MattW - Sweet Sixteen is a wrap!

 Sweet Sixteen is a wrap! 

Another painting challenge complete, a big thank you to Curt and Sarah for hosting a fine event this year, the last rapid fire event felt like a blur, with posts every 15 mins or so on Friday night. A big thanks to the minions, as I was in two time zones several times I missed the cut off by a day either side…..

Bryon Bay bit of the holiday 

I set a very modest goal this year of 600 points as I knew I would be on holidays skipping the European winter. This winter we were Australia for two months laying around a pool relaxing over the challenge. I did not reach my goal for points this year as the holiday homes and hotels had no where really suitable to paint….. well that’s my excuse. On the home front I finally moved into my painting room and I think in six weeks the chateau renovation on the third floor will be finally complete (painting, fabric wall insulation, then decor happening for the coming five weeks) which will mean my library will finally be back in place and my hobbit hole will get a rebuild. 

We are taking bookings for 2026  at Wargames holidays/ L’Hotel de Hercé . If you and your partner or a couple of mates are looking for a personal Normandy battlefield guide, a wargames or historical cultural holiday in west France, Normandy, Brittany or Pays de Loire please consider us. We have 21 tours and 60 Battlefeild sites locally from Caesar to ww2. 

On the painting front, my desk looks like a bomb zone when I commenced cleanup yesterday about 4 projects did not make it to the Final Cut, 4 hours packing stuff away into project drawers and I will compete a few pieces this week …. For the 16th challenge really happy with my 20 odd Judge Dredd additions including some early figures from the Citadel 80s collection, LOTR, Napoleonic, ACW and ww2 pieces. 

My favourite piece I completed, Treebeard Merry and Pippin

Half of the Hurley gang

Me raging about construction dust in the painting room

After two weeks on the Gold Coast eating Banana’s and mangoes 

The oldest thing I painted circa 1983 a Paranoia/citadel blue trooper

Perry dragoons, fifteen years in the project drawer at least 

A gift of figures whilst in Oz by my mate Greg, actually received love early

My Christmas gift was a Halfling Bloodbowl team, as yet unnamed any ideas? 

Somehow I think this is what I would look like in a gridiron outfit

I had big plans of completing my 9th SS 20mm…. Not to be

Cheers everyone I am looking forward to next year

Cheers

Matt

From AndrewB- Big ol final points pile! 1020pts

Well, this year I told myself I was going to focus on painting, not necessarily posting every week, but then March 20 was rapidly upon me!  Here we go, for a great big points bomb to finish off!  

First, a big bundle of Soviets I painted for a big bolt action game.  These are a mix of 28s, some printed, some metals mixed from a number of manufacturers! 

There's something like 22 infantry, 21 gun crews and guns, and a vehicle(tachankas are wild, that was a fun build!)

Next, with more WWII, I did a bunch of printed and Warlord Games Italian vehicles, along with a bunch of Old Glory infantry!  More fuel for the Bolt Action fires!

Italians have some whacky vehicles, which really makes for fun and interesting painting, if not particularly effective gaming!

I'm not sure I'm the biggest fan of the army building for Bolt Action V3, but I figured I should give a gun platoon a shot, with a couple light howitzers and a light AT gun(gonna need more crew!).

Looks like 23 infantry, three guns, and eight vehicles!

Now we'll stick to the Med, but perhaps a couple thousand years earlier, with some generic armed Greek/Roman civilians, as well as some character figures and a mythical opponent, a giant Cyclops!

I believe the characters are mostly Footsore, with the Cyclops being Reaper, and the civilians a mix of unknown manufacturers, for a total of 22 figs!

We'll finish off with a big old lot of Lord of the Rings figures, split between Uruk Hai and men of Gondor, with a mix of random generic men mixed in, to use as stand-ins for wild men, or some random brigands or such.  

These were quite delightful to paint while listening to the book series in audiobook form!  The figures are a mix of GW and 3d printed, and I think the random men might be old Warlord of some variety, perhaps Gauls or Germans!  The stand-ins for the clansmen of Lamedon are likely my favorites, with the leader being particularly 'cheeky', and kept facing forward for modesty's sake!

Counting these was a bit of a struggle, but it would appear there are 30 Uruks, 36 men of Gondor, and 11 of the random men, for a total of 77!

Sliding in about a half hour before midnight, we've got 168 Infantry figures, and 9 vehicles, for a total of 840 + 180 = 1020pts!

This year's challenge has been quite a delight, but I certainly need to figure out a better method for submissions, to avoid this sort of rush, and bring you fine readers better detailed posts!

Shout out to the figures who didn't get photos taken, fifty-something 28mm Bronze Age chaps, and 35 1:600 ancient galleys, among a good number of smaller scale figures.   

Thanks to all the entrants for their inspiring posts, and the organizers for the hard work!  I'll see you all next year!

______________________________

A parting points airstrike, eh Andrew? Wow, this is a great finale to your Challenge this year - fantastic stuff. Of all these I think the Cyclops is my favourite, but that may be because he's the largest of the batch, but also because Ray just had a Jason and the Argonaughts entry and I was thinking, 'That boy needs a cyclops for this lot.' Any here you are with the perfect solution, and so well painted to-boot! 

Wonderful work Andrew, and this will shoot you well past your points target for this year. Well done!

Until next Challenge then!

- Curt

From Ians - 10mm odds and sods (205 points)

Hi all so today i am posting a mixture of themes. Madhist Camal riders these were from the Henry Tudor Sudan range and have been rescaled for 10mm. Was expecting one piece models as per his usual mounted models but no 2 piece, rider and camel. Luvely prints but could not workout how they go together. still not sure they are right so going forward have ordered some from Pendraken. Any way here are two bases, 8 figures.

Next up Rohan Kings Guard infantry, these are from the ROK horselords range, i brought the army bundle. 2 units of 30 figures each based for warmaster.

Next installment of the Mumakils. I have 6 models but only 4 will be finished for the challenge. in fact 2 of the 4 have no crew as they are only half finished. This one when dry brushing the head the brush went through the jaw. After patching with paper then liquid green stuff it still looks ok.

Due to being called by work at 0300 in the morning and being able to go back to sleep here are two more.

Mumakil herd

Last but not least some Haradrim spear armed infantry. Again resin prints from Kosmo minatures evil men of the south range.

I have asked for a photograph course for my birthday as pictures are not my strong point so apologies for the poor quality. As a last comment my thanks go out to Curt and his Minions who have worked so hard to make this Challenge fun and enjoyable for all. For me its something to look forward to all year and I plan and collect figures the entire year. So thank you again Curt and i hope to see you all next year, have a good one folks. 

Points Madhist Camel riders 24pts Rohan Guard 60pts Mumakil and riders (30pts mumakil x 3) and 11 for infantry figures so 101pts in total Southern spearmen 20pts Total claiming 205pts

_____________________________

Wow, great last post, Ian! I did a few 10mm LotR as proof of concept a few years ago, but I love yours, especially your panzer detachment of Mumakils!! They look amazing in a group and will be even moreso when all the crew are in place. Terrific stuff and a great way to cap-off your Challenge. 

Until next year!

- Curt

 

From TeemuL: The Last Ducks and Orcs (50 points)

My last post of the Challenge has elements of two of my favourite fantasy worlds, Glorantha and Middle-Earth. First Glorantha and heroic ducks. I recently painted first five of them here: Ducks from 2022. And now was the time to paint the rest and claim one more squirrel!

They being fantasy ducks and not real I was able to use varied colours - one of them is blue, another one is green, one yellow and light and dark grey pair to finish them off. I tried to again use a limited palette to tie them together, look unified, but not uniformed. So lots of greys, greens and browns, followed by wash and gentle drybrush. It is a miracle indeed how many colours you can shade with Reikland Fleshshade and drybrush with Caucasian Flesh and the end result is great! I give you hint, basically anything but blue and green on these ducks...

For those of you don't know, ducks from Glorantha are barbarians and live side by side with other barbarians following their Storm God called Orlanth. Ducks don't take criticism well, especially if it is targeted towards their height, size or skills with weapons. They are short tempered, I wonder if Donald Duck is related to them...

Times like these, Challenge coming to end, skull duel almost tied, every skull counting, it would be tempting to paint free hand skulls everywhere, for example on the shields of these ducks. But skull is not a symbol widely used in Glorantha, so one of them got a storm rune and other one got a luck rune. Whirling storm rune is also the mark of Orlanth. They are smallish minis, 20mm in height, but in 28mm scale and previously counted as 28mm so it would be 5 points per mini and total of 25 points and a "Glorantha Duck" squirrel.

<Enter some quack jokes here>

And lets move on. Here are five more Uruk-hais for my army. You might remember my earlier entry where I said these were surprisingly easy and fast to paint. So I primed five more and they were still easy and fast to paint. I need to remember that, because I have quite a lot of them waiting for paint.

The recipe is the same and since there are dozens of entries on the final hours, I'll save you from long rants. 5 minis for 25 points, no squirrels or skulls. 50 points total. Thank you and "See You In December!"

From Millsy:

One of my favourite aspects of Gloranthan lore is the quirkiness of it and the ducks are the epitome of that quirkiness. I would never have though to use such bright colours on them as you've done mate but it really works.

Lovely work Teemu and another 50 Lunars added to your tally.

PS. I tried to think of a duck joke that would quack you up but couldn't manage it.

Cheers,

Millsy

From TeemuL: Orclike creatures (70 points)

Couple of weeks ago I posted an entry about all things green. Today I'm not far off that subject, but this is more a study of orcs rather than of a green. And the "study" is created while typing, after I managed to create a topic which would gather all the models of this week. Orc is a tricky word, I believe, everyone knows what orcs are, but no-one really knows what orcs are or what they look. :) It is a specific but generic term with many different points of view, different lores and different authors/artists.

These are Uruk-Hai from Games Workshop Lord of the Rings range based on the movie trilogy by the same name. In the movies Uruk-Hai are creatures created by Saruman, in the books they come from Mordor, but Saruman just manages to enhance them to not be afraid of daylight.  Tolkien's orcs were originally corrupted elves, Jackson's version is mix of orcs and goblin.

I chose to paint 5 of these, just enough for another squirrel, but they were so quick to paint, that I primed another 5, which might get painted later in the Challenge. I have largish collection of painted Uruk-Hai, but only 3 with pikes before this. Definitely need for more, luckily I have lots to paint. These are 20 years old or so, gathered from here and there over the years. These "orclike creatures" are brown skinned and heavily armoured and have long pikes, which gives them unique fighting abilities in the game. Very quick to paint, like I told. brown skin and armour cover almost everything. The photos are quite bright, but there are two layers of black wash over the plate mail to give them darker and more industrial look. Brown bases to finish them off, green tufts to add some colour to all brown, black and metal.

The next one is a mean, green killing machine, so I'd say an orclike creature. For Toy Story bonus round I painted a Centurion tank for my Delmonteland project, but since Wars of Insurgency rules are not really about tanks, I thought the jungle troops would need another kind of vehicle. The answer came from the box of toy cars I bought Gaslands in mind, but this 4x4 Cherokee is claimed to be 1/64 scale, so the same as the Centurion, so it should be a perfect fit.

I painted the car green, then added lighter green highlights, painted the windows and tires black and bumpers brown. A little bit colour to the lights and then some muddying. The freehand palm tree and slogan on the roof were painted light grey and highlighted with white.

The trunk opens, so I painted the inside yellow, looks quite practical. Some thin lines to windows to mimic reflections. Not necessarily the best effect, but at least something to break the blackness.

In the photo below I have included two jungle warriors I painted before to better show the size and scale. Looks may be a bit big, but probably just big business... "Let's go Bananas" is something I invented tongue in the cheek, something eager mercenaries might think when going to fight in the jungle. Afterwards I learnt that there is a Canadian TV show for children with the same name, so salute to Canadians is included (unintentionally).

Another size comparison, this time with Warlord Games WW2 jeep. Again, looks a bit bigger, but clearly the design is not so Spartan, so not a problem for me. Someone might argue about the correct scale for 25/28 minis, but for me this is close enough - especially when this was supposed to be a cheap side project.

The following 3 photos show the Cherokee before my salvage job. I liked the red paint and "Mad Bull" text, may be I should have stick to that instead of "Let's go Bananas"?

It can clearly be seen that this toy car has seen lots of action and most likely love. I hope to field it for my games so it can enjoy the new life and love.

And the last photo shows the technical details, 4x4 Cherokee by Majorette, Made in France, 1/64 scale and No 256.

And then some actual orcs, at least the Games Workshop version of them. Games Workshop orcs in the Fantasy (or Grim Dark) setting are greenskinned. They are not evil as such, they just like a good fight and enjoy destruction. Back in the days orcs were considered brave warriors, nowadays they are cowards hiding inside armours, made of metal gone through pigs... This entry shows the more heroic orcs rather than those cowards. These are (or were) called Savage Orcs and as you can see, their equipment and weapons are from the lo-tech end of the technology tree.

Yes, good old metal orcs with goblin green bases and red weapon shafts! I guess I'm bit of a dwarf and savage orc inside me, dirstrusting pretty everything too new and modern...

I added some variety, each one has different coloured skin or fur and there are actually 5 different sculpts here, even though two pairs look quite the same - but not exact. Shields are quite modern, but they are rather rough, so they fit these savages better.

In general they were painted basecoat, highlights and gentle wash, but there are some variations here and there. The bone weapons of the boss guy have severel layers for example where as the red eyes have just the basecoat.

What might surprise you, there savage beasts (as some imperial scholar might call them) have zero skulls on them! Bone and stone weapons, feathers, severed head, all kinds of armbands, bracelets and nose rings, but not a single skull. Well, if you want skulls, you'll have them next week!

"28mm LotR Forces of Evil" squirrel, no robots or skulls, 25 points for 5 minis.

25mm vehicle for 20 points, no skulls or new squirrels.

"28mm Warhammer Fantasy Orcs" squirrel, no robots or skulls... 25 points for 5 minis.

Total 70 points, 2 squirrels.

With all these points I reach the halfway of my target with two weeks to go!

Oh boy Teemu, what a great mix of offerings you have for us today! I do like both the versions of that architypal enemy: the trusty Orc or Ork. Those Uruk Hai really look good, but I like the Savage Orcs better they are goofy and just ooze charakter! That Cherokee is the cream of the crop for me, what a nice rescue job, the banans theme does really work well indeed, so get those brushes started and try to paint some more we sure like to see more of these kinda posts!

Cheers Sander