The Awards for Challenge XI

Welcome back Challengeristas and loyal viewers! Finally, the awards of Challenge XI! 

As per tradition, every year we gather in late April to celebrate the efforts of the our intrepid participants, and to give special recognition to those who particularly impressed us with their skills with the brush. Today we have the picks for Challengers' Choice, Sarah's Choice and SnowLord's Choice.

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Challengers' Choice

A few weeks ago I posted our nominations for Challengers' Choice and created a voting poll for us to make our selections. Here are the results.

If anyone wants to see the full poll data just drop me a note.

For our honourable mentions we have:

Ray's Ottoman Collection

Jasper's Body of Work

and Curt's Body of Work

In Third, we have Ken's bellissimo Italian Legion Project

In Second, Christopher's favaloso 3rd Century Romans

Well done Ken and Christopher. The two of you provided viewers with a Roman extravaganza. Bravo, bello!

And finally, the Challengers' Choice for a second consecutive year is Sidney Roundwood with his spectacular body of work! Congratulations Sidney!!

Sarah's Choice

What a treat this AHPC has been.

The variety of painted muses, demons, witches, hags and crones, elves, fairies and adventuresses presented has been thrilling to watch.

Some of the femme fatales show questionable wardrobe choices while others are perfectly accessorized.

All are worthy of the challenge and if I could trophy’s to everyone, I would!

Honourable mentions to PeterD, PeterF and PaulSS for their ladies of the army: the cantinieres, camp followers and the women’s’ army of pilots, land girls etc. (Diana Quicks character in The Duellists is a fave of mine).

PeterD's Lumber Jill

PeteF's Napoleonic Camp Follower

PaulSS' Vivandière

Also, honourable mention to Sander for his whimsical mousling sorceress. So very cute and charming!

Sarah’s Sorceress 2021: The Baba Yaga, painted by SimonG.


The fantastic elements of the Baba Yaga in the Russian Fairytales are some of my favourite stories.

Simons’ painting is vibrant and bold, the figure & hut are dynamic and one really gets a sense of the Baba Yaga swirling through the landscape.

Thank you Simon, well done to all Challengers!

Keep safe, get the vaccine and be kind!

- Sarah


Snowlord's Choice

As per every Challenge, I was absolutely spoiled for candidates as we have so many talented people in the group. I often like to pick entries that have a personal, or interesting human interest aspect to them. Trouble was that there were so many to choose from this year! The 'Hall of Ancestors' location, in particular, really treated us to many wonderfully touching and personal stories. I was stymied for many days, mulling over dozens of entries, and in the end I decided to feature two submissions that especially resonated with me.

Martin's 'Mary Anning' I found to be absolutely fabulous. 

I really enjoyed the history of this early female geologist, and Martin's basework, featuring ammonite mudstone, a part of Mary's history, is truly inspired.

The other choice is from Benito. His grandfather, Abuelo Paco, silently fought for the Spanish Republic and later endured the rule of Franco and his victorious fascists. I found Benito's writing poignant, and his representative figure very fitting. A wonderful entry Benito.

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Challenge XI is a wrap folks! 

Thanks again to our Minions who were absolutely indispensable in helping me manage the Challenge. Finally a deep bow to you all for being such wonderful participants and great supporters of the event. 

I'm no great fan of Winter, but when the snow flies I will be very much looking forward to joining you for the next edition of the Painting Challenge.

Best wishes.

- Curt

No, really, it's coming soon...

 

Sorry folks, life (i.e. Covid, work, WS&S deadline (fun!), f*cking plumbers) ambushed my hobby time. I hope to have the Challenge wrap-up published shortly.

Thanks for your patience.

- Curt

Please Vote for YOUR Challengers' Choice of AHPC XI

Hello Everyone!

Below are the 20 nominations for Challengers' Choice!

For those who were nominated for numerous submissions, I took the liberty to aggregate their nominations into to a single 'Body of Work' classification, with a sample collage image.

Please look through the gallery and feel free to follow the links to the original submissions.

Due to the increasing costs of SurveyMonkey, I've shifted to using a new app for conducting the voting.  It does not easily allow for single-use submissions for online polls, so in order to better control the responses I will be sending an email invitation to all participants to secure their votes. If you were an observer, and wish to participate in the selection, please send me an email: curtcampbell at mac dot com and I'll add your votes. 

On April 18th I will post up the top three selections for Challengers' Choice, along with my SnowLord's Choice and Sarah's Choice.

Thank you, enjoy the gallery and remember to cast your votes!

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Byron's Necron Reanimator

Christopher's 3rd Century Romans

Curt's Body of Work

Dallas' Body of Work

Dr.Q's Arkanaught

Greg's Body of Work

Jasper's Body of Work

Jeremy's Aliens

Ken's Italian Legion Project

Kyle's Necromunda Gang

MikeF's Glaive Super Heavy Tank

Miles' Stalingrad Project

Miles' 6mm Republican Romans

Nick's Body of Work

PaulSS' Napoleonics

PeterD's WWII Mediterranean Naval Collection

PeteF's 11th Cuirassiers

Ray's Ottoman Collection

Reilly's Arachnarok

Sidney's Body of Work

Iain W 28mm challenge roundup

 I set out to get some more gendarmes done and try and kickstart my Napoleonic project which has stalled a bit,  I  also wanted to try and comment on every post, like I did last challenge. I've largely succeeded ,I only missed  one  post and managed to paint 47 Italian wars mounted figures, 50 mounted Napoleonic figures and 8 war of three Kingdoms cuirassiers all of course in 28mm. I usually have an aversion to cavalry, preferring infantry ,so it's been a good exercise sticking to cavalry for the whole challenge .

Pretty pleased with my output, could really do with a haircut now though!

I'll pack your landsknecht commander up now Peter, I just wanted to keep him out for the group shot.

I decided this time not to take part in  the Chambers ,  as I  still have half finished bits of challenge island knocking around the shed from the last challenge and I wanted to push through and paint cavalry but I have to say it was very entertaining to see some pretty impressive attempts to bend ,twist and generally distort the chamber definition!

As always it's been great fun being part of the collective, so thank you Curt, minions and everyone who commented and provided me with a splendid display of figures to view throughout the winter ,roll on next year!

All the best 

Iain W 

Ian S -First Painting Challenge

Hi I am Ian and live in Hampshire UK.  This was my first attempt at this challenge and really enjoyed it.  The standard if painting and modeling was awesome and I have learnt alot for everyone involved. 

I decided to paint what was outstanding in various armies that my family have and a few figures for friends. 

So at the top are 28mm figures, wolf riders for a friend dwarfs for myself. 

15mm figures 

The completion of a a polish renaissance cavalry force for my son. 

Then a 1812 British Canadian army again for my son. 

More ancient Indians for my daughters army

A Danish dbn army for myself and a few 6mm figures for a 183 project. 

My target was 500pts and I achieved over 1600pts.  Need to read the points values as misread 6mm pts for 15mm pts. 

9pm

 

From JohnS - My Spanish Holiday has ended with a surprising green twist

 Another AHPC is over and I am already looking forward to the next.

I didn't hit my AHPC goal this year because most of my spare time was taken up by getting my house renovation to a point where I could host my Dad's 80th birthday party at the end of February. I am happy to say that with the generous help of AHPC participants (current and previous Challenges) PaulOG, Reilly OG, Alan D, Marty, Aled C and Stephen S and non-Challengers David K and Izzy we were able to get everything ready in time. Why am I telling you this? Because the AHPC community projects into the real world, helping bring gamers together with shared passions and interests. I have met up with other Aussie Challengers in the past and when we can travel again I intend on meeting up with a few European and North American ones too. I owe you all a few pints for helping maintain my tenuous grip on sanity!

This year we discovered that Reilly was as good with a jackhammer as he is with a paintbrush. My Dad had a great party.

The majority of the Challenge this year was my Spanish Napoleonic army. Part of a year long attempt to build a force for both Sharp Practice and Black Powder or General D'Armee the AHPC really encouraged me to get painting.

I painted Warlord Games Spanish and discovered the wonderful Offensive Miniatures too. I prefer the metal Offensive over Warlord's resin but that may be just me.

The last weekend of the Challenge saw me throw in my only Squirrels of the year, some Orcs and Goblins. I had painted other figures from these units in previous Challenges so it was great to fill the units out.

I didn't do any of the Chambers as I was trying hard to be focussed and couldn't see how I could twist my efforts to meet the challenges.

I tahnk Curt and all the Minions for another interesting AHPC. I will be participating in the Vaccination Challenge as I am not scheduled for the first jab until May. Let's see if I can make up the 219 points woth I owe.