From SimonM: "Black Tree Design" Silurians (30 Points)

These six 28mm scale metal miniatures are manufactured by “Black Tree Design", and consist of Code DW308 Silurian and Code DW315 Silurian Attacking from their "Doctor Who" miniatures range. "Depicted as prehistoric and scientifically advanced sentient humanoids who predate the dawn of man", these "reptile-like humanoids" first appeared in Malcolm Hulke's January 1970 BBC Television story "Doctor Who And The Silurians".

All of the "three-eyed land-dwellers" were primed with "Vallejo" Heavy Brown, heavily washed with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Brown. They were then treated to some strategically-placed spots of "Citadel" Biel-Tan Green in and around their heads, necks and hands, before being given a second, lighter dry-brush of (even more) "Vallejo" Heavy Brown.

Their claws, which were somewhat difficult to 'pick out' at times due to some occasional miscasting in these areas, were given a coat of "Vallejo" White and subsequently washed with Strong Tone Quickshade by "The Army Painter". Lastly, their 'third eye' was spotted with "Vallejo" Heavy Red and later shaded with either a little "Citadel" Bloodletter or Carroburg Crimson, depending on which was closest to hand at the time.

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More Doctor Who from Simon! He's making quite a bit of progress through the lead pile, bringing the Doctor's enemies to life.

Thirty points to you, sir!

From TeemuL: Cromwells, Squirrel 9 (16 points)

So I'm past my target and I really can't won the Squirrel race, but there's something ready (and something else to be ready), so I'll collect all the points I can.

I recently bought some tanks for TANKS and here are the first two of them. Two Cromwell IVs, first one is a "regular" tank, another is CS variant with OQF 95mm howitzer. They have no markings, since I plan to use them mainly on TANKS, which is not that historical game. I might use them later for other games, so I like to have my options open. I just painted them with Goblin Green (really!) and added some reddish brown to imitate camouflage. Nothing very special or spectacular, but more than enough for a casual game of TANKS. They should fit quite nicely to Normandy and areas nearby.

CS is intended for close support and it has no extra equipment whereas the regular variant is intended for longer range, so I'd imagine it would need some extra fuel and other stuff. These two Cromwell tanks give me another 16 points and when combined with earlier SU-152 I'll get enough 28mm WW2 points to claim another squirrel.

List of my Squirrels here, just to keep my calculations correct and help the Duels Wallah and other interested individuals:

28mm Lord of the Rings, 28mm WH40K, 28mm General Fantasy, Age of
Sigmar, Dungeons & Dragons Boardgames, 28mm Ancient Greek, 28mm Pulp, 28mm Oldhammer, 15mm WW2

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Wait, Cromwell's Squirrels? That sounds like a wonky English Civil War dragoon unit, rushing hither and thon, from Pilar to post, chasing shiny objects and Cavaliers over the countryside.

Ah, maybe the next challenge. Instead, we have tanks rushing hither and thon, from Pilar to post, chasing shiny objects and German tanks over the Norman countryside.

Sixteen points of happy tanking to Teemu!

From JonathanO: Cybermen (120 points)

I have a lot of figures in progress, but not much finished.  I suppose I had better make a small contribution to the points total before it is too late!

There have been quite a few Doctor Who themed entries in this challenge.  My contribution consists of 24 Cybermen (28mm) by Warlord Games.  It seems a bit much to get 5 points each as they are so easy to paint.  At least I got something done. 

Well done everyone and thanks for so many fantastic entries.  Maybe if I had spent more time painting and less admiring everyone's work, then I would have got more completed.  Oh well!

Cheers
Jonathan

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Better a little late than not at all Jonathan, and, besides, if the Challenge prompted you to get nothing done except for these great looking Cybermen then you're still ahead of the game! 

120 points to you for these creepy cyborgs - well done!

- Curt

From NoelW: The beginning of the end (135 points)

As the clock ticks down, I can see too many unfinished figures staring at me. I think I'll manage three posts before the world ends on Wednesday (actually Thursday here, but who's counting?) The third, I hope, will be a big one - ending with a bang, with luck.

So here's a handful of mounted men-at-arms to keep things ticking down, for the Wars of the Roses or, as Iain has suggested, maybe the Italian Wars.

Secondly, six pikemen who could perhaps accompany these cavalry, if in a very poor retinue, but really belong 50 years earlier, in the Hundred Years War. I didn't quite manage to finish them in time to post with the previous six. All these medievals are, needless to say, Perry Miniatures.

Thirdly, I've nine armed civilians suitable for my Sealion and Walmington-on-Sea project. They're Sloppy Jallopy figures, sold at shows by Sally 4th. They're intended to man barges, longboats or canals - hence the slightly nautical attire of some of them - and brilliantly come with separate heads, so a very wide set of configurations is possible.

Apologies for the slightly messy photos. They were done in haste (to maximise painting time). That static grass gets everywhere - it's not static at all!

The next post, within a few hours, will be a small one. Then, close (probably very close) to the deadline, will be my last words, a post which hopefully will be a tad bigger.

15 infantry and 6 cavalry: 135 points

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Wow, the Noel Painting Machine grinds ever on. Fabulous stuff. Great work on the Gendarmes and pikemen Mr. W, but I have to say that the stars for me are the armed civilian types. Very cool minis those (to which I think I may need a few for my Pulp games (note to self...).

Another mittfull of points to reinforce your top position in the points standings. Well done Noel!

From MikeD: Blackstone Fortress Bad Guys (115 Points)

I've been able to pick up my pace a bit in the past couple of weeks, but it looks like I'm gonna come up a bit short of my goal. I was finally able to get started on the figures in the Blackstone Fortress box set, which I'm showing here. First up are the Renegade Guard.

I love these figures as they look great mixed in with Chaos Cultists or the Necromunda Gangers I've been working on for my Mutant Cult Milita project.

The Ur-ghuls and Drones where a slow painters dream, especially getting towards the end of the challenge.

Finally, I've got the Rogue Psykers. Again, like a lot of these one-off semi-character models GW has been putting out in the box sets, they have a ton of character and I can imagine using them in all sorts of contexts.

 All told, that's 23 figures at 5 points each for a total of 115.

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Lovely brushwork Mike! So much to admire in this post. I really like your use of colour and shading with these miscreants, especially the Renegade Guard and the Rogue Psykers. Very nice. 

These rather sketchy chaps will give you a nice 115 points for your efforts. Well done!

- Curt

From PaulSS: Hundred Years War end-game and game (100 Points)

So, here are the last few Hundred Years War figures for the Painting Challenge. Over the weekend I managed to splash some paint on fifteen more English archers in a mix of different livery designs.

Also, while painting the archers I used the same palette on a group of five French infantry armed with a mix of swords, falcions and axes.

I was rather hoping to get more done, but these last twenty figures shall have to suffice. I still have many more to paint and you shall be able to watch this project grow over on Scrivsland. This week I plan to finish off these units and then make a start on more Men at Arms, I have loads more to paint.

One of the reasons I did not get more done is that last night chum Drew and I managed to get the entire collection out and play a game of Hail Caesar with them. Here are a few shots from the game.

The French arrayed

The English arrayed 

French Men at Arms and supporting foot

English war-bow

More English war-bow

The Priest at his church

This shall likely not end well

The French Knights stalled and were eventually repulsed

French Men at Arms strike home on the English left

The 'Jolly Fisherman' disorder marker

The French came on and were driven back again and again

Under weight of numbers the English left is eventually broken.

The English right holds firm.

Fin!

Hopefully I'll get a little more ACW finished in the next 24 hours for my final post of the challenge.

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Ahh, it's wonderful to see the fruits of this Challenge paraded out on the field of honour - Bravo! This score of archers and French infantry will put you nicely over double your original target estimate of 750 points. Well done Paul! 

- Curt

From StefanK: The penultimate post - Cry God for England, Harry and Saint George! (12 Points)

So it's the final days of the challenge and two entries to go for me. Here's one that is very near and dear to me:

King Henry V

of England

Actually this figure has been lying on my lead pile for ages. I've bought it a while ago when I saw that wonderful sculpt by Alan Perry but I didn't find the time to paint it. But since Henry V by Kenneth Branagh is one of my - if not just my - favourite movie I always regretted not paying attention to it.

Now after our ACW project came to a temporary end I took the time to splash some paint onto Harry. The figure is part of Perry Miniatures' AO01 set from their Agincourt range. He's a mounted 28mm figures of two parts: Horse and Harry. Since I didn't like the original horse delivered with my set I changed it to a more 'royal' breed with nicer horse tack.

Focussing on the single miniature was pure joy again. The sculpt is tremendously detailed and Alan even managed to work out an indication of Harry's coat of arms. Thus it was difficult but at least possible to paint his surcoat properly. I hope you like my humble piece of work.

Last but not least let me deliver the two scenes I watched / listened to over and over while painting this figure:

That's it for now. Tomorrow I'll have my final entry ready with the 'Curtgeld' and two other figures, Until then ...

...cry...

God for England, Harry and Saint George !!

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Wow, terrific work Stefan! I love the attention to detail you lavished on Henry, especially on his armour, harness and especially his coat of arms. That there is some pretty fine brushwork my friend. Bravo!

I think in light of the extra effort on the niggling details Henry is up for 12 points. Well done Stefan.

- Curt

From PeterD: SYW Wrap Up Hessian Garrison Battalion (42 points)

Full Regiment, but only eight were painted this challenge.

Wow, last post of the Challenge!  I have several projects on the go, but with minor issues to be worked to on all of them I went with finishing these guys off to get a final post in before it's all over.  I could knock myself out to finish some others, but I've found that I work much if I keep things in balance.  They'll get done later this spring when I work out basing for my mounted dragoons, get the right colours on my dismounted dragoons breeches and fix my kitbashing of a house!

I'm wondering what book the officer is reading.

I have completed 8 members of the Hessian Garisson Regiment Kutzleben (as it was known in 1760) for my SYW project.  Some challengers might remember that I painted up 13 of these guys back in 2017 and I thought I'd add a couple of stands to bring it up to a better strength.  They also have a command stand with officer, standard bearers and drummer.

Figures are from the Perry AWI range, Hessians and command at rest.  The sculpts have lovely poses with a definite Sears Catalogue menswear feel to them and I've used them for a few projects along the way.  I had none of the big flash issues that others complain about with Perry figures, but having started on Airfix soft plastics my tolerance level is probably higher than some.  I do wish that the faces had a bit more definition to them however.  Purists could come up with differences between AWI and SYW uniforms, but for Hessians they are pretty minor plus the Perry AWI range is gorgeous.

Flags are home creations, pictures downloaded off Kronoskaf, resized and then printed at home.

This unit was raised as a Militia battalion, then became a Garisson regiment in 1760 and by wars end had become a full time regular unit.  Originally these battalions were raised to allow the regular units to go off and fight for their British paymaster, but with the French over running Hesse-Cassel several times they got pulled into the fighting themselves.   

I love the drummer getting some fife practice in during down time.

My SYW project started as a Sharp Practice Affair 2-3 yers ago as a way to do some SYW uniforms without going full in.  However, I found that I really enjoyed the Lace Wars period and it kept expanding to the point where it out grew SP and got converted to a Black Powder or Honours of War project.  This unit started as two groups of militia for supports, but has now been beefed up to count as a small unit of 20 in BP or HoW terms compared to my 24 man regular sized units.

My biggest challenge in doing the extra men was matching the blue, which is pretty vibrant on the original figures.  I found the right match (Grumbacher Ultramarine) and in my defence it's not too far off some illustrations I've seen, mostly it's the blue pants and waistcoat that add to uber blau effect.  Actually the uniform has a firm revolutionary or early Empire French Leger feel to it.  Of course having matched the blue, I was a bit off on the basing colours but not too far that I'm bother to rebase them.

The new stands are in the middle and the ground work is just bit off the colour of the older figures.

I've gotten some favourable comments on basing before so I'd thought I'd share my recipe, which is as follows.

• Glue your figs to your base of choice (I've used the plastic bases that come in Perry kits because I'm cheap)
• Take a good sized glob of Liquitex raw Sienna and add a heading spoonful of Liquitex Matte Gel medium
• Mix these together with a shake of fine ballast
• Apply the resulting gloppity glop (Lorax reference) on the topside of the bases, attempting to smooth the transition from flat base to raised figure base and leaving lots of lumps about.  Paint the edges of the bases in raw sienna without the ballast etc to give smooth edges.
• Once dry (this takes a while) give it a heavy wash with Liquitex raw umber (I worked this out while working on Italian Wars and figured I'd use colours based on actual Italian mud).
• Go back and touch up boots, hoofs and gaiter as required, although mud splatters look good too.
• Add stones to flavour - I use a mix of sand, fine ballast and chunky kitty litter.  Add tufts (I use army painter because I'm cheap and lazy and they can be had locally) to cover up the worst flaws.

I've really enjoyed this year's challenge - great work everyone.  Can't wait til next year.

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Great work Peter! It's been a pleasure watching you develop this project over the past few years and I look forward to when we game it next.

- Curt