Sunday 25 April 2021

The Awards for Challenge XI


Welcome back Challengeristas and loyal viewers! Finally, the awards of Challenge XI! 

As per tradition, every year we gather in late April to celebrate the efforts of the our intrepid participants, and to give special recognition to those who particularly impressed us with their skills with the brush. Today we have the picks for Challengers' Choice, Sarah's Choice and SnowLord's Choice.

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Challengers' Choice

A few weeks ago I posted our nominations for Challengers' Choice and created a voting poll for us to make our selections. Here are the results.

If anyone wants to see the full poll data just drop me a note.


For our honourable mentions we have:

Ray's Ottoman Collection


Jasper's Body of Work


and Curt's Body of Work


In Third, we have Ken's bellissimo Italian Legion Project



In Second, Christopher's favaloso 3rd Century Romans


Well done Ken and Christopher. The two of you provided viewers with a Roman extravaganza. Bravo, bello!

And finally, the Challengers' Choice for a second consecutive year is Sidney Roundwood with his spectacular body of work! Congratulations Sidney!!










Sarah's Choice

What a treat this AHPC has been.

The variety of painted muses, demons, witches, hags and crones, elves, fairies and adventuresses presented has been thrilling to watch.

Some of the femme fatales show questionable wardrobe choices while others are perfectly accessorized.

All are worthy of the challenge and if I could trophy’s to everyone, I would!

Honourable mentions to PeterD, PeterF and PaulSS for their ladies of the army: the cantinieres, camp followers and the women’s’ army of pilots, land girls etc. (Diana Quicks character in The Duellists is a fave of mine).

PeterD's Lumber Jill

PeteF's Napoleonic Camp Follower

PaulSS' Vivandière


Also, honourable mention to Sander for his whimsical mousling sorceress. So very cute and charming!



Sarah’s Sorceress 2021: The Baba Yaga, painted by SimonG.


The fantastic elements of the Baba Yaga in the Russian Fairytales are some of my favourite stories.



Simons’ painting is vibrant and bold, the figure & hut are dynamic and one really gets a sense of the Baba Yaga swirling through the landscape.





Thank you Simon, well done to all Challengers!

Keep safe, get the vaccine and be kind!

- Sarah


Snowlord's Choice

As per every Challenge, I was absolutely spoiled for candidates as we have so many talented people in the group. I often like to pick entries that have a personal, or interesting human interest aspect to them. Trouble was that there were so many to choose from this year! The 'Hall of Ancestors' location, in particular, really treated us to many wonderfully touching and personal stories. I was stymied for many days, mulling over dozens of entries, and in the end I decided to feature two submissions that especially resonated with me.

Martin's 'Mary Anning' I found to be absolutely fabulous. 


I really enjoyed the history of this early female geologist, and Martin's basework, featuring ammonite mudstone, a part of Mary's history, is truly inspired.

The other choice is from Benito. His grandfather, Abuelo Paco, silently fought for the Spanish Republic and later endured the rule of Franco and his victorious fascists. I found Benito's writing poignant, and his representative figure very fitting. A wonderful entry Benito.



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Challenge XI is a wrap folks! 

Thanks again to our Minions who were absolutely indispensable in helping me manage the Challenge. Finally a deep bow to you all for being such wonderful participants and great supporters of the event. 

I'm no great fan of Winter, but when the snow flies I will be very much looking forward to joining you for the next edition of the Painting Challenge.

Best wishes.

- Curt


21 comments:

  1. It has been another brilliant challenge, the quality and output just keeps getting better. Sidney's works is exhausting to look at. It is above brilliant and his map tiles were a massive inspiration to me and have fundamentally changed my gaming.
    I am honoured to be the Snowlord's choice, the figure is close to my heart and Mary and Tray sits proudly on my desk at work.
    I need to replenish my lead mountain which now looks like Norfolk or the Canadian Prairies.
    Hope everyone gets vaccinated soon and see you at Hammerhead or in Challenge 12.

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  2. Well done to all the finalists but all participants are winners in my book!

    See you for Season XII folks - until then stay safe and well :-)

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  3. Spectacular stuff; well done to all and thanks to the Snowlord and Snowlady and minions! Only eight months to go to the dirty dozen!

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  4. Indeed a worthy outcome for very worthy winners, congratulations all! Thanks are indeed in order for the good Lord and Lady Snowlord and all of you making this a heck of an experience during such a difficult time. I am sure it did help keep us sane...ish

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  5. Very worthy winners all! And Sidney is a true inspiration to all of us. I, too, was particularly touched by Martin's entry. But everyone's a winner, really - just look at how our collections have flourished as a result. Roll on December!

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  6. fantastic winners all - very well deserved!

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  7. Congrats to all the excellent winners!!!

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  8. Thank you to everyone who voted. I feel very unworthy, but thank you anyway - I am very grateful. Above all, dear fellow Challengers (and blog readers) we are, every one of us, winners for being part of OUR Challenge XI. A huge thank you again to Curt, Sarah and the Minions of Challenge XI for making this such a beacon of hobby awesomeness in an otherwise long winter. See you all for Challenge XII !!

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  9. Excellent selections! Congratulations to the winners!

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  10. Congrats to all of the winners. It was great to see everyone’s work this year. Stay healthy and comeback next year.

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  11. Well,who could argue with any of these? Congratulations to all the very worthy winners, and thanks to all who treated us and me to such an awe-inspiring array of fantastically painted miniatures and a collection of great tales too. See you all in December (and one or two in the Vaccination Challenge)!

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  12. Congratulations to the winners, a particularly good vintage year!
    Best Iain

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  13. Wow -- what a surprise and honour, thanks so much to the honourable Lady Sarah for recognising my young (?) Russian sorceress and her trusty hut! And congratulations to all the wonderful winners who are an inspiration to us all. I'm already planning projects for next time around and looking forward to Winter and the chance to get stuck in again.

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  14. Good choices all. All round good effort

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  15. Thank you everyone I'm very grateful for the nod towards my little band of Romans and a big congratulations to Sidney in yet another well deserved win! Thanks again to Curt for hosting another successful challenge and look forward to seeing all of you back next year!

    Christopher

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  16. Congratulations to all the winners, I'm made up to get a mention!
    Thanks for running this Curt, hope to catch up with you all next year.

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  17. Congratulations to everyone who took part and all the winners, another great Challenge and another big Project done, now what to do next year ?

    Thanks once again Curt, top job 👍

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  18. Well done to all the winners. The challenge is a fantastic inspiration for my own efforts due to the sheer amount of painting talent it showcases every year. It's good to see that talent, not to mention the time and effort that accompany it, get it's time in the spotlight.

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  19. Congratulations everyone. Hope we see you again next time!

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  20. Cracking efforts all round and very well deserved winners. Congrats everyone. Thank you Curt, thank you minions! Bring on No XII!

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