From BartekR: A red dragon (25 points)

My next submission is a bit of a throwback to a smattering of early me hobby nerdness. The miniature: Archon Studios "Durkar, the Sovereign Serpent".

This was included with an Army Painter paint set, so another one for the squirrel challenge! I didn't actually know who Archon are but turns out they make minis for a range of tabletop games including  Masters of the Universe, Trench Crusade, and Dragons & Lasers(?!?), which range this belongs to.

There was the question of which colour to paint the beast. The booklet that came with the paint set showed a red dragon (aparently part of AP's learn to paint series), while the Archon Studios page for the mini shows a gorgeous gold paintjob. In the end, red got my vote -- sealed by that most intoxicating of drugs: nostalgia...from and for:

- Every illustration of Smaug I remembered from childhood (especially those by the brothers Hildebrandt, Michael Hague and Tolkien himself);

- Every piece of artwork from the original Dragonlance series of modules and books with a red dragon; and...

...the one, the only...

- D&D Basic red box cover art. This set - borrowed at that - was my first real intro to fantasy gaming (circa 1983), at about the same time as gamebooks (the gateway drug of Choose Your Own Adventure through Fighting Fantasy, Wizards, Warriors & You, and the wonderfully light-hearted Grail Quest series).   

Painting process: Black undercoat, white xenithal and drybrush. Started with a red contrast paint (ivory for the claws and chest) before highlighting and washes. The base is part of the mould so a lot of metallics and washes. 

Comparison photo against some Warlord Games minis (28mm and epic)

Scoring: The miniature is 165mm tall (Archon Studios webpage) so I have no idea where this falls in the points matrix. This is where I have to seek Saturday Minion Sander's wisdom for adjudication. 

"Do you see?"

 

Oh dear, now I have to decide what amount of points to give this beasty? Well I have checked the Challenge annals and most precedent seems to hint at scoring it as a 40mm vehicle which is 25 points, I do hope you are happy with that? As to the painting and the story behind your creation: those are truly awesome! I have seen these models up close and know you have really done it up admirably!

Cheers Sander 

From RhysH - 28mm and 32mm Fantasy and Sci-Fi (30 points)

This week Rhys has models for four different games. Some are 28mm and some are 32mm and the Crisis Protocol is even bigger than that.

First up is a Bones dragon that my dad gave me. It doesn't stand up well.

I love all dragons but this one is another black dragon.

This is Bucky, the Winter Soldier.

The bases for Crisis Protocol are really big.

These are the customizable Jedi for Star Wars Legion

The double bladed lightsaber is the best in game. The third option is to have two lightsabers.

Last up is Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth. This is the new plastic model and is GREAT.

The layered way that GW builds models now is hard to put together but they look really good.

Imrahil is one of my favorite characters so I'm really excited about this new model.

That's 4 x 28-32mm models for five points each = 20 pts

1 x 28mm monster = 10pts (?)

***

Hi Rhys - thank you for another varied submission, touching on so many different areas and themes! I too love Dol Amroth from Tolkein's setting, and I had not realized there are new plastic figures available for them. Your description of GW's approach to newer plastic figures is apt - they are indeed more "layered". I see this as a side-effect of using software for designs, but it also has upsides - the figures can be quite beautiful. 

Imrahil is my favourite here, ready to face the evil forces from the East!

I think 10 points for the Dragon is fine with me - that makes for 30 points for you.

GregB

(On behalf of) RhysH - Mantic Dragon Lord and Thegn on Frostfang (20 Points)

I'm posting this entry for Rhys. He's going with a snow theme for his Mantic army for Kings of War.

This first entry is an elf lord on a dragon. The elf is metal and the dragon is PVC plastic, pretty wretched stuff, really.

White dragon with blue frost on it on a snow base.

Blue scales on the spine and the spans of the wings.

Side view with more blue.

Rhys informs us that of course white dragons have red eyes.

His next entry is a Northern Alliance Thegn on a Frostfang. This is a really cool model, which Rhys loved working on.

Face on, you can almost smell the bad breath.

The skull on the Thegn is red so he'll stand out from the rank and file of the army.

Rear view, running across the ice.

Side view. That's a very large axe.

This is two 28mm mounted figures for 10 points each = 20pts.

________________________________________

Welcome back to the Challenge, Rhys!

What a magnificent set of beasts and riders! Of course, it only tracks that frost dragons would have red eyes, but the crimson skull on the Thegn rider is quite bold indeed. As you say, he'll definitely stand our in the ranks (only helped by the monstrous beast he's riding!). I also like the armour and barding. As a suggestion for a future model, perhaps you can try some bronze accents to pull-out the edging and rivets. I find it makes the metalwork a little more interesting and varied. Give it a whirl! 

Terrific work Rhys! 20 points in the bag towards your Challenge goal. Well done.

- Curt

From TeemuL: Greedy Drake [Greed] (30 points)

If there is something which is pure greed, then I'd say it would be a dragon. Dragon gathers gold, jewels and treasures just to have them, not to use them on anything or investing, just having them around and use as a bed.

Wikipedia has both drakes and dragons on the same page and I don't know if they different words in Finnish either. So here is a Grenadier Black Drake from 1986 as my entry for Circle of Greed. He is from their Fantasy Classics set, number 339. This was part of a small haul of old metal minis I bought just after Christmas, a dozen metal minis from Grenadier, Ral Partha, Games Workshop and Mithril for 50 euros including posting. Not ridiculously cheap, but cheap enough.

Black Drake is mostly black, highlighted in many ways similar to the pegasus of Morathi last week. I planned to paint his belly rather pale, but it is quite dark in the end, but has some rather nice highlights. The tail looks ok, as seen above, but I should have use lighter colours wider especially in the belly and throat areas. The red wattle(?) started from the same dark brown, but I went to red and orange there. And the lone horn shifted to yellow, just to bring some colours to him. Eyes are yellow, too.

The photo above shows the drake with his nemesis, fearless dwarf slayer, roughly from the same decade, I think. Dwarf painted previously, no points for him. The above photo also shows the size of the drake, so not that big.

I ask 10 points for the drake, he is quite small, but still bigger than a regular human or horse in 28mm world. Model is available from Mirliton, who describes the drake as 40mm tall. And I wouldn't dare to anger a drake by asking too little... :) And then 20 points for theme. I seem to be walking on thin ice this week, asking more and more from my minion...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good Morning!

I love dragons and I particularly like Black Drakes colourful red wattle and yellow horn. The bright colours are a really nice contrast to the dark greens of his body. But where's his treasure? Has the treasure already been stolen by the fearless dwarf?

 Well done on finding these lovely  vintage models I think all the Challengers will be keen to see what else from this trove will make it into the Challenge!

28mm Dragon  = 10 points

Location bonus Greed = 20 points

30 points to your scoreboard Teemu!

From Barks: More Descent monsters (35 points)

Some more figures for Descent which I pained with AP Speedpaints 2.0 over a white undercoat. First, three Carrion Drakes. These are plague-spreading scavengers of dead flesh. I liked the wing colour (Desolate Brown) which is a nice brown with a hint of green. The green (Charming Chartreuse) and the purple (Dusk Red) are fine, but they go together like an 80s cartoon toy-  which isn't the look I want here. Anyway, they're done and the pustules help pull them together.

Carrion Drakes

I used Forest Sprite for the Goblin Witchers' skin, and I'm really happy with it. The last thing I painted was the feathers, and it really made these figures pop.

Goblin Witchers

I may try and squeeze in a sneaky post before the Challenge concludes, but this should pull me over the line!

7x 28mm figures (35 points)

[edit +16 skullz]

From Millsy: These are really cool Barks! The lime green and rich red on the drakes is an unexpected but really effective combination. Having painted a pile of Death Gaurd I know how much effort can be involved in making something so wrong look right. Love the witchers too, I can see a ton of other uses for them in pulp, darkest (weird) Africa, etc. Cracking work mate!

From DallasE: Golden (Well Green Now Actually) Dragon (20 points)

Knocked off one here that's been primed for a few weeks - it's an ancient Golden Dragon sculpted by the legendary Tom Meier for Ral Partha back in the 1980s. I have a soft spot for these old dragons and this one is just superb isn't it!

Such a characterful face on this magnificent beast... I just had to paint him green.

Let me tell you it was a bit of a struggle to find an appropriate base for him but Challenger ByronM came through for me with an mdf base from his Northern Lights Terrain shop. Cheers Byron!

Shown here for scale with a Citadel knight (of about the same era) from their BC1 "Adventurers Starter Set." I like the unusual pose of the dragon - sort of just checking things out rather than roaring and being all intimidating. But by the look of him you'd still think twice about trying to steal his gold - he just looks clever and sneaky.

Here he is with one of the old Metal Magic female adventurers by Josef Ochmann. Looks like they're having a nice chat.

This was a fun model to paint - mostly - the only difficulty was reaching some of his scales that are blocked by the wings, and the underside of his tail. But I think he turned out OK.

As for scoring, I'm going to claim the equivalent of a 28mm vehicle - 20 points.

See you next time!

Great work on the 'golden' dragon there.. a very OOP sculpt of one that is I guess a bit retro now compared to whats on the market. But I do love these old sculpts and you have done it quite the justice as well here. 

Wonderful work

Kyle

From RichardH: One Last Hurrah (475 pts)

I missed the last few weeks of posting, just due to being pretty busy with work and never leaving enough time to get a post written up. This last push before the gates close will just be a big old compilation of things, and a mishmash of genres. I've organised things in a way that better fits with the studios map rather than the order they were completed in (works better when I am walking around the map).

First up following on from the general space elf theme from the last couple of posts, I got the pointy ears army all finished up, just a few command units on show this time.

Glad to have these all out of the way now, and ticking off that final gem on the last guy was a lesson (don't paint stupid gems on an entire army).

Points for these are:

Four 28mm foot @ 5pt = 20pts

One 28mm mounted @ 10pt = 10 pts

Sticking with the theme of silly space robot men types, a friend asked if I could do up a few of their favourite space marine chapter. In this case that chapter being Minotaurs, compared to some of the others it is a pretty simple colour scheme with only a few detail points, it was easy enough to get these knocked out in an evening.

Scoring on these is:

Eleven 28mm foot @ 5pt = 55pts

Getting focus now back to the studio map and picking up from the last bonus points of B&W I moved to grab the under construction points. I made a start this week on a small diorama featuring a giant squig, just because I have never painted up a squig before, so it was a cherry that had to be popped.

Points on this are pretty straight forward as it isn't finished so I can only claim bonus points. 20pts

A few folks at the local gaming club have been really getting into Stargrave recently and along with doing up a crew for the game, I also knocked up an iconic piece of scenery (while waiting on layers to dry for the above minotaurs). So this little number is grabbing me the Casting Couch as it basically saved the day for the second film.

A single 28mm foot (granted it is bigger but the scheme is so simple it feels criminal to try and claim it as a vehicle), for 5pt and the bonus of 20pt = 25pts

So keeping with the sci-fi stuff and Stargrave as the focus we have the crew all dolled up and ready for some bug hunting action, sadly Ash isn't quite finished yet so has to sit this one out. All of these and the power loader are from the Humans v Aliens packs of 3D models sculpted by Papiskels, stunning little models that slot right into any game.

Scoring on these is ten 28mm foot @ 5pt = 50pts

Also the first mate of my crew being a woman is hitching us all a ride in a limo for the next stop on the studio tour = 20pts.

Having now ticked off five of the green locations I thought I would bag a blue also. This next one is actually a gift for someone (Feb and Mar are big months for birthdays around here and I tend to lean on the side of making something where ever possible). But given I have another couple of gift entries I wanted this one to bag me at least on blue studio location.

A relative is crazy about fairies and dragons so I figured combining the two has to be on a winner. Plus I had been itching to have a large scale practice of painting a galaxy style layer, and relished the challenge of having it split into sections. The model itself is a 3D sculpt from FotisMint and while great looking and full of character it feels odd sitting on a tiny base from the print, naturally the only option is turn it all into a chunky diorama, add in some drama and story and bang one gift ticked off and I am considered the best for another year. The final piece was put into an acrylic case to keep it free of dust, but it turns out that totally kills any chance for getting pictures.

Points on this one are :

One 28mm foot (giant spider so technically worth 8 feet right?) @ 5pt

One 28mm vehicle (the dragon itself is around the right size for this) @ 20pt

One 6" cube terrain piece @20pt

Bonus studio fantasy @ 20pt

Total 65 pts

So another game by the same designer as SG is Rangers of Shadow Deep, and it is equally great. I've played it off an on for some time, and finally wrangled, bribed, threatened a few others into playing it also. So we are getting things set up for a large campaign run. One thing I never really had made as swanky terrain was some nice big forested tiles and something specific for a scenario which is trees infested with giant spiders. The big forest tiles are currently about 5% through their first half life of drying time, so the only terrain I could squeeze in for this are the trees.

Used my normal method of an armature, glue on some seafoam, then using spray glue and handfuls of flock you cover the thing. This time I just beefed up the trunks, and finally got to play with some spider serum from GSW. You spray it with an airbrush and get instant magic spooky spider webs, the stuff is so much fun.

Points on these are:

One 6" terrain cube @20pt = 20pts

One final thing for me before it is back to the gift giving (damned folks expecting presents and thoughtfulness). The local club decided this was the right time to start a Blood Bowl league (not sure why now, but any excuse to get in games and I am on board).

I originally went looking for some nice dwarven sculpts to print off, but came across something magical. An absolute genius "Chih-Te Yu" on MMF designed an ogre team with a samurai/sumo theme, all the ogres are big bellied sumo types and the gnobblars are all dancing around with scrolls or picking noses, or farting (good healthy gnobblar activities). That was me sold, and decided I was winning no matches this season but would have a team that everyone would still envy. The green boys are still on the bench so just the big chaps for now.

Scoring on these is:

Five 40mm foot @ 7pt = 35pts

Ok so three more entries on this and I am spent, all three involve a trip to the gift shop (two birthdays and one anniversary). First up is a small person gift, they are someone who also likes fairies and the sort, but also loves reading and yet they don't have a night light. Obviously the only right thing to do is rummage in the big greeble box, and break out the pringles cans, some egg cartons, and a few LEDs. One wave of the magic glue stick and you got yourself some odd shaped tower light thingymajig.

The next birthday involved something small for someone with a total devotion to their dog. Rather than go all out on this, I figured keep it small, simple and fast, aiming for something they can put on any desk or shelf they want without fear of it being monstrous in side or delicate. Just a dry brushed mini, some sculpted background, and a quick dab of a resin pour was all that was needed.

The final entry then on this mammoth last post was also the biggest actual model, given to someone nuts about Harry Potter as an anniversary gift. There was a bunch of easy options on this one but at the same time I wanted something to have some practice on. Lately I haven't done a lot of detailed blending to try and simulate light (silly space robot men and their plasma guns don't count). so I jumped on the idea of a big old phoenix bird, I came across an amazing sculpt with a really dynamic pose and figured it was perfect. The print part was nerve wrecking enough as even though it is a multi part model, each part was still pretty big, and the entire thing took about 2 days to print out. To give some sense of scale the base I made up for this was around 160mm wide (anything smaller had zero chance to support the model), at the top of the wings is around 220mm.

Even with that base things just weren't sitting right, knocking up a 3D perch fixed the issue, it allowed the feet to be glued, and also three areas of the tail to glue straight to the base. It also gave the overall snapshot look of a bird coming in to land, which was a happy accident at the time.

Painting really was nothing complex, just lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of hours spent repeating the same patterns on every single feather (it felt like those damned gems again).

 But overall I am happy how it came together, and a little quick and dirty osl of the base helps sell the effect.

Scoring on these is:

Tower Light - two 6" terrain cubes @ 20pt =  40pt / bonus gift 20pt = 60pts

Dog Diorama = One 28mm foot @ 5pt & one 6" terrain cube @ 20pt = 25pt / gift bonus 20pt = 45pts

Phoenix = One 54mm vehicle @ 30pt (wasn't sure if this thing classes as bigger or not due the size) / bonus gift 20pt = 50pts

At the end of play my studio map looks like this:

I had grand ideas of what to do for at least 5 of the other locations, but as always things get in the way. Well they will at least be good projects for the rest of the year.

This leaves me as just over 1000pts total for the challenge and really puts things in perspective about expectations and how fast the points rack up. I'm glad I only started out with a low and realistic first time target (300pts), but now on wards and upwards for next year, thinking to set that target now at at least 1500 pts. It's been a blast.

_________________________________________________

I'm delighted you had a good Challenge Richard. You really pulled out all the stops on this final entry! I especially like the various gifts you did for your friends - those trees (in all their forms) are fabulous (the Pringle can treehouse is truly inspired).

Thanks for joining us this season. I hope you can make it out again for the next edition.

- Curt