From MarkE: Romans and a Lady for Sarah's choice (45 points)

Squeaking  in under the deadline and before running out the door for another fun filled night at work, I present my last couple of submissions for the challenge.

A base of 25mm Old Glory Romans and a 28mm Dark Sword Miniature.

These Romans continue a project I started way back in the '90's  Here they are beside a base I completed somewhere before the century turned: New work on the left, old stuff to the right.

I had actually forgotten about this project until I started scouting out my lead mountain for the challenge.  If I recall correctly I was basing them for dual use for the old Chipco Fantasy rules and Classical Hack.  So a real blast from the past.  I've got at least 1.5 more bags of these to clean up, prime and paint so it will be Romans for a while on the bench.  It will help be get more of my brush skills back before moving onto some Perry Napoleonic that have been hanging around getting dusty for at least 10 years.

Last but certainly not least for this year's challenge is my submission to Lady Sarah.  She's a 28mm Dark Sword mini from their Elmore line that I purchased for the first time I entered the Challenge back in 2012.  Life intervened at that point and I failed to get one entry in.  I had to complete at least one mini from that failed effort.

I've always loved the artwork from that classic era of TSR.  I grew up with posters from Elmore, Easley, and the rest of that studio on my walls, and their evocative art fueled many a weekend D&D session with my high school friends. She was going to be my submission for the Toys theme round but I didn't manage to get her done by that deadline.

I'll be making my Curtgeld contribution to Doctors' without Borders.  I've worked with several physicians who donated their time to that organization over the years and they truly do great work.

Points:

8 x 25mm Romans @ 5 pts  = 40 points

1 x 28mm Lady      @ 5 pts =    5 points

                                            total = 45 points

It brings me to 229 for the challenge so a bit short of my 300 goal.  

Well it's off to work.  Unfortunately my night shifts don't afford me time to chip away on my hobby like (I think it was) Ray's epic nightshift challenge year.

Cheers,

MarkE

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A fabulous final entry Mark! Those venerable Old Glory Romans look the business (and the mentions of Chipco rules takes me back!). That being said, the female dancer takes the cake here. Wow, what a lovely job you did on her. Well done Mark. Also, thank you for the donation to Doctors' Without Borders - a very worthy organization doing important work.

- Curt

From: TomL, CSA & the High Priestess for 210 points

I partially painted several confederate sprues of Warlord Epic while on vacation leaving the fiddly stuff for home.  This is the last of those that will make the challenge. This is the 5th Texas:

 

 

Eventually I will dig up another metal command strip and paint up a second command stand in this uniform and split this large group into two regiments.

Painted in a similar way to previous regiments, this currently larger unit of 100 figures * 2 points is worth 200 points.

I realized I hadn’t painted a single Bob Murch Female Adventurer this challenge.  Obviously the only thing to do was to grab a few from primed pile.  So I present some misunderstood, often underestimated female cultists.  The High Priestess and her equally evil assistant:

The dagger was painted with a dark purple/green color shifting paint that obviously does not like an overhead led light. Two 28mm cultists for 10 points.  Duels remain unchanged. 

Skulls - 21
BSRoD - 42
Squirrels: 8 

Thanks again Sylvain for your attentive and supportive minioning as well as the others on the minion team who bounced all over as needed, and of course Curt & Sarah.  All the work that goes into organizing and supporting the challenge is deeply appreciated.  It was fun. 
Cheers,
Tom 

______________________________

A great final entry, Tom. While I very much admire your Reb infantry, I have to say my heart is with those Bob Murch female cultists (those sculpts are so characterful). Such a tough gig, being a cultist, but you've made them quite glamorous here. Well done! 

Until next time! 

- Curt

From ChrisW: Final post - A Cornucopia of miniatures (530 points)

A busy final week

So, first off, I really feel like I have to explain my painting process (such as it is) Any given week I typically slack off a lot before I frantically start flailing about to try and get some stuff finished. By Monday morning I wake up with a plan of what I can/must get done by Tuesday (posting date of Wednesday) However without fail I will suddenly start a brand new painting project on Monday morning rather than finish off the almost done stuff. The end result is that throughout the challenge I have started and stopped a number of projects, so that by the end of the challenge I have a lot of almost done miniatures. This is by way of explaining why my output seems kind of large this week. It also is not to say that all of this years challenge projects have been done. (more on that in my challenge end post)

The smaller groups of figures have been on the cusp of being done for quite a few weeks.

Now, armed with a new camera off we go!

VSF Prussian unicycle lancers [10x 28mm 'mounted' troops    [60 points]

&

VSF Prussian Armoured Penny Farthing [1x 28mm weapon      10 points]

I did not think I would get these done in time. When you are nearing the end of the challenge and you need a lot of points, these are not the figures you should choose. They are from Eureka miniatures, as is the armoured penny farthing bike. I have 4 penny farthing models, but could only locate this single model. The plan is to paint up each of the models based on the colours of some WWI German planes.

While the troops are 'mounted' they hardly count as fully mounted, so I gave them an extra point for the stick they are sitting on.

All Quiet on the Martian Front American tanks [25x 15mm vehicles 200 points]

These are the last major grouping of tanks that needed to be painted. I already have 18 of these tanks in the more traditional green colour and I decided to branch out to a different colour.

MK III tanks plus command (13)

MK IV tanks

There is 1 Command tank,  3 Mk 2 tanks, 12 Mk3 tanks, 6 Mk IV, and 3 hybrid Mg support tanks. The 3 support tanks will be assigned to some heavy armoured infantry companies. The remaining tanks will form a secondary company.

Except for the MG tanks, all the tanks were primed/base coated with English uniform rattle can. Then craft Khaki paints and light brown colours were used as an overbrush and drybrush, with the tanks ultimately having a wash applied to them , then more dry brushing and some weathering.

MG tanks (3)

Mk IV tanks (6)

MG tanks & Mk II tanks in front

BoB vehicles   [6x 28mm vehicles 120 points]

So, 2 Medium C tanks a ex French tank and 3 armoured cars. The two Medium C tanks will see service with my White Russian forces while the French Schneider tank is destined for a Chinese Warlord army. The German Ehrhardt AC will go to my Freikorps troops (once I paint them) Then the desert for one armoured car and somewhere in Russia (side to be determined) for the last armoured car.

Medium C tanks in White Russian service (2)

The two medium C tanks were not fun to build. Each of them are only 3 parts (plus some metal bits) but the two side parts are the same double sided part. This must make it easier to produce and ship, no mis packaging two left side parts. However it means that there is not any clear connection point when building it, no slot in one part to the other.

Chinese tanks

All of them have been well and truly dirtied up and one is especially rusty.

 

BoB Tugboat           [1x 28mm vehicle         20 points]

So, another Empress miniatures miniature. I just felt I needed one but I am not certain why. I may use it in some pulp game or maybe BoB. A total of 6 pieces make this a rather easy assembly. I left off the mast. There is no hole for it (yes I could drill one) but its main problem is it is very tall (yeah I could cut it down) I have visions of it getting tipped over in game play. But it would look neat on it, so maybe I will add it.

It is rather larger than some vehicle, but I scored it as a 20 point vehicle but a 25 point vehicle score would be another squirrel, just saying😉

So, while I confess it is painted yellow, it really does not look this yellow in person. It has a more of a dirty yellow, light yellow look to it. I can tell, because the bumpers are painted off white not yellow.

VSF static defenses and turrets. [3 defenses (10 each) 2 turrets (5 each) 40 points]

These are from Oshiro part of his VSF range. I have painted them for service on Mars (what else) but the redness of the base is not so intense that I could not use them on Earth. It took a while to paint these as I, at first, wanted to emulate the pics on Oshiro's site. But the pale grey/white did not work with the reddish bricks. So I went with shades of grey/green (3 in all)  

Witch Hunter general and troops    [8x 28mm foot, 1x mounted 50 points]

Foundry ECW officers, a Warlord shot and a Warmonger Witch Finder General make up this collection. Again, I still have not read the rules, but these are slated for Devilry Afoot as another faction/group. 

Combat Robots  [5x 28mm     25points]

I do not remember where I got these (maybe Alternative armies) I thought I had more of them but if I do all I could find were five of them. I seem to have a thing for robots, usually pulp robots but these are more Sci-fi in nature., so, I am not certain what use I will get out of them though I do have some  other Sci-fi stuff.

Old school Epic Knights [ 14x 5 points (28mm equivalent) 70 points]

Yet another blast from the past. So, here are twelve Imperial knights and 14 Eldar. These figures just cry out for contrast/speed paints. I especially like the contrast effect on the Eldar figures. I wanted the Imperium figures to be a bit more solid for their colours with the Eldar being more ethereal.

Fantastic battles characters  [7x 28mm figures  35 points]

So, a mix of figures these are to be used in fantastic battles. There are two Goblin thieves, an Orc mage and four Undead characters.

The two thieves and the Orc mage came from Warmonger miniatures. I had a tough time finding a good thief character, but stumbled upon these a while back. The Orc mage comes with a feather back thing, and once I find it again I shall paint it up.

Two of the undead characters are quite tall and fragile. There had been a large sword being wielded by the figure on the left, but it fell off pretty soon after purchasing the miniature. My attempts to fix failed, so now he just clenches his fist in anger. 

Solitaire (y) figure. [1x 28mm figure 5 points]

Points this time

•  200 points for 25x AQMF tanks [15mm]
•  120  points for 6 armoured vehicles [28mm]
•    20  points for 1 tugboat [28mm]
•    70 points for 14x Old School Epic knights [28mm size figures] 
•    50 points for Devilry Afoot Witch Finder general (mounted) + 8 foot troops [28mm]
•    35 points for 7 Fantastic battles characters [28mm] 
•    40 30 points for VSF turrets & static defenses
•      5 points for Solitaire figure

 Points Total 540

So that is that. I have reached my target, but it was a near run thing. Discounting the one theme post, I achieved my target on painted miniatures! But at a cost. This week was a frantic one, painting until 12:30 AM on Wednesday night. I would have been painting right up to the last minute but I have a convention to attend.

Thanks to my minion and to Curt for another fun challenge! 

Squirrels

8 more squirrels for a total of 36

1. Gladiators
2. Epic Orcs
3. Epic Imperial
4. Warlord Chinese
5. Red Russians RCW Back of Beyond
6. Alien Invaders
7. Pulp US Marines
8. Urban Cultists
9. Egyptian cultists
10. VSF Japanese armoured vehicles
11. Tripods
12. Bugs!
13. Evil minion deep sea divers
14. Puritans
15. Explorers of Egypt
16. Jungle explorers
17. Heroic deep sea divers
18. Muslim troops for the British
19. Free stater Armoured cars
20. Guardians of Antiquities
21. Minerva's Flying Circus
22. British cavalry and rocket launcher
23. BoB terrain (terrain post)
24. Epic Chaos Warlord Titans
25. Pillage Viking shield maidens
26. VSF Martian Hill Martians
27. Plague Apothecaries
28. Witches fair and foul
29. AQMF American tanks
30. BoB White Russian Medium C tanks
31. Witch Hunter General and troops
32. 28mm combat robots
33. Old school Epic Eldar knights
34. VSF Static defenses
35. VSF Prussian unicycle troops
36. Fantastic battles characters

Big stompy robots of death 

+14

Lady Sarah

Solitaire

****

Well...what can one say? That is quite a lot of stuff. I salute your devotion to the "Squirrel Duel" aspect of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. 

This was a little tricky to count up, but following some expert consultation on terrain points, I will actually rate your terrain bits at 30 points. I'm not sure the old time Epic Knights would sit to my eye as 28mm figures, but they are close enough I love to see OOP kit getting some paint, so I'll let that ride. 

By my count, that comes up to 530 points which is...quite a lot of points! If nothing else, Mars looks set to fall..or to conquer Earth?

Hope you have enjoyed your Challenge Chris!

GregB