From JuanM. First entry: Science Fiction (10 Points)

Hello.

Here is my first entry for the 7th Challenge. I have enjoyed a pair of days off-duty so I have had enough time to paint them. As usual, they are 28mm and for one of my favorite themes: Science Fiction.

First one, a Doranian ex-Police, a Mark Copplestone´s figure for "Rogue Stars":

The model is very good, clean, with the perfect level of detail and I have ready his profile for the ruleset as an ex-Police...lion (49 XP). He is going to be the first member of an Inquisitorial retinue (Curt, my first figure for our Side Duel if I can use non-GW models (I have a box full of GW models, so no problem with that)).

The second one is a Vandirian Assasin, also a Copplestone figure for "Rogue Stars":

Another very fine model and more "agile" than the first assasin for this range of figures. She is going to be the cover actions agent of the Inquisitorial Retinue (second model for the count, Curt, if you agree...). With a cost of 59 XP, she is not cheap but I think she can be very useful.

And this is all for now. These figures have been very easy to paint, as is usual with Copplestone´s.

Cheers!!!

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Oooh, what lovely painted figures, Juan!  I really like the fur on the Doranian, and you've done a terrific job on the black armour of the Vandirian. That purple knife is ace as well. You've really brought them to life with your brushwork.

Mark Copplestone is a terrific sculptor - a painter's sculptor. He always manages to provide just enough detail for interest, without over-complicating things for the brush. I'm really happy they brought him on to provide the figures for the 'Rogue Stars' range. 

You've stolen a march on me with our Inquisitor/Rogue Stars duel, Juan. I'll have to get moving so I can start to catch up (I think I signed up for too many duels...).

From MilesR: WWII French Foreign Legion in 28mm (140 points)

It's been awhile since I've painted figures so I'm getting warmed up with some mid-sized groups.  My second submission for AHPC VII is a group of 30 WW2 French Foreign Legion from the North Africa Campaign.

These are metal castings from the Perry WW2 line and, as usual, are very good but required a bit of effort on the clean up side.

I'm pretty sure I got the uniforms right as I used the Artizans painting guide site - I find that very handy for WWII figures.  These figures are needed for my upcoming game a Historicon next year "DAK and Dragons" which will pit WWII North African forces in a type of Dungeon Crawl and hopes to answer that age old question "Could a Panzer III take on a Dragon?"  I'm sure we've all pondered with that deep intellectual challenge from time to time.  I'm planning to run some different version of the game with the titles "Muskets and Magic" and "SOCOM and Sorcery".  I know it's all very silly but I need a break from putting on big battle games

WWII figures are really easy to paint and I really recommend the Perry line - I just wish they expand the plastics beyond the 8th Army and DAK box sets.

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Thus the machine lurches forward, building up speed... 

Terrific work Miles! It's not every day you see kepis with WWII figures. l think it's great seeing these oft overlooked forces getting center stage. I look forward to seeing the upcoming SOE Dragon...  

Okay, 140 points for you Mr. Miles. (The prone figures get half, rounded up, in case your wondering).

From ByronM: Kingdom Death - Monsters (24 Points)

Ok, another day another entry!  Sticking with the Kingdom Death theme I worked on the first and second monster that most players with fight, the White Lion and the Screaming Antelope.  However, in typical KD style there is nothing normal about these seemingly normally named creatures.  The Lion has strangely human hands and the Antelope has a mouth where its gut should be.

The 28mm WW1 figure is just included to show the scale of these figures,
there is nothing small about Kingdom Death!
(including the game itself which weighs in at 17lbs for the core set alone!)

Although the Lion is called the white lion, I decided to paint him in a more normal colour scheme, but did fade him down a bit to more of a tan / grey than an orange / brown.  This was done for two reasons.  First of which is that Kingdom Death takes place in a world with no sun, a perpetual nightmarish hell, so he has no need to blend in with grass on the savanna. Secondly using a more natural colour scheme and a bit more desert based I can dual purpose him to fit in with my Arena Rex miniatures as a beast in the arena.

All of my Kingdom Death figures are going to be played with and I want them to be very visual, so a lot of the highlights and shadows are a lot more pronounced than most of my painting.  This is being done on purpose to show up and emphasis the details from tabletop.  While not as clean looking in these close up pictures as some of my figures, they do really pop at tabletop distance better than a lot of things that I shade in using more subtle colour variations. 

The images show some glare, and again not sure why as the figs have been dull coated and have no shine at all. I had issues with giving the lion a face that portrayed some feeling and some realism, it took a few attempts but I am happy with the final result.  I added a black nose, faded in some pink, and blended in some dark lines from the corner of the eyes.  I left the eyes without pupils to give a more menacing appearance.

Next up is the Screaming Antelope, and I would be screaming too if I had a mouth there!

The entire antelope's gut has been replaced with a mouth, including teeth around the edge, and tiny human hands bursting out of the muscle around the area.  The rest of the antelope is almost entirely flayed!  This is natural to them in Kingdom Death for some reason (maybe another reason they scream?), so I painted the muscle in dark reds and browns, and then highlighted up the raised areas. 

I chose to leave everything very dark again, since there is no natural light source in the KD world.  The fur and skin on top are dark browns shaded up to light tans to give high contrast.

I started both of these using the airbrush for the base colours right after work today and they took about 4 hours from start to finish, which is pretty fast for me.  Without the airbrush to block in colours and do the first highlights (with a 0.2mm tip) they would have taken a lot longer.

While again not my normal style, I think the overall effect came out pretty well.

I really have no idea what these are worth though, so defer to Curt's judgment.  I know that Kingdom Death counts as 40mm scale, and included the 28mm figure to show just how big they are, but have no idea what that makes them worth.

Thanks for checking them out everyone!  I am now going to go start a test Dropfleet Commander cruiser and work on some Epic 30k, I should have more to post sometime this weekend.

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More KD badness, awesome work Byron. I love the tawny warm colours of the Lion and the effect of the raw, exposed musculature on the Screaming Antelope is excellent (it looks very, very painful - I'd be screaming too). I've played against the Lion but I look forward to facing the Antelope sometime in the new year. Knowing the brutalness of Kingdom Death it will probably all end in tears.

As to points I'm going to put them at 12 each, so 24 for the pair. Great stuff Byron! I look forward to seeing the upcoming cruiser and the 30K Epic figures.


 

From IannickM : Oldhammer Nurgle Champions (10 Points)

I figured I'd get a first submission in fast, as I find getting on the board early, even if for just a few points, is a big psychological boost! So I spent the last two evenings furiously working on two Chaos Champions. Yes, 2 figures in two days is a furious pace for me!

So what we have here are two classic Nurgle Champions from the old Citadel Realm of Chaos range, both released in 1990 to accompany the magnificent Realm of Chaos The Lost & the Damned. I've mentioned a few times how in my humble opinion this is apex of Warhammer Fantasy, and the style and composition of those Chaos Champions figures is unrivaled to this day. Of course, it does help they are surrounded by a healthy dose of Nostalgia awesomeness, and that every time I paint one of those Old School wonders I go back in time to the late 80s!

First up we have Vustix Moritus, Chosen of Nurgle, one of my all-time favourite Nurgle Champion. I went with a yellow ochre palette on the armour and I'm so glad I did! Nurgle is often painted in muted greens and browns, but some yellow just gives him a dash of colour while still keeping a sickly look! I loved painting him, there's no other way to say it.

And second we have Puzar Tuphus, Champion of Nurgle. I gave him a more classic brown look. He's a fun model but I'll admit he's far from being my favourite Nurgle Champion; he's a bit more subdued than what the Citadel gang of the time accustomed us to. But he did paint much faster than good ol' Vustix above, who has more details than a French Grenadier! 

My plan is to one day have a complete Nurgle unit made-up of Champions, like I did with my Khorne regiment, but it might take a while as I intend to paint each one individually. They deserve as much, poor bastards waiting for almost 30 years for someone to give them a proper paint job!

So a good 10 pts and I'm on the board! Yeah!

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These guys are absolutely terrific Iannick! I particularly like the yellow armour and green skin that you've come up for them. All of which is wonderfully counterpointed by those wondrously icky pink tentacles. 

I hope we get to see a few more from this new contingent of OldHammer goodness over the course of the Challenge.

From AaronH Dwarf Lord (5 Points)

This entry is a single Dwarf Lord from GW. He was painted to accompany the two units and two artillery pieces that I finished right before the Challenge. The units were Ebay re-paints so wouldn't count and the artillery were sitting there mocking me and needed to be done.

I had not planned on painting this guy but I pulled him out to use in role playing and he is such a handsome model that I just had to throw him in.

His beard is truly massive, as is his axe. The helmet is amazing. The sculpting on the face is phenomenal and represents GW at its very best.

Great detail all around on this guy.

This is my first painted hero for the Dwarfs so at least I could play a small game of Kings of War or Warhammer with them now.

Close up of the helmet.

Sadly this picture is washed out and you can't see the incredible detail on his face. I need to figure out the balance between natural light and artificial that will allow me to take decent pictures.

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That is a great dwarf with a suitably noble proboscis. I particularly like his moustaches flowing around his great-axe and his Sutton Hoo-esque helmet tucked under his arm. 

Good one!

From KyleC: I came in like a wrecking ball.... . (180 pts)

Second year doing this, and second year I will be moving near the end of the event as well... so just like last year I will be hitting the painting hard over the holidays, and decided to spend my birthday ( the 20th of December ) as a good day to be holed up in the studio with paint brushes and some old TV re-runs to get things kicked off :)

I have been stock-piling some Bolt Action models, some Judge Dread figures, and the new GW Blood Bowl box set just for this competition time :) And I then jumped on the easy things first... the Judge Dread figures!

First the starter box of Judges plus one extra ( dunno where the extra came from ). Done these on commission also for a bottle of local moonshine... so.. win/win/win ( comp/commission/booze ). He wanted basic tabletop, this is basic tabletop, and almost exactly as the boxset goes.

Second we have the Street Gang. Again the starter with a bonus extra model. Goal was to use as many bright colors as I could find. However all my old florescent colors dried up from never being used. So had to resort to just what I had nearby that was high saturation colors.

Then I dove into the Germans. Starting with those mounted on the bikes. Simpler color scheme here for them, but one that I will need to replicate over 100+ infantry soon enough. 8 bikes with single riders, and a sidecar with 3 riders.

All told it drops me onto the board with 180 points to kick things off, and I hope to have more soon when I get to have a bit more time off of work before and after Xmas..

Meanwhile I wait for more primer for the Bolt Action forces, I have to figure out the color schemes for the Human and Orc blood bowl teams.. Am thinking Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raider colors, but now I need to see if I can pull them off or not! And then come up with some interesting names for them as well!

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Congratulations on detonating our first paint bomb, Kyle AND Happy Birthday (on the 20th)!

The uniform greyness of the Germans motorcyclists are nicely counterpointed by the punchy colours of the Judge Dredd figures - nice work.

I look forward to seeing those Blood Bowl figures in the coming days (if you have plans for a green team (that will be patently useless) I suggest the Saskatchewan Roughriders...) 

From ByronM: Kingdom Death Survivors (35 Points)

Well, I needed to get something done on day one, but once I got home from work and started, I got 5 things done!

Day 1 and holy crap I am still following my crazy plan!  I posted my initial plan here: Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge VII - Byron's Insane Plan , but don't worry, I won't stick to it for long.

Anyway, I am starting out with five 35mm scale Kingdom Death survivors.  These are bare bones starting survivors so all they have are lanterns and founding stones (sharpened stones as makeshift knives).

Sometime over this Challenge I really need to learn to take decent pictures as the real figures are both smoother than they look here and not glossy as they almost look here.  Something I have just never managed to be able to do, despite having a light box and a good camera and lens...  sigh.

The survivors all have a very basic attempt at OSL (Object Source Lighting) for the lanterns on them, but only very basic.  They are after all basic survivors and game pieces, which both of my sons (and all their friends) will handle while playing Kingdom Death as they just can't get enough of the game.

Each survivor also has a different colour cloth wrap so that they are easy to tell apart on the board.

At 35mm I believe they count the same as 40mm, so 5x7 points = 35 points to start off with.  Not bad for day one.  I am now off to go prime some Dropfleet Commander stuff and start on some 6mm epic 30k stuff (been waiting not very patiently to get working on those models).

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Ah, these look great Byron (BTW, I love this game). I really like your subtle use of OSL. The warm tone of the lantern light is excellent, though I think you could have gone a little darker with the extremities which are further away from the light source, but that's just my opinion. 

I have seen your spreadsheet and it is glorious. I hope you can keep the steam up as I'd love to see you in the upper tiers of the roster. We will be watching you closely, sir!

I'm going to score these KD figures as 40mm castings as they are quite large, so this will give you 35 points. Well done! Now, get back to your spreadsheet and brushes...

From AaronH - Human Blood Bowl Team (60 Points)

My first entry for the year is one that I'm not even sure why I'm painting. This is my human blood bowl team from 3rd edition (? - I don't know Blood Bowl). They've been sitting in their box for five years. I found the box for a steal buried in a games store in Jacksonville NC. I have never played.

With the new edition out there is a lot of enthusiasm amongst the local gamers so that may change. Additionally, my friend Tony is moving back to Denver from New Zealand in May and has expressed an interest in playing. It's fun, from what I hear so I'll look forward to it.

The entire team. 

The models are fairly simple to paint. Not too much detail and only a couple of weirdly cast wonky spots.

Blitzer? 

There are six of these guys.

There are twelve models in total. Six of one sculpt and two each of three others. I haven't named the team or put numbers on them yet. I'm waiting for inspiration. I may need to play a couple of games before anything strikes me. Regardless, I'm prepared now when the opportunity presents itself.

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Great looking Blood Bowl team Aaron! Like you, I've never played the game, but I know it has a faithful following, especially with the new edition having just rolled out. These guys have a chunky look to them, reminding me of the early plastic Cadians. I also like the 50's era team colours you chose - they have a very retro air about them.

This squad will give you 60 points. I hope they give you good luck this spring!

From TamsinP: Christmas? Baaaaaaaa! Humbug! (15 Points)

Just a quick (and small) entry to get me off the blocks and into the race.

I'm not sure who I bought these from at Colours. They're 28mm anyway.

It was also a good opportunity to have a play with the FlockBox I bought (also at Colours) to add the static grass. It seemed to develop a much stronger field of charge than my experiments with making tufts. And then I realised why - the sheep are mounted on steel washers. I'll have to remember that in future and not use it with metal bases - I was getting static shocks when the sieve was inches away from the other electrode!

Now, some of you might be thinking "That dozy mare has submitted figures that she's dropped in coloured paint". Well, you'd be wrong. In the UK at least, coloured marks on the rumps of lady-sheep are a common sight at this time of year. You see, farmers and shepherds like to have a good idea of which ewes are expecting and when they can expect the lambs to drop. So, they strap blocks of coloured wax to the rams' bellies and change the colours every couple of weeks so they can "see what yows t' tups have tupped".

So, for points, that's three 28mm sheep. Score them as you see fit Snowlord!

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Tamsin, I'm not sure if I'm more concerned about your self-inflicted shock treatment or your expansive knowledge of sheep-bonking (BTW is Piper a Scottish name..?) 

The last shot looks as if they are smoking cigarettes, exchanging stories on the local Tups. 'That Colin is a bounder, and has a nice blue belly, but he always falls asleep while counting...' ;)

Ms. P. I'm giving you 15 points as you've pulled the wool over my eyes. 

From DaveD: Colonel Campbell, the Good Lady T and a Little Crisis... (15 points)

"Colonel Campbell it's just not on! What do you mean there are no facilities? I have had a long journey from London. I am here to help and look after our brave troops in the Sudan" said the formidable Lady Tamsin W'gamer. "I expect there to be proper facilities for a Lady to use - so sort it out! or there will be trouble in the newspapers!"

The good Colonel sipping at a cup of his favourite Old Brown Java peered at her through his monocle and decided he had best attempt to do something - a job best delegated he thought. "Major Docherty! get one of your chaps to short this out my dear boy"

The Major knew just the person  "Corporal Millsy" - sanitation sapper extraordinaire with his mighty shovel would know what to do.

Soon the red coated sapper was beavering away - though strangely there was much sound of sawing and hammering from the far side of the hill.

There you are Ma-am - said Corporal Millsy a few short minutes later. The good Lady was impressed and looked relieved , its my General Issue Moveable Privy... or GIMP for short.

As the Lady Tamsin went to enter she recoiled back - "er....  Corporal Millsy - there appears to someone - or perhaps it's something inside?" Millsy knew who this would be - Private Clint who he had tasked with providing the loo roll was at ease as usual!

The Good Lady T is the limited edition Mary Seacole figure from Partizan this year. The Colonel was picked up from a mixed box of figures at a show and is of unknown provenance. The poor soul on the loo is part of a toilet humour set made by Colonel Bills - and the Thunderbox is by Foreground, if I remember. So its two 28mm and 1 part one. The Major and Millsy appeared last year.

Well - its good to be back in the Challenge Asylum for another year. I have another full programme of Sudan related activity - but also a few other asides as well.

This morning started well on the  "Paint and Chats" with 4 of us on from Oz and the UK - the sound of paint cleaning water being stirred was much in evidence. Right off to work on a "Point Bombe!"

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Haha! It good to see the adventures of Cpl Millsy and Major Docherty continue. Well done Dave!

I'm delighted to have made a cameo in this installment, as I'm sure Tamsin is as well, but what of poor Clint? Will he ever wake up? What is he reading? And has someone told him that the latrine has not yet been dug? :)

Right, let's call it 15 with the Thunderbox, eh?

From MilesR: Trenchworx Sherman 76 in 28mm (15 Points)

My first submission is a relatively simple model - a 28mm scale M4A1 76 from Trenchworx.  The guys at Trenchworx make, in my opinion, the best 28mm scale vehicles.  More importantly they're also gamers and now sponsors of the Challenge - what's not to love?

Of all the tanks I build for wargaming (and there are a lot of those), the ubiquitous Sherman is my favorite.  I'm not sure why, maybe its the lines of the cast hull or the soothing tone of the Olive drab paint.  I never tire of painting them.

The Trenchworx version of the Sherman is from their recently completed "Tanks of the Western Front" Kickstarter and is just a superb kit.  If you haven't built one of their models, you should do so.

The weathering is a bit understated (just a little bit of rust to hint a field use).  I've found with figures that go on the gaming table a lighter touch on weathering holds up better.

My first submission should net me a whopping 15 points and also be counted for the 28mm vehicle challenge.

One down, a metric s***-ton to go....

As with previous challenges, I break out brand new Winsor&Newton Series 7 brushes - this set of 0, 1 and 2 sized brushes should see me through the Challenge but will be severely worn out at the end.  I know they're on the expensive side but I haven't found anything better and it never pays to go cheap on ones tools when there's a job to be done.

Usually worn brushes end up the the dreaded "Terrain Paint Brush" drawer.  That must surely be the equivalent of a old race horse being sent to pull a plow in a field.  

Perhaps I should consider a more fitting send off for these veterans of the painting wars.  Maybe a Viking style funeral will better welcome these frayed veterans in the halls of Vallejohalla?

Tally-Ho!!!!!

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That is a nice 'Ronson' to be sure, Miles (I await the Treadhead assault...).I agree, the products from Trenchworx is top tier stuff. I have several kits from their WWI Kickstarter and they are terrific models. Almost no cleanup and a whiz to assemble. I like the light rust you've given it - I tend to go a little bonkers with the weathering powders, so a little restraint is nice to see. 

Winsor & Newton, eh? Pretty posh Miles. With the punishment you put your brushes through during a typical Challenge campaign season they should either be pensioned off and given land in Etruria or be treated like spent brass from squad weapon... Either way, they've definitely given you good service.