Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work of miniature painters from around the world. While participants come from every ethnicity, gender, age and nationality, they have three things in common: they love miniatures, they enjoy a supportive community, and they want to set themselves against the Challenge.
This site features the current year's event along with the archives of past Painting Challenges.
Enjoy your visit and remember to come back soon.
This week I have another batch of Czechoslovak Legion figures ready. Again from the range of Copplestone Castings, they are simply splendid and a joy to paint.
I've tried to vary the colours to give them a more worn and summer campaign look.
Thankfully the Painting Challenge has kickstarted my painting mojo again, so I have a whole pile of Russian Civil War figures waiting on the painting table to keep me going post challenge.
I quickly took the pictures this morning after emerging from the bomb shelter (we're currently posted to Tel Aviv). Just off to Jerusalem for a day or two to avoid the inevitable missile attacks. 'Bon chance' to all. Hopefully my next post will be 'Postbellum.' ;-)
The points summary:
11 x 5 = 55 points for eleven 28mm foot miniatures.
Oh dear Mark, I do hope you and yours will keep safe and get through this ordeal in top shape mate! It is incredible that you have been able to put out these excellent figures seen the circumstances. I am glad to hear the Challenge has given you the drive to keep going on this awesome project indeed!
I was painting one of these figures for my confederate soldiers collection when a friend from Germany mentioned this figure as his favorite Jean Hoefler figure, and he called him "Fuzzy". Not knowing who was "Fuzzy" I started painting the same figure as a gift for him. So that is why you see two identical figures. The one with the sand color base is a gift for him.
Pity of his damaged nose.
But that isn't the end of the story. I was to curious so I wanted to know, who is "Fuzzy". So i asked him and he sended me this picture. Ladies and gentlemen, meet "Fuzzy". Never heard or seen this guy but I like this funny guy already!
So with this mystery solved, and as this is a painting challenge, I wanted to paint another one just like on the picture and now you can see the final result here. This one will also go to my friend in germany as a mystery gift.
Finished a new Epirote Phalangite unit for my Pyrrhic army bringing me up to 3 out 5 planned(just this one for the challenge). I had forgotten how long it takes me to do one of these and is probably why they are spaced out rather then one after another.
I decided on a light blue for this one and quite like the colors. I'm trying to decide if I'll do some more units this way or keep each unit an individual in their own colors. As mentioned they do take quite some some time to paint(for me that is) so I probably won't attempt another for a little while and for sure not this challenge, but not a problem as I have plenty of other units for the army to do!
The miniatures are from the superb Aventine range and I highly recommend visiting their site. If you like ancients you will be hard pressed to leave with your basket empty! The colors I used were Foundry, Vallejo and Citadel with some mig pigments for rock dusting.
I hope to squeeze in a unit or two before the challenge ends which would be nice. That's 24 miniatures at 28mm for 120pts.
Christopher, these are truly gorgeous! The combination of the Russian blue and the white is very striking and vibrant! Perhaps I have missed for what game system you have painted these but they sure look the part with that awesome bases. I do hope you find the opportunity to paint some more this Challenge because we can do with more of these excellently painted figures.
Two different projects gaining additions this week, and both of these are projects I have already played games with and hope to play more in the future! Let's start with Old Wild West or how you want to call it. This fellowship of nine are Great Escape Games multipart plastic gunfighters from Gunfighters and Gunfighters II boxes - the first one contains the gentlemen and the second one the ladies. I shared these boxes with a friend and painted one lady on last challenge, hence the odd number. What a Cowboy is the ruleset I have and have played with, so I went with varied weapons to have all kinds of different options available. I have painted some several Old West minis in the past, now I should have quite a large selection - barring the mounted options.
I used mainly quite dull, earthly colours and drybrushed everything in the end to get a dusted appearance, but tried to add some bright colours here and there - the scarf, undershirt or something. So you see lots of different browns here, lots of Reikland Flesh Shade everywhere, but still not exactly Sergio Leone dust levels. :)
Playing around with some other environment than the dungeon (see below), I decided to use Last Chance Saloon for my Gunfighters, and it is quite ok. I just need something colourful for the background.
I painted some SU-76s for the Soviet Army for Bagration and since I'm in the process of painting the both sides, it felt only fair to give something for Germans as well. I guess the Russians have quantity and Germans have the quality, here are two Hornisses, also known as Nashorns, and officially as Sd.Kfz. 164. These are part metal part resin figures, a bit painful to assemble thus, but they look quite nice when ready. They are tank hunters, rather cheap and manouvarable solution to break Allied tanks. Open topped with a highly effective Pak 43 gun, similar gun was used later in Tiger IIs and Jagdpanthers. And of course as anti tank gun as itself. Hornisse first saw action at the battle of Kursk and remained in the service until end of the war.
I have used Averland Sunset as the yellow colour, then some green DIY store green added with blister foam to create the camouflage and finally some XV-88 (nice connection to the gun "8.8cm Pak 43" this vehicle carries) to finalize to overall look. AA gun was painted black, same as the wheels. Tracks are some greyish colour I had. Reikland Flesh Shade is used here, too, some touch ups and identification info. Glued on MDF base with some green sawdust and tufts to tie them nicely to Eastern Front in summer 1944. My philosophy with late war Germans is, that anything goes. I mean, there are of course rules to follow, but as long as playing Flames of War type of games, which are not strictly historical battles, rather generic encounters of what-ifs, German forces are happy to field what ever they have available. Retreating units from the front line, reinforcements from the reserve, you take what you have to fight for the Motherland. So these two Hornisses should have no trouble finding a home in my army.
The crew was painted separately, because that was easier and I could then claim full points of them. Khaki jacket and caps with dark brown and bright green camouflage pattern, grey pants and black boots. And that famous Reikland Flesh Shade pretty much everywhere.
Nine 28mm gunfighters for 45 points and a "28mm Old West Squirrel!"
Two 15mm vehicles for a total of 16 points and then 4 and 2 halfs of crewmembers for 10 points, 26 in total and a "15mm WW2 German Squirrel." It's amazing how they plan these "Squirrel in a box" products!
Total for this post is 71 points and 2 squirrels, no skulls or stompy robots, but something for Lady Sarah, if that is still a thing. :) And three cardboard boxes are now empty and ready to be recycled.
Fellowship of Nine on the balcony
P.S.While I was taking photos of these, my 10 year old son was bored, because screen time was all used up and he then spent some time chatting with his mother and I overheard this kind of question:
- What is that "Desert song" that is always played in the movies, when they are in the desert?
I'm quite sure he means Youtube videos and such like, since he doesn't watch movies, they are too long and boring. My wife was a bit puzzled about this "Desert song", but our son insisted that it is a real thing and told her to search for it. She thought a while and then played this song from Youtube and that actually was the "Desert song!" So now you know, too! :)
P.P.S. I did write the text about "Sergio Leone dust levels" before this conversation!
There's nothing better to get the vreative juices going then playing the game that needs painted miniatures and while those Eastern front tanks are awesome, for me it's the Wild West figures taht are the star of this post, more so because of the very recognisable story about your son and his questions... it's no different at this end of the line mate.
Been hard at it again this week. Eclectic bunch of ancients for you to check out.
The 1st guy is the only one I don't love. I did paint him with very cheap acrylic paints as a test and he's a bit more glossy than I'd like . Otherwise those HOMY ARYT paints are quite a good deal.
3D Breed Iberian
"Ballista" from the historical fiction series by Harry Sidebottom. A Germanic Auxillary in service of Rome he has various adventures
from Mesopotamia to Germania. This figure is by Aventine.
Turn counter also Aventine. The dead dude is actually a superb figure. I wish they'd make a " before" version of him too.
Mounted Hunnic archer, another auxillary in later Roman Empire. I think he was Eureka. Again been with me for many years, unpainted and unloved until now.
Victrix Unarmoured Persian Cavalry
Battlecat Roman Equites
Victrix
Victrix modified from the Early Saxon Warband kit
Crusader Miniatures
Battlecat Carthaginian Elephant. 3D printed. 1 of a set of 2.
hopefully I'll complete the 2nd beast before the comp ends.
Very enjoyable. The skin texture is very pronounced so I used makeup spongue to add the brown shades over a black basecoat. Was dead easy and comes up great.
so 120 points all up I make it. :)
From Millsy,
Another chocolate box post of beautiful ancients Steve! I never know quite where to start with these as there's always so much variety and interesting stuff going on.
Rather than just list stuff let me talk about two things that jump out - the wonderful horseflesh tones you've created especially the greys, and that simply wonderful elephant with all the beautifully painted decoration. Both are smashing and would grace any table.
I make it 12.5 x 28mm infantry (half points for unbased) including nellie riders, 6 x 28mm cavalry and 1 x 28mm vehicle for a total of 143 points. Top work mate.
Recently I picked up about 100 ‘pirate’ models, in varying states of disrepair. Some unpainted, some undercoated, some part painted and some painted. All of them were heavily chipped and not in any state to game with. They were in a wide variety of brands, and were historical and fantasy models, with quite a few not really pirate models. It was a big and enticing rescue job. It has been fun to sift thru, finding napoleonic officers, French revolutionary mob figures and even a ACW figure. However, some of the figures now are scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as being able to rescue. I’ve yet to identify the source of all the miniatures, but brands here include Redoubt Enterprises, Old Glory, Eureka and Reaper.
This batch of 17 figures is from that collection.
These four did not have guns, so I am using them for Ghost Archipelago, a skirmish game with pirates that don’t have guns.
This one looked a bit like it was from Peter Pan, so will using it for DnD NPC.
This fellow will be used as a civilian model for Sharp Practice. Could not quite work out if he had an eye patch or not.
The remainder here will be added to my collection for blood and plunder. Four of these models here and three of those above are reputed to be Anne Bonney or Mary Reed. Seemed to be quite a lot of female models in the collection, with a dozen or so more barbie doll shaped fantasy pirates I have yet to rescue.
In total, there are 17 x 28mm figures in this batch for 85 points.
GT
From Millsy:
Aaarrgghhh! Another wonderful batch of salty sea dogs to brighten up a wet and miserable afternoon at Chez Minion Millsy.
And what a batch! Wonderful, vibrant, saturated colours everywhere and so much variety. The females are probably my favourite as we just need more female miniatures in our games full stop, especially when they are not just there for decoration.
Cracking brushwork all around Geoff. Love em mate.
