From IanW: 6mm ACW Confederate Infantry (168 points)

From IanW:

I hope to get one more submission after this one done but the wind is against me at the moment LOL

Here we have what was supposed to be some quick points that ended up taking as long as the Prussians before them did. I wanted them to look like they have had a long campaign.

The Figures were given to me as part payment for painting up the WSS I finished recently and will be going on e-bay at some point, probably once the cavalry and guns are finished.

Baccus again both figures and flags, 12 bases of 24 infantry and 6 bases of 6 skirmishers for a total of 324 figures. I'm happy with the end product and again the Baccus flags really were great to work with making folding them for the wind effect a lot easier. It adds a little to the time taken but really finishes off the bases. What's more once the PVA dries the flags are really robust.

Not sure how well the pictures show this off but not only are the hats and blanket rolls of different colours but the odd pair of trousers are brown instead of the standard pale blue. ACW is not a period I really want to wargame but they sure are fun to paint.

Great work Ian! I'm constantly amazed at how fast you can churn these out and at such a high quality. Lovely stuff.

This Confederate division with their defiant colours will give Ian 168 points. Lets see if he can push-on to achieve his second Challenge target before the bell tolls...

From Curt: 28mm Spanish Civil War Reinforcements - Republican Militia & Guardia Civiles (35 points)

Back to a bit of colour for me and a return to the Spanish Civil War.  Here are a few new recruits for my existing units of Republican Militia and Guardia Civiles.

These are 28mm Empress Miniatures castings.

The three city militiamen below are in the distinctive blue workers' overalls, or 'monos', that were commonly worn by trade unionist milita and city workers in cities like Barcelona and Madrid.

The four Guardia infantrymen are wearing their iconic tricornios and bright green uniforms. 

And a couple shots of the new lads integrated with their respective squads.

These seven figures will give me 35 points.

From JohnB: 40mm 18th & 19th Century Old School Toy Soldiers (599 points)

From John:

Here is my last submission, other than the samurai, to the Painting Challenge. It is a bit of a dog's breakfast. Included are 36 1850 Russian foot and a mounted officer for my Great European War of 1850 project. 

Also from this project are a smattering of recent castings and trial paint jobs. There are some Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians and French...a total of 9 foot and 2 mounted. 

I also threw in 4 ACW figures for our host and most respectable and omnipotent judge. 

Lastly there are 34 semi-round figures from a master I sculpted for Steve Cady over at Castles of Tin (A fantastic blog...what a painter!). 

These are sort of a generic WSS in full skirted coats to provide opponents for the Holger Eriksson figures of Prince August. There not up to Eriksson standards, but they look OK painted up I guess. 

They are painted as the La Sarre Regiment (Later Royal Suedois) in French service. All these figures are in 42 mm scale and are painted in a toy soldier style with bright colors and gloss finishes. The bases are unflocked in keeping with the toy soldier esthetic. The figures are mounted on MDF bases painted green. 

Flags are homemade of paper and painted in a simplistic style. Not for everyone I know, but pleasantly, a good way to pass some time in the subartic. (It is St. Patty's day and this morning saw -26 C. The snow piles in front of my house are pushing 6 feet. AND 4 inches of snow are expected today...it is enough to make one read Dostoyevsky and drink oneself into a stupor. Welcome to Novo Sibirsk.)

This Challenge has been great fun to follow...to see the interests and talents of folks from all over the place. Many thanks to Curt for his enormous and always good-humored work. (He is such a witty devil...for a Scotsman...)

Oh, don't feel too much sympathy for John, while other Saskatchewan schmucks like myself have been buried under mountains of snow for months on end, he and his lovely wife have just returned from a vacation in the Caymans... Lucky git.

Beautiful work John! While I love all of these figures, I have to say that I'm quite partial to the La Sarre Regiment  with their smart long coats and yellow facings (and they fought the good fight on the Plains of Abraham). 

This wonderfully wide assortment of 40mm figures will give John a staggering but well-earned 599 points. This will also allow him to meet his Challenge target for this year - Bravo John!

From KevinH: WWII German, Soviet and American Infantry; FIW Indians, ACW and a Grey (290 points)

Kevin is a veteran Conscript from Winnipeg  (one of the 'Originals') and has a well-deserved reputation for knowing his way around a brush. He's certainly not one of the fastest painters off the block, but you can always rely on him to make it for Last Call with some lovely stuff to admire.

From Kevin:

Hello fellow Challengers.

Well, I'm pretty much down to the wire for my submissions! I don't expect to win the Challenge (obviously), but at least these entries will get me out of the basement!

Most of my entries are 28mm.  Paints used are 'various' but mainly Vallejo "Game Colour" and Privateer paints, with a few GW's thrown in here and there.

First off, a German Mortar from the old Bolt Action Miniatures line (pre-Warlord). Nothing too fancy here, except I use Vallejo's "German Uniform" for the German uniforms.  It looks best to me, for the German uniform colour.

This piece, a German HMG team, also from BAM, took a good bit of time! I don't care to do German camo, as it's pretty fiddly, but sometimes you have no choice. In the end, I think the camo smocks turned out pretty good.

Below is a Battle Honors Russian squad.

Back when Curt was still living in these parts, we started playing Easy Eight's "Battleground WWII" rules.  I bought a bunch of Battle Honors Russians for the game.  Well, the rules weren't quite what we were looking for, and the WWII figs got "shelved" for a time.  When the Bolt Action rules showed up recently, it looked like we might have need of WWII figures again!  I dug through my "lead mountain" to see if I had anything I could put together for Bolt Action forces.  My old Battle Honors figs turned up, and I found I still had a squad's worth of unpainted infantry. So I knocked these out pretty quick - they won't win any painting contests, but that's OK - they're painted and ready to play!

Something a bit different here - two British 8th Army Command Stands by Battlefront. The pack had been sitting on my work table for a while now, and I just decided to paint up the two stands for the Challenge.  I don't expect I'll ever do a full 8th Army force for Flames of War, but you never know...

Like the German HMG team, these guys also took a bit of time!  Five US Airborne figs from Bolt Action Miniatures.  I'd guess most of you will probably agree, "Band of Brothers" was a great series - I know I certainly enjoyed it.  

As such, I wanted to lavish some time on these guys and do them justice.  I really like how they turned out, and I look forward to getting more of these guys painted and having some games with them!  I think these might be the best 28mm US Airborne figures on the market.

A friend of mine and I are (slowly) working on figures for War of 1812.  Those of you who are familiar with the Fawcett blog, can check for keyword "1812" and you'll see some of the other figs I've already painted.

I'd already done six of these Conquest Miniatures North American Indians and posted them on the Fawcett blog, but I wanted to get more finished, so I painted another six to add to the group.  These are great figures - very detailed!  Sadly, I think I'm being a bit too "precious" with my War of 1812 figures, and I'm taking too long to get things finished, but when you have such great figures, you want to do a paint job worthy of the quality of the sculpts!

I have a problem - I don't care to get bogged down in one period or one army for too long, so my painting table tends to have ALL SORTS of figs on the go!  (Another reason my War of 1812 stuff is taking so long!)  Case in point, I'm working on some of the Perry Miniatures plastic ACW figures.  Here's a Union Officer from the Cavalry box set.  Again, nothing too  fancy, but he turned out quite nicely, I think.

This is another of those "don't bog me down on one thing" projects!  My buddy Tim gave me this piece a while back, and I finally decided to knock out the piece and get it "table ready!"

I have some of the Copplestone "Grey Aliens"...

...so Tim picked up this item for me to go with the Copplestone figures.  I don't know who the manufacturer is on this piece, and several Google searches failed to turn up a match...

If it isn't clear by now, I really like the Bolt Action Miniatures figure line.  I got in on the "ground floor" so to speak, when they were first starting out.  I think I'm partly responsible for the Brit/Canadian figures having squad leaders with Thompson SMG's! Anyway, here's a BAM Russian Medic and two "Stretcher Bearers"...

...a squad of BAM Russian infantry...

...and a squad of BAM German infantry.

With the release of the Bolt Action rules a while back, I started buying up all the "old style" BAM figures I was interested in, that I could lay my hands on.  I have enough Brit/Canadian, Russian and German (Heer) figures to do about three squads for each force, with  Command and Support figures.  I also have some US Army figs, but only enough for about two squads and Command and Support.

Thanks to the Painting Challenge, I was able to get some of it painted!  Now I just need to keep rolling on the rest of it!

Now I just need to get my Ronin/Samurai figure finished!

Very beautiful assortment of figures Kevin! Though all of it is excellent I have to say that my favourites are the US Paratroopers and the FIW Indian war party - fabulous work.

This fine collection of miniatures will give Kevin 290 points, and with this he achieves his Challenge target in one fell swoop! Well done Kevin!

From RayR: 28mm Vikings (105 points)

From Ray: 

These Vikings have been painted for a couple of weeks, I just didn't fit in the basing up until now. These are all Gripping Beast plastic figures. I did buy them for myself, to replace the old standard bearers in my Viking army, but nearly lost the will to live gluing them together. 

They may be cheaper than the normal figures, but boy are they hard work. I think the worst thing about them is the heads are stuck to the sprue by the top of the helmet?????? So even after filing and cutting the bloody things, the helmets still look crap!!!! 

As I was painting them bits kept falling off, daggers, shields, heads. So I sent the rest of them to Postie with the order, please put these &^%$£"!  things together before I combust!!

But in the end I'm quite happy with them, I think? All the flags can be downloaded from my blog, if anyone's interested.

These figures may have been a b*tch to put together but you've done a brilliant job with them and the banners finish them off beautifully. 

These fierce Northman banner bearers will give Ray 105 points to add to this total.  Well done!