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.
Saturday, 26 February 2022
From PeterB - Shield Maiden Archers - (20 points)
From MikeD: Planet Vulcan - Point Ears. Long, Pointy Ears (76 pts)
A couple of months in and I'm finally boarding the rocketship to embark on my voyage to where just about everyone has been before. These are some wonderful Skull and Crown minis I picked up on a Kickstarter a couple of years back. I'm a sucker for these sort of arty, literary minis for which I can find no gaming use whatsoever. They wind up being perfect for the Challenge themes though. Like Skull and Crown's Triumph of Death line or Eureka Miniatures Chaos line.
These figures were designed to represent what are know as 'Drolleries', that is the grotesque and comical drawings one finds in the margins of illuminated Medieval manuscripts. Unpacking a joke too completely just destroys it, but the juxtaposition of the timid little animals with the worst violence of human nature is still funny all these years later.
Hysterical |
Hmmm... could use more rabbits... |
From TeemuL: Spite-Revenants (25 points)
Time to add another squirrel to my tally. These 5 Spite-Revenants will be joining my on-growing Sylvaneth army, which I have actually used couple of times during the last two years. We decided to try Path to Glory campaign again from the AoS 1st ed, but with 2nd ed rules etc. This was about a year before AoS 3rd ed was released, but our campaign is not yet finished... I'm quite close to end it, but not enough. Hopefully these angry chaps will help me to achieve my goal.
Spite-Revenants are Sylvaneth Outcasts, rather mad and angry compared to other Sylvaneth units. They are a perfect fit for my army, since it's background is quite angry itself: a force which got angry with Nurgle and other enemies trampling their forests, they decided to strike back. My whole army has this same sinister and darkish purple scheme, only the small spirits and trinkets are bright coloured and no green anywhere.
A Pile of Skulls |
This unit is a bit of a glasshammer, they have lots of dangerous attacks, but break like glass, if struck. The maddest of the mad, Drycha Hamadreth (who I already have) gives them some bonus, so I need to keep these close to her. These are naturally plastic from Games Workshop and they could be assembled as Tree-revenants as well, they are not-so-mad and basically the standing army of Sylvaneth.
The paintjob is almost a cheat, most of the area is just white undercoat with Druchii Violet on... Some red on the leaves, yellow (under Druchii violet) on the "skin" parts and black on the vicious blades. Stirland Mud on the base with some yellow sand to mimic fresh pollen, which the army brings with them. And of course some skulls, they are fighting on a boggy battleground, which has seen Nurgle and other enemies fight back and forth - these skulls are from humans and orruks, total of 13 of them. The skulls are a common item on this army, so I didn't invent this to bring more skulls to the skull throne, it is just a coincidence...
5 Spite-Revenants should give me 25 points and a squirrel.
My personal Squirrel count: 13
- 20mm Napoleonic
- 28mm Sludge
- 28mm Pulp
- 28mm Warhammer 40000 Xenos
- 28mm General (including Gloranthan) Fantasy
- 1:300 Cruel Seas
- 6mm Epic Imperial Fists
- 28mm ADD Boardgame
- 28mm Runewars Waiqar
- 28mm Blood Bowl
- 28mm Simians
- 15mm Mid War Germans
- 28mm Age of Sigmar Sylvaneths
From DaveD - AKA Millsy North
Well they are very different -i have no real idea what these even are! but i like em! 25 points it is
From StephenS: Dr. Curtis Connors (7 points)
G'day Everyone,
Not having the most prolific of painting challenges this time round, but something has managed to climb its way out of the dark and dank sewer and make an escape from my painting tray.
Dr. Curtis Connors experimented on himself with a serum of his own concoction, and became The Lizard. A character from Marvel comic books and a long-time foe of Spider-Man.
Cheers,
Steve
From ForestP: 15mm VMI Corps of Cadets at the Battle of New Market [Noel's Comet], (175 points)
Having found myself near Noel's Comet I thought about both the miniatures I had currently, what I wanted to paint, and how friendship intersects it all. One of the defining features of my life is that I grew up in Virginia, and spent a lot of my post-secondary education in the Shenandoah Valley. My wargaming took fruit in this fertile ground that was littered with battle sites, primarily American Civil War. In fact, when I was going to college in Harrisonburg, Virginia at one point I lived in an apartment building that literally was on the grounds of the Battle of Harrisonburg (Gen. Turner Ashby fell there, and that is primarily what that battle is known for). So, with that in mind I settled on needing to paint a unit from the American Civil War. Since this was a formative time in my education I settled on deciding to paint the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets as they fought in the Battle of New Market. I did this for multiple reasons. First off, in terms of friendship these were young men, teenagers, children really, who were called up to battle. Their bond as classmates and fellow soldiers I daresay were strengthened by their friendship with each other, perhaps more so than other units. In fact their commanding officer, LtCol Scott Shipp (who was only a mere 24 years of age himself), was their superintendent and knew these soldiers more as his boys than anything else. They equally loved him and called him "Old Billy" because of his penchant for wearing a goatee. On a more personal note when I was completing some graduate classes my friend and classmate, Salmaan, was a graduate of VMI, and would regale me of his tales as a rat (what they call first years), and of his marching with his class between Lexington and New Market to honor the sacrifice of the 10 cadets killed and the 47 wounded. It was even more interesting to me that Salmaan, at the time he was a cadet, was already a commissioned officer in the Army, having previously served as an enlisted combat medic, and going through officer's candidate school since he'd earned an Associate's degree after high school. He would tell me that he had to hide this fact as a cadet because essentially he outranked all of his classmates. His service is actually one of the things that led me to become an Army Psychologist. So, here we are, in honor of friendship both past and present, and the comradeship of soldiers throughout time immemorial, I give you the VMI Corps of Cadets from the Battle of New Market, including their artillery section, and their commander, LtCol Scott Shipp.
The miniatures are from the Stone Mountain Miniatures range. The infantry were from the ACW15 range, and I can't actually recall which artillery figures I ordered. For uniform painting references I primarily used Philip Haythornthwaite's Uniforms of the American Civil War (1861-1865) by Blandford Press and Philip R N Katcher and Michsel Youens' The Army of Northern Virginia (Men-At-Arms 37) form Osprey Publishing. The I decided to paint the artillery in the colors that VMI is using for its display cannons now, largely because they just look interesting that way. I used the following sites as references: Site 1, Site 2, Site 3.
As usual I mounted the figures on craft sticks with hot glue, and primed the lot with Design Master Flat Black (725). I did toy with the idea of priming all of the figures in gray, but thought I'd do a better job than that.
I used Privateer Press Formula P3 Bastion Grey to paint the uniforms before giving a light dry-brush of Vallejo Sky Grey (70.989) to bring out highlights. Every 4th figure was also given a very light dry-brushing of Folk Art Camel (953) to give either a dirtier look, or butternut; take your pick. Guns were picked out with Vallejo Mahogany Brown (70.846), and bayonets and swords were painted with Vallejo Natural Steel (70.864). Skin was painted with Vallejo Basic Skin Tone (70.815) and then hit with some Flesh Wash (73.204). Details were painted in various colors ranging from a 2:1 mix of DecoArt Americana Royal Fuchsia (DA151) and Vallejo Sky Grey (70.989) for the socks/leggings, to a 1:1 Vallejo Flat Earth (70.983) and Ivory (70.918) for straps. Canteens were picked out in Sky Grey, pommels for swords were in Vallejo Bronze (70.988), and hair was a mix of Yellow Ochre (70.913) for blonde, 1:1 Scarlet (70.817) and Bright Orange (70.851) for gingers, and Mahogany Brown (70.846) for brunettes. Hats and boots were touched up with Black (70.950).
For the artillery pieces they were primarily painted in Vallejo Flat Red (70.957) and Black (70.950), with the cannons themselves painted with Bronze (70.988).
The miniatures were based up in three companies, and flocked using BTC Open Flock Mix from Battlefield Terrain Concepts. After basing and flocking I hit the lot with Armory Clear Matte Sealer. There looks to be a bit of frosting, and I may attempt to clean it up later with a light gloss coat, followed by another light matte coat. We shall see.
I really tried with these photos, but the gray against the white background is tough for me. Sorry. |
I really think taking these photos in daylight, with a bright day, caused everything to look too dark. |
I will say, the detail on these figures are great. |
I had some wonderful fabric flags commissioned for them from Maverick Models, but they have not arrived. However, flags for my Grand Duchy of Warsaw figures and for the Alamo have arrived, so here they are in all their glory! I fulfill my promises, damnit!
Flags just make everything nicer. |
Now that's an Alamo to fight over. |
28mm D&D mini for scale |