From DavidB - Heavy Metal (40 points)

These were the first models I tried Contrast paints on. Back in the 80's they were coated in enamel paints and venturing in the Space Hulk Game. I used brake fluid on them in the 90's removing the enamel  paints-mostly- and primed them in gesso before boxing them up when the new Grey knights appeared. They were only finished today after I discovered that snakebite leather makes a pretty nice almost gold tone.

These two are Grey Knight MK 2 as they came out a few years after the original model.

They are a lot more dynamic than the older trio.

Made from four seperate metal bits(body, two arms, and a halberd) At least the MK 1 Grey Knights had some pose options.....some options anyway.

This is an Ordo Malleus(demon hunter) I have not decided how he will be used yet, but probably as another Grey Knight as the psycannon and crozious will come in handy.

He has an extreme forward list...maybe storarge warped him? I just used an asphalt color on the rim and GW urban texture paint for the bases. Terminator models need a larger base and I may look for suitable resin bases for them. 

Some Ambots for necromundia and possible proxies for servitors until other models are available.  These are hulking brutes and I do plan on at least four more for build or conversions. 

I painted them thinking to use the purple one with my Escher gang and the Grey one as a sort of random NPC to cause havoc in Necromundia games

The Cadian 7th has been getting pounded by Blood Angels recently, I think some classic Grey Knights may just be the thing to smash elite Blood Angel assualt troops. since they are all pshykers they should also hamper the Blood Angel Librarians as well. And it is always fun to drag out old lead to a battlefield once again!

eight 28mm models for 40 points

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Yet another post from David today, seems he has been saving up a whole lot of stuff to post all at once as there are a few more in progress coming in later today and tomorrow from David.

Way to go David, the Grey Knights are a very cool force and it is glad to see more of them being done. I get what you mean about the bases being small, I was against all the increased base sizes in 40k initially, but after seeing figures on larger bases it looks odd seeing them on small bases again, especially terminators.

Great work getting the yellows to pop against the other colours on the figures.

- ByronM

From KatrinaS: Octopus for Reidy's Reef (10 Points)

Hello everyone I'm late to the challenge but none the less going to give it my best, I hope to speed up my painting process with whats left of the challenge by catching up with all of you and your fabulous work. 

I honestly decided to start at Reidy's Reef because well my daughter loves picking out the most random minis while at various shops around town so I have a assortment of animals and her most recent pick happened to be a 28 mm (deep cut) Giant Octopus from WizK!ds. 

Never have I ever attempted to do a ocean floor base so here is my best attempt, with the addition of bleached coral.

I really enjoyed this quick warm up and for me I got him completed relatively quick maybe 5 hours over 2 evenings.

Giant Octopus 28mm= 5 pts ?

using as Prize Figure

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First, Katrina, welcome to the Challenge!

Everyone, this is KatrinaS. She found out about the Challenge through her husband who heard us mentioned in a recent WS&S podcast (thanks Guy and Jasper!). As many of you know, I usually close the gates upon last call in late November, but in the desire to have a wider representation in the Challenge I was happy to accept Katrina's request to join.

Anyway, on to Katrina's entry.

Wow!! This is absolutely beautiful work, Katrina. So much to compliment here. The colour palette, the colour gradations, the highlighting, the base-work... all of them are tremendously well done. I especially like how your ocean floor sets up the soft magenta tones of the octopus. Beautiful.

As to points, I'm going to place this as the mass equivalent as a horse and rider. So, with that 10 points added to the 30 of Reidy's Reef AND the 25 for being a prize figure will give a grand total of 65 points. A nice points haul for your first entry!

Well done Katrina, and again welcome to our merry band of brush jockeys.

-Curt

JohnP: Necron Immortals and Wraiths (Mudry's Mesa, 85 pts)

New year, new army is the theme of my entries thus far. I picked up some Necrons using some cash I picked up for Christmas. As a result, they're my pick for Mudry's Mesa since they're brand, spanking new! I shared Overlord Ozymandias a few weeks back. Now, he has some actual troops at his disposal: 5x Immortals (28mm warriors) and 3x Necron Wraiths (28mm cavalry/monsters). I'm trying to go for a unique look that still pays some homage to the classic Necron scheme. My "elite" troops will share Ozymandias the Resplendant's golden aegis, but the Canoptek and "lesser" troops will have a similar silver/dark green scheme that mirrors the GW standard Necron scheme. The green's a bit of my own twist (cause screw edge highlighting), and the silver has some added rust to it.

I'd love to hear what you all think! Comments and critiques welcome. Thanks for looking.

 

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The plan to increase the global revenue impact of the challenge is working with Mudry's Mesa!  Nice to see... too bad I don't get a kickback from any of the companies making cash off my map space....

Great work here John!  I really like the colour scheme having something other than all metal like many necrons, it adds something to it where all metal can get a bit boring.  The green bring out some extra details and helps bring out the shape of the wraiths armour.

While I like the immortals as well, and dig the fact that you tried to add some extra details by having the silver strip up the center of the head, I wonder if added green shoulder pads to them wouldn't add something extra to them?  Not sure how it would go against the gold though, so I get why you may have left them all gold. 

I always loved the Necrons, having picked them up when they first released years ago.  It is nice to see some of the newer models for them here, especially with such great paint jobs on them.  Keep up the great work.

- ByronM

 

From DavidB - more greenskins ...and wolves! (75 points)

And I'm back! I did not succeed in completing my Orc army, but I did paint up another Orc while painting some more goblins that my kids bought me.  

He is from an old box game and was painted with contrast paints. I did highlight with regular paint and had a lot fun etching off-white on the blade. All the orcs will be very tribal when completed.

I can no longer say I avoided the AoS minis as I have two complete warbands for the skirmish games. Zarbag's Gitz from Nightvault and Rippa's Snarlfangs from Beastgrave. Besides the great character sculpts, I like the modeled bases like the snotling smashed by the Fantatic above.

Not sure on the fellow roasting shrooms on his back, but Zarbag is a wizard. He will be a nice addition to the Night Goblin army.

I never did get wolf riders as I really disliked the older sculpts (the plastic wolves not the riders) These fellows are very animated and packed with detail.

I will definitely be seeing if further riders like these are available

Meanwhile, Zarbag has three archers that came with his band. My favorite is the center archer with the hood covering his eyes.

So, perhaps the Fanatics are not crazy, but merely drunkards? both bands were painted with contrast paints, but I may revisit this one and add a few washes to the wreaking ball

These plastic squigs are very characterful and are making me look twice at the newer squig models available. 

I will have to see about adding some more in the future especially if I can find some classic squig hunters.

The new gobbo additions!....

plus the netter that almost escaped!

9 foot sloggers for 45 and three fuffy cavalry for 30 = 75points!

Hu- Wolf Totem












A new band for me...was enjoying them while painting the wolf boys. They are more appropriate for White Scar spacemarines...hmmm.... white scars

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Good work once again David.  I especially like the wolf riders and the squigs here.  Like you, the old wolf riders never did anything for me, I found them posed to two dimensional and they never looked right.  These new ones look awesome though and have a lot of sense of movement to them.  The squigs have always been amusing no matter what version, and these are no different.  Great work.

- ByronM

From TamsinP: Lizardmen at O'Grady's Gulch (For Joshua) (90 points)

Extract from the journal of TamsinP, Time Traveler, Society Girl and Adventuress

26th January, I haven't a clue what year...or even what universe...


Alighting from Lady S's balloon after another enjoyable flight, I find myself atop a hill overlooking a gully or gulch. Peering down into the gulch I spy some tiny green figures formed up in ranks as though for battle.

I decide that it is my duty to descend and investigate. It isn't as far down as the green figures' appearance led me to believe and I find that they were indeed small, not far away*. I must appear a great giant to them, for they flee in terror. 

Lifting my eyes to the East I notice a tall, snow-capped mountain in the distance. I feel compelled to approach and ascend it, as I am sure there will be a great reward for doing so...

Swordslizards

Spearlizards

Some close-ups:

These were quite fun to paint. As with my previous entry, I used my wet palette for these and the weapons were done as NMM - I think it came out quite nicely on the swords. If you look carefully at the photos, you will notice that no two lizardmen are identical. And that I have painted the yes and teeth. And varying shield patterns, although that hasn't come out quite so well in the photos.

I actually painted these before starting on the hairy bikers. The figures are 10mm from Magister Militum. I'd originally bought them with the intention of using them to make "friezes" to decorate pyramids and buildings for my Mexicagrave project, but that has been in abeyance for quite some time. Then along comes James' most worthy "For Joshua" project and I decided to make them my contribution to that - can you think of a better use for them?

For scoring:

60 x 10mm foot @ 1 = 60 points
O'Grady's Gulch = 30 points
Total = 90 points

* luckily I'm not as easily perplexed as Father Dougal:

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What a great little entry here Tamsin.  I love the figures, for 10mm they have a lot of detail.  The painting is really very nice for that scale as well, they look great, and doing NMM on 10mm???  You truly are mad Tamsin.

The basing is also top notch, which I find many people (myself included) tend to skimp on at smaller scales, but the basing here really makes these pop. 

- ByronM

From DavidB - Racing at Fran's Fjord (46pts)

Benevolent, Patriotic, Generalissimo Francis( Long may he reign) Has once again taken the field to battle against the Archfiend, Dictator for Life, Badger of Rayonia, President Ray. Fran has chosen a T-bucket with twin medium machine guns and nitrous boosters to add to the nimbleness of the pristine machine. Ray has mounted two heavy machine guns on his old, rusty 49 ford pickup. The heavy old truck isn't as nimble as the speedy t-bucket but the heavy machine guns pack enough extra power that he does have a chance to win the duel. It might move faster since a load of sand bags were removed from the bed which did reduce the weight considerably. There is a persistent rumour that the engine may in fact be a she-bear on a treadmill! Snopes deems that rumor to be false, but another rumor that he is using a booster tank with Detol has been deemed very probable.

And the above photo has the two trucks just prior to being modified and primed.

A view of the taillights and rusty truck bed as well as the Christmas present that led to this task. Gaslands can be played with toy cars unmodified, but it is much more fun to convert and paint!

Both began as hotwheel toy cars and used spare machine guns from my son's Tanks bit box.

These will be the first of many and my son Seth is having a good time looking for suitable additions when we head out on errands.

We played a couple of games and will be purchasing templates and the MDF terrain barks painted last year I believe. We will probably end up collecting some more 15mm figures and kitbashing/scratchbuilding terrain too. A nice father son project for a game that lasts barely an hour.

So, two 15mm speedsters for 30 points plus another 30 for hitting Fran's Fjord!

ZZtop seems more suitable to racing hotrods and shooting them than random metal noise! ;)

ZZtop- Gotsa Get Paid








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Some nice ratrods there David, for a pretty good game (essentially X-wing in car form).  The Fawcet crew has been playing a lot of it over the last year or so as well.

I like how you have painted the truck up in true ratrod fashion and left it rusted out, different body panel colours, etc.  I really sells the look.  Good work

The Snowlord may need to correct points, but 15mm vehicles are 8 points each so I count that as 16 points plus 30 for the map space, for a total of 46, not 60.  Or at least so says the mighty minion spreadsheet.... sorry but that's what I have to work from for now.

- ByronM