'L'amour' from SeanR - 'Elf of Hearts'

For my bonus round entry this time, I wanted to use a model I already had that might be a close enough match, and use the colour scheme and some minor freehand to convey the theme.

So I present my entry: the Elf of Hearts.

This is a Harlequin Solitaire from Games Workshop. I adore the clean lines and acrobatic pose of this model, and while a full army of this sort of pose might be a bit too much, this single model in the cabinet will work wonderfully.

The colours of purple and turquiose are colours that my lovely wife wears most, so seemed most fitting.

Our subject today is wearing a black leather jacket, and both the jacket and it's scarf have some small freehand hearts painted on. Hopefully this can be seen best in the above and below shots.

It's only a small entry and added early as I'm on holidays with the wife. When this is published I'll be away from the brushes and driving around Tasmania!

'Epic Fail' from SeanS - Tank Hunter

It was at this point that Snozgit realized Bolgag was putting him on about the anti tank squigs.

My entry into the Epic Fail Bonus round was nearly that. I managed to glue in one of the bolters on upside down and didn't realize it until I had glued the sposon in question in place. After much cursing and a query of several facebook groups I chose to break the sponson off and soak the offending bolter in Simple Green. 24 hours later I could reassemble it the correct way.

I'll spare you the gory details, but I painted the entire tank with a brush. I think this is the first vehicle I've built and painted since I was about 12 years old.

The figures are both 40K, a Gretchin crewman of the Squig Katapult circa 1994 and a Leman Russ tank which may be from 2010. I chose to do the squigs in bright colors to make them pop and stand out from the Gretchin. The tank I've chosen for a yet to be named Cadian regiment that will see duty on Borborygmus Prime. I've chose to go with a grey scheme for the regiment. The camo is something that evolved as I painted it.

Not happy with things but I soldiered on and hopefully learned how not to build and paint the next tank. I left the decals off as I hit a wall tonight and am barely getting this in on time.

So if my math is right I get 5 for Snozgit, 11 for the tank (15 less 25%) and 50 for "epic fail", giving me 66 more points for the challenge and the Sci-Fi duel.

'Antihero' from SeanS - 'Campbell the Cannibal'

So from the Great White North comes Curt "The Cannibal" Campbell. Curt had headed West to the Yukon territories to escape the hustle and bustle of city life. All was well and good until the territory was flooded with rubes looking to strike it rich in the gold rush. Some say it was syphilis and others say bad moonshine, but Curt became obsessed with the most dangerous prey, man. After some miners went missing near his camp local law enforcement went to investigate. All they found was a burnt out cabin and a fire pit with what appeared to be human remains. There have been many sightings of Curt over the years. Some say he's a rich San Francisco Banker, others that he farms Sugar Cane in the Bahamas. But most sightings have come of a mysterious figure on the plains of Saskatchewan.

This figure is from Pulp Figures Yukon Peril, The Mad Trappers of Rat River. These figures are glorious. Excellent detail and nothing to clean up. They took a little while to get here, as Mr. Murch had a backlog, but I was appraised of the situation via email and knew i was going to use this particular figure for my last bonus entry and entry figure.

 All through the Challenge I've been trying hard to work on color layering and feel that I'm getting closer to getting it right. This figure has tons of detail so it really guides one as to where the layers go. I'm still relying on my grunge wash to help the layers transition as my blending is still not where I would like it.

One thing I tried a little differently in technique for this figure was to blend a little Reaper Pearl White into the metallics to try and highlight those.  On the silver metallics it was so so, so I also added a highlight of Honed Silver on top of the Boltgun Metal. I wanted to go with a red eyepatch, but it looked too much like my Goblin eye. I tried  couple of browns before settling on plain old Burnt Umber.

To punch up the Canadian-ness of the figure I decided he had to have a Hudson Bay Blanket Coat. I guess it's not a true Capote, and may be a tad anachronistic, but I think it adds a little interest. I just wish the spacing of the stripes was a tad better. I had to redo the stripes on the arms as I realized that they wouldn't stay parallel to the ground when his arms moved like that. Doh!

I tried a dry look with the snow flock this time. Meh. It looks a little like hoar frost, or so I'm telling myself.

Anyway, I hope you and Curt enjoy the figure. We'll see if I can get it together for the big challenge finale.

Sean Squires

'Comedic' from SeanS - 'Goblin Player Characters'

These seven lovelies come from Rebel Minis and their 28mm fantasy line of Dark Hold Goblins. These in particular are the villagers and henchmen packs.

The idea of Goblin player characters interested me and these sculpts by Bobby Jackson have a ton of character.

I wish I had given myself more time as, once again, I think I didn't really give them the attention they deserve.

I ended up not using the 25mm round bases they came with and opted for oldschool GW 20mm square ones. I cut off their slotta tabs and super glued them to my normal base work.

The only thing that was a little tricky was some of the mold lines were hard to get off (I may have missed some) and the figures had a lot of lumps and bumps that seemed unintentional.

Although I'm not right to the wire, I'm close enough. So thanks for looking and I hope you like them.

Sean

'Hot' from SeanS - 'Fire Elemental'

A fire elemental from West wind and a Sea Nymph from Reaper.

'Myth' from SeanS - 'Snow for the Snowlord!'

Another figure on clearance from FRP Games, this little guy called out to me for the myth round.

I mean what could be better than a child eating Christmas Devil? You can read all about him on wikipedia here. And the website Krampus.com

I kept him simple and decided to go with a light brown fur with dark hooves and antlers. I had briefly thought of trying to do the bugbear flesh color on him, but honestly thought the human flesh color made him creepier. I'm not sure if it shows, but I went with the zombie eye of slate green on top of grey. This casting seems to have a barrel full of coal, instead of children.

For me the toughest part to paint was the tail, it's big and flat and I wasn't exactly sure how to highlight it.

You'll also see my first ever use of snow flock on the base. I chose to make wetter snow by mixing it with PVA and water. Hopefully it will pass muster.

I based him on a 25mm square base so I could use him as a Beastman for Oldhammer. His battle cry will be “SNOW FOR THE SNOWLORD!”

Thanks for looking.