beastman' gang during the challenge and deciding to build a 15mm WW2 mini diorama. 

I also managed to get completed a few painting shelf lurkers and finish off a few more bits of 28mm terrain. As well as a small Space Marine fleet for Battlefleet Gothic. 

Much of this years efforts involved embracing and experimenting with Army Painter speed paints and Vallejo Xpress speed paints. Really useful tools when it comes to painting fantasy/sci fi minis. Hopefully Vallejo might expand their range to some of the more historical colours. 

In the end I painted:

A Goliath Necromunda gang (10 models plus a brute)

A Chaos Helot Cult Necromunda gang (16 models plus a demonspawn)

A Chaos Beastman Necromunda gang (9 models)

A Slave Ogyrn Necromunda gang (6 big models)

Various hangers on and NPC models for Necromunda (9 models)

Two small 28mm vehicles

A Space Marine Battlefleet Gothic flotilla

A 15mm Valentine bridge-layer tank

A 15mm Light Aid Detachment diorama plus a radio van

Some 15mm Snipers for my WW2 Brits

A battery of three 15mm M109 guns for my Cold War Dutch

120mm mortars and gun crews for my Cold War Dutch, plus .50cal APC turrets

Some random Necromunda terrain and scatter terrain

I'm particularly proud of the LAD diorama and the Dutch bits - as well as my ability to just get on and paint my Necromunda stuff. 

Big thanks go to Curt & Lady Sarah for organising us all, and to the minions for their efforts. Thanks also, as usual, to the paint and chat crew. 

Going forward for the rest of the year, I've a 15mm Cold War Dutch army to finish painting before Battlefront potentially expands the available range of models for in a few(?!) months!

from RayR - Challange 13 Wrap up.

or I think I'm gonna need a bigger table?

Mistake No 1, I asked my daughter Holly, to take a couple of pics of me for this post, she took loads of pics, this was the one that looked like me the most.......and it doesn't look like me either. 

Well that went quick didn't it? I can't believe another Challenge is over and done with already? I could have carried on at that pace for another few weeks to be honest, I'm not sure my wife would agree though??

Thanks have gotta go to the Snow Lord Curt & Lady Sarah for putting up with all of our shenanigans over the past few months. Also thanks to Minion Stuart L, leader on the Saturday crew for all his hard work.

Thanks!!!!

I got a lot of figures painted, mostly 2mm of course, but sadly didn't manage to finish my Almansa 1707 project. Boooooo!

French

Spanish

Portuguese

English & Dutch

25's & 15's

And here's the Almansa figures out on the tabletop.

Hmm? I think I got my math wrong, the troops just fit on an 8 foot table!!!

I've included plain bases, in place where the missing units should be.

On the left are the French and Spanish and of course that puts the English, Dutch and Portuguese on the right.

The photos don't do the figures justice, so I made a small video, hope it works?

I wanna claim a victory though, I think I've painted the most figures in Challenge 13?

34 x  25mm figures

24 x 15mm figures

2mm

English, French & Dutch infantry 7680 figures

Portuguese & Spanish infantry 6528 figures

All Cavalry 2184 figures

Artillery 24 guns, 96 figures

Command figures 134 figures

For a total of 16646 2mm figures!!!

Here's my performance so far in all the Challenges

Challenge II 4940 points 1st
Challenge III 2586 points 4th
Challenge IV 1227 points 17th
Challenge V 691 points 37th
Challenge VI 681 points 36th
Challenge VII 1093 points 24th
Challenge VIII 662 points 40th
Challenge IX 2274 points 8th
Challenge X 1687 points 11th
Challenge XI 2260 points 8th
Challenge XII 2168 points 7th

Challenge XIII 1111 points 27th

Dunno what Holly did to my phone, I hope I don't really look like this???

From ArthurS and SanderS: Challenge Wrap-up post

 Hoi,

So there we have it; the end of the Challenge and the final Wrap-up post are here... Both Arthur and myself are honoured to have been allowed to participate in this august undertaking yet again this year. 

Arthur has asked me to tell you all he really enjoyed taking part and getting such nice and constructive comments to his posts which are truly inspiring. He also says the Holliwood theme was really nice, even though he didn't actually enter any posts for it. He feels that in painting mainly Star Wars Legion figures he did contribute in a small way to the overall theme. The figure he is most proud of must be General Grievous 

 

Another highlight for him is gaining the set amount of points of 100 this Challenge, he hopes to be allowed to enter again next year.

As for me things are a bit less optimistic. Just like last year my Challenge was cut short due to our home renovation. Where last year I had to stop painting for a week or two due to the placing of new windows, this year the entire groundfloor of our home had to be cleared out and into storage due to massive structural works. This not only led to me missing my fixed target of 1000 points, something that hasn't happened in quite some time. Apart from the passing of my Dad and the renovation, work and life  in general just went on and it all really worked on my nerves, I tried to keep up with the Challenge but have to conclude I did fail in that too I would have liked to comment to all your excellent posts a lot more but the energy lacked and I have promised myself I will try to make up for all this next year. Yesterday concrete floors were placed into the house and from now on the building crew can start building up the home again and I will be getting an even better man-cave when all is done. 

This is how it looked before the rebuilding:

 

This was the state of affairs yesterday:

The figures I loved painting the most this Challenge were my Dark Angel Characters (the Lion is comming back!)

 and the Masters of the Universe figures. 

As a final parting I would like to say that we both have loads of new ideas and projects for next year (yes they will involve the Lion, he's back and I have only waited 27 years for his return!) and if Lady Sarah and our Snowlord will be gracious enough to organise the Challenge again next year, we would love to take part again. Thanks to everybody involved, we loved watching all the excellent posts and ideas everybody posted this year a lot. A special thanks goes to our minions Tamsin and Phil, we are much indebted to you both. 

Cheers Sander and Arthur

 

  

 

From MartijnN: Challenge XIII wrap-up

Well, that's another amazing Challenge done! My third Challenge has been the most satisfying one so far as far as my own participation is concerned, I must say. I had raised my target again compared to last year, but I still quite easily reached it. And what a great theme again this year! I painted quite some useful pieces, and some that only served to enable me to travel around AHPC Studios, GmbH. Those distractions, however, allowed me to  reach the final destination on the map, for the first time ever. Although I painted no ships this year, and no 15mm, I am very happy to have painted a lot of 28mm figures, my very first 2mm army, and quite some terrain pieces too. In sum, my personal Challenge XIII was a great success!

Last year, I didn't manage to comment on as many posts as I would have liked, and I promised to do better; well, I have at least tried to comment on each contribution this year. Should I have perchance missed any, please accept my apologies. Looking at your posts and commenting was definitely no punishment his year. Once again I was blown away by the skill, creativity,  originality, and variety of the contributions. I have seen amazing figures, mind blowing terrain pieces, fantastic ships, and even some quite fascinating turnips. And also once again it was a pleasure and a privilege to be part of such a friendly, welcoming and generous a group as you Challengers are. 

Many and most heartfelt thanks to Curt and Sarah, for organizing and managing the Challenge, to the Minions, in particular to Stuart for streamlining the Saturday Squad, and to Tamsin for generally keeping an eye on pretty much everything. To Millsy for the tracking of the side duels. To Sydney, for producing that great AHPC Studios theme and map. And finally, to all of you who made Challenge XIII such a warm bath again, in particular those of you who commented so nicely on my posts; those comments are very motivating and encouraging, and much, much appreciated. Thank you all for a great experience!

Oh well, at your own risk then, you can have a picture of me with my haul of this year:

I hope to see you all again in December for Challenge XIV!

DavidB- Finished(?) forces

Although the snow and cold still lingers, Spring has sprung with tulips fighting through the thawing ground, Adepticon was here and is gone, and AHPC has come to a close. It was a pretty good time for me as I now have many new forces to play with when a chance to game comes around. The White Scars above are a prime example.

When combined with the ones painted last year, The White Scars are complete enough to game with although I would still like to add more bikes, assault infantry, and tanks and APCs.

The Iron Snakes were also completed and with the troops added to the ones from last year, they are a very large horde and will be able to properly fight Razor's Blood Angels with no troops being in an unfinished state.

My Chaos forces have a boost with new troops and the Milita is now sufficient to field without marine support. I will probably keep the few Alpha legion marines just for fluff purposes.

My Eldar forces have been painted with a veritable force in and of itself getting painted for the first time. A goliath gang was completed and a new one started. Several Imperial Agents and a titan were completed. The Corsairs and Death Korps have added to both 40k and also increased my number of available Kill Teams to play with.

More 1st Nation, two Mordenheim bands, a silver bayonet force, and scores of D&D figures were completed....My son already has the ones I painted for his collection someplace in his crime scene of a room...😨

I made serious inroads on my MERCS collection. The cyberpunk minis have also jump-started the 5150 New Hope City project. The MERCS and Cyberpunk figures are also perfect for Star Grave too.

I had weekend duty so I was unable to stay long at Adepticon as I left the con on Friday.  A Christmas gift of Gallowdark joins a hefty haul of new miniatures. I still have samurai, aeronautica imperialis, and flames of war bits I did not get to this time, so the mountain of neglect has not shrunk too much. Warlord Games did bring some FIW troops in exchange for cash and beer...I should have plenty to prep on rainy days.

This was definitely a productive run this time and I will have plenty of quality minis to play with. It was a grand time seeing all the work that fellow challengers completed and quite a few have inspired a few new projects I may pursue in the future. A friend has offered to give me a copy of Horus Heresy in exchange for painting an army for him, My brushes may be kept out a bit longer! Now I have to turn out gear and get ready for further training, work, and family time....but without extensive hours at the painting desk! Thank you once again to Curt and Sarah for the painting time and all of the minions for the assistance in keeping the challenge gears moving. Thank you also to all of my fellow challengers for the kind words and encouragement and the steady flow of miniature eye candy. I hope to see all of your brushwork again when the snows come!

 

From TeemuL: Challenge XIII Wrap up

It happens to be a Thor's Day again, so you know how it goes. First some cold hard facts about Finland and then some minis.

 :meanwhileinfinland:

MEANWHILE IN FINLAND

The feeling when all temperatures around +0 °C  feel warm.

Everything is relative. After a long, cold Finnish winter, even a chilly spring day feels warm.

---End of a Finn talking about Finland---

Here they are, the minis I painted during the Challenge. This time I paid attention to collect all the minis in one place after they were completed, so I wouldn't miss them (like poor hobbits couple of Challenges ago) when doing the wrap up.

And here is the famous(?) Ikea box. As you can see there are still some (quite a lot) Mithril minis and 10 metal warriors for Army of Dead (which were not included in the label). So yes, I managed to paint all the Rohan and Dwarf warriors from the box, part of the Challenge completed succesfully.

And speaking of dwarfs, here they are. I have painted some Khazad Guards and Dwarf Kings in the past, so together they are quite an army already, but I still want to buy some reinforcements, rangers and specialists.

There weren't that many Rohans in the box, but most of them required some repairing or converting, so they were a bit more time consuming, but here they are all finished. I'm happy to have two warriors with flag and one with war horn, they should do small wonders for my force.

Here I have collected all the Mithril minis I painted. They were very good material for the Studios (sadly the movie never made it) and refreshing to paint, so characterful - happy to have lots of them to do in the box!

And this is me, staring in the bright future. We had kind of a spring last week, sun was shining, snow melted and all that, but it started to snow again on Saturday and now there is some 10-15 cms of snow and it continues - it is Monday now, it should be snowing until end of Tuesday. So yes, we were above zero last week, but now below. I have scheduled to publish this on Thor's Day, when it should be around zero and it will fit the emoji on the top.

And here is a group shot of a small unit of Oldhammer Orcs, I painted the right column (and snotlings in back) during the Challenge and managed to get a quick shot of a nice unit. Most of the other stuff were quite random and didn't fit to any existing group or unit, so they should look quite ok in the main photo and of course in my weekly Challenge posts.

Thank you everyone, all the organizers, minions, participants, commentators and readers! Let's see what kind of madness we have next winter, see you in December!

From Sarah and Curt: Our Challenge XIII Wrap-Up!

 Challenge XIII done and in the books! WooHoo!! 

As much as I love the hectic flurry of the Challenge, I have to say one of my favourite aspects of the event is the exhausted aftermath, when we get to see each other's collective work and read opinions of how things unfolded after three months of hobbying like mad. 

Sarah and I, in the hobby studio, presiding over our Challenge largess . (Sarah looks quite smug, doesn't she?)

From Sarah:

Hey Everybody

What a terrific show from all of this year’s participants! Well done everybody!

As a new painter, I appreciated all the comments on my modest posts, but I truly appreciated all the tips and knowledge of the hobby from all of the participants. Thank you.

Thanks to my minion Miles (extra points are sweet!) and the rest of the Wednesday Crew. It was a pleasure to be in such excellent company.

This years Challenge was a challenge for me - I was disorganized and had no action plan and perhaps this is sacrilegious… but I had no figures to paint. I am very much a butterfly and only painted what struck my fancy.

Having access to a 3D printer, one would think make finding figures would be easy… but I found that I was paralyzed with all the options in front of me, and subsequently only had 6 miniatures to paint. And only one was a figure!

A cacophony of colour!

Next year, I hope to have a plan, pay attention to the map and meet my target!

Have a fabulous spring/summer and I’ll meet you here in December. ❤️

- Sarah

_______________________________________________

From Curt:

Lovely work Lady Sarah! I've always admired your use of vibrant colours. 

Now, from the sublime to the ridiculous. 

For just getting lots done, this was probably my best Challenge to-date. I managed to keep reasonably on-task with my primary goal of getting two baseline forces done up for Turnip28. Hooray!

I'm just two rooty units shy of my quest, but still, I'm happy with they turned out (and have to smile at the heads that were scratched by this wonderfully odd setting). 

I also had good fun working on a few cars for 'Mad Maximillian'. 

Again, I came up a little short for a race-ready roster, but hey, I'm definitely closer along than I was in November. Maybe this summer I'll get a few more jalopies finished to allow a proper dust up.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Challenge without a few distractions along the way, right? I enjoyed working on a film crew for 'Top Billing', some fantasy figures for 'Mork Borg', a command stand depicting Jean de Vallette at the Siege of Malta, and a smattering of avant-garde looking Kushites for, um, no reason in particular, just 'cause they looked badass.

I'm glad I managed to get most of my Turnip stuff done early, because the later half of the Challenge saw me down a rabbit hole, working on 10mm fantasy from Warhammer's 'Old World'. 

This was brought on by me coming across several old storage boxes of unopened Warmaster figures that, you know, just HAD to get painted. The origins of this veritable Eldorado of lead entailed a friend who was a GW store manager, who did some, um, creative accounting during an inventory purge - yes, the less said the better... Anyway, I have enough 10mm fantasy stuff for another Challenge or two.

All in all it was a very productive winter for me. Nevertheless, the best aspect of the Challenge was the opportunity to get together with old friends, make some new ones, and enjoy this funny little hobby of ours. Thank you all for making it happen.

__________________________________

I'd like all our participants to email me their top three nominations for Challengers' Choice. On April 2nd I'll provide a voting poll listing all the nominations. The announcement of the Challengers' Choice winner, along with the SnowLord's Choice and Sarah's Choice will be on April 9th.

I look forward to catching up with you then!

Warm Regards,

- Curt