From PeterB: Animal Companions (20 points)

I thought I was done, then I had a brief surge of painting energy and finished off these. They are from Archon Studios (same peeps that make the Masters of the Universe range) and are in a similar hard plastic. Like the rest of their models these multi parts go together really well. They are from the Animal Companion set, 24 various models of creatures for fantasy or sci-fi, including dogs, cats, mimics and monkeys. 

They come with their own various scenic bases which are specific to the model (No switching around unfortunately) sometimes the feet of the creature is part of the base.

I painted up the sci-fi dog as a tribute to Gus, Miles' dog. So I shall use this opportunity to say thank you to Miles for his hard work being my minion for this year.

So, that's four 28 models at 5 points. That takes me over the 1000 points mark, an acceptable result I think, considering I really thought I was only gonna just make my 500 point target.

From TeemuL: What a nice bunch of animals, Peter! I'm sure Miles is delighted to see these. And it was nice to be a companion to you on the Wednesday for Lotr crew. :) And next time you know to aim higher!

From PeterB: A mighty dragon - (40 points)

A quick additional post dropped in as I have just finished this beast. Not part of my original plan for the challenge, so I had to build and undercoat this too. This is a new release from a company called Dungeons and Lazers. I bought mine from Bad Squiddo Games just after Christmas and had a real blast putting the plastic kit together. The parts fit really snugly together as long as you tidy up the sprue connections properly and it was a real joy to paint. It was a real pain to photograph however, I really couldn't get a decent shot to show off all the highlighting I did.

When I am painting a large model like this I like to do a bit of preparation work first before deciding on a colour scheme. I wanted to do a real classic red dragon, but I wasn't sure on the specific colours and highlights. I always delve into my scraps box and do some tester paint ups on something similar when in doubt. In the summer I like to go to the carboot sales and I always seem to grab a box of unloved Warhammer plastics at some point, so these GW hormagaunts were perfect for my test washes.

I eventually settled on a Coat D'arms blood red, with a GW Baal Red wash, then some Coat D'arms golden yellow mixed with red for some progressive highlighting. Some of the darker parts also had some Agrax shade.

So quick points add up;

• Dragon in 28mm scale 20 points
• 4 x 28mm scale hormagaunts 20 points

Total 40 points.

From Millsy:

What a cracker of a dragon Peter! Great choice of colour IMHO, dragons will always be red in my mind before any other colour after the Basic D&D box set cover art. Great brushwork mate.

Cheers,
Millsy