From Curt: 28mm Napoleonic Russian Peasants & Cottage (30 points)

I thought I'd squeak this submission in before we leave for the Valentine's weekend (shh, don't let the missus know...). 

Here are six very, very cross Russian peasants for my 1812 French Retreat project. 

The figures are from the Perrys' 28mm Napoleonic range. I kept them in fairly natural earth tones as I think they wouldn't be too flashy, being too busy eking out a life in the frozen steppes of Russia for such frippery. 

I've included a few shots of them seeing off some unwelcome French callers.

I also just completed a Russian cottage from 4Ground. This is a laser-cut MDF kit that comes flat packed and pre-painted. 

I really had a wonderful time putting this together. It took me back to my childhood days when I used to scissor-out and glue together paper farmyard buildings that came in large format scrapbooks (does anyone else remember these?). Anyway, it took me several enjoyable lunch hours at work but I managed to puzzle through it all. It's actually quite an involved little kit, with lots of detail both inside and out, but every piece fit together flawlessly with little fuss or muss. Highly recommended if you have the patience. 

Nice interior detail.

There is one thing I'm not too wild about with these MDF kits and that is the laser burn marks around the edges. When they first came out I could get past it as they were still unique but now when I see them it just screams to me, 'Look, another 'painted' MDF kit with burnt edges'. 

Here is a side of the cottage 'stock' with the burnt laser markings clearly evident...

But it's an easy fix. I took 10 minutes to quickly drybrush the walls with a couple tones of light khaki and light grey to soften the burn marks and I really think it provides a better overall finish, well, to me anyway. 

...and this is with a bit of simple drybrushing.

Next to go will be those 'socket-marks' in the roof and corner joins, but that will be for another day.

Hooray Igor! Get out the vodka, we're eating French tonight...

The cottage notwithstanding, these six pissed-off Russian peasants will give me 30 points to chip me along. (NOTE: I've increased my Challenge Target to 1K which will be a definite stretch for me but I guess that's the purpose of the whole affair.)

Oh, and just as a reminder: Due to me being away for the next couple of days the 'Casualties' Bonus Round has been postponed until next Sunday (this will not affect the date of the 'Favourite Character' Bonus Round, which remains March 2nd).

Have a great weekend everyone!

From Millsy: 40K Space Marine Assault Squad (25 points)

Millsy fell off the ECW wagon and is back to his 40K addiction.

From Millsy:

I *know* I said I was painting more 17thC cavalry but I lied. Actually, I am still painting them but these jokers were in the way and I wanted the painting blocks they were attached to so they got done.

This is another addition to my 40K space marines, in this case a squad of five metal body assault marines. The sergeant had a power fist but I cut that off with my shiny new Dremel and gave him a power sword instead. 

The idea is that I by removing the power fist he can be busted down to private as required. That way I can field these as a squad of five or merge them with my other squad of five for a super-sized ten man assault machine.

Now back to the cavalry. Honest.

Yeah, right. Next up will be Prince Rupert exhorting his men with a power fist and his cybernetic servitor poodle whirring and chirping at his heels... (shiver)

Seriously, great job with these guys Millsy. I particularly like the bone coloured right shoulder pads on the rearmost models. Very nice effect.

These Space Marines will provide Millsy with 25 points. Now that you have that out of our system can we get back to your English Civil War cavalry?  ;-)

From DaveD: 28mm Sudanese Mahdists Tribesmen, Part III (343 points)

Dave finishes his dizzying dash to the top tier of the points roster with this, his third monster unit of Mahdists.

From Dave:

So here is the final instalment of the Beja mob. This time made up of 65 figures and 6 prone casualties again all 28mm Perry as before... Across all 3 mobs there is range of basing from 6 figures to 2 and a casualty on the bases. This is to give a a real random look to the units as I assemble them. 

OK, and here is picture of them all together.

With my existing Beja force which is half that size, I have almost enough to do the Mahdist forces for El-Teb late this year.

Wow. Just wow. Between these three successive entries Dave has completed 236 figures in, what, a month's worth of work? Amazing. Dave, you thought you were in a painting funk at the start of the Challenge. Well, we certainly sorted that out for you! Brilliant work my friend.

This last horde will give Dave 343 points, bringing him in range of the top three in the points roster... 

From KevH: 15mm ECW The King's Lifeguard of Foot (57 points)

From Kev:

15mm ECW. The Kings Lifeguard of Foote. This is the first full regiment I have painted for my newly acquired ECW 15's collection. 

I purchased a rather large collection from ebay, just before Christmas. This was all painted and has now been re-based. I then swapped a few unpainted FiW for a load more ECW from a good friend "Tink". These all need painting though and not sure of the make. They could be Mikes Models. I intend to use these unpainted to make the royalist regiments for the King and Rupert.

The queens lifeguard will follow and then Rupert's Foot will complete the army. That will make ten regiments. There are also enough foot to make three parliament regiments. But not sure what they will be yet. With a few spare pikes to make some pike companies.

Very nice work Kev (and a good score from 'Tink'). Again, your black-lined, high-contrast approach to painting smaller scales works very well with these fellows. Question: Why the extra base depth to the front of the pikemen? Is this for when the shote is in two ranked bases on the flanks?

These men of the Kings Lifeguard will give Kev 57 points.

From RayR: 28mm F&IW French Infantry - Royal Rousillon Regiment (45 points)

From Ray:

My 8th entry into Curt's Challenge are the 12 figures I volunteered to paint up for Bloggers For Charity.

They're from AW Minis. They represent the French Line regt Royal Rousillon. Lots of the other painters had trouble with the figures, there was a lot of flash on them, but apart from that I thought they were fine?

These are nice figures for a good cause Ray. Well done. 

These French infantry of Rousillon will give M. Rousell 45 well-earned points. 

From Lord Hill: 28mm Napoleonic British Infantry (480 points)

Another points bomb from the UK...

From Lord Hill:

I thought it might be a bit boring sending in company after company of nearly identical British infantry from my project of Halkett's squares so here are four at once rather than four separate submissions!  96 figures in total. These are the remnants of Companies 3-7 of the 33rd Foot after Quatre Bras (hence the number of bandaged heads!).  As always the figs are nearly all Victrix with a few Perry extras.

With them are some Sweeps from the 1st Battalion 95th Foot. These 6 companies were split between skirmishing around the sandpit and standing further back in line along the hedgerow with the rest of Kempt's brigade. 

Hence this grubby lot - half a company maybe - standing in a firing line. The second rank will have to be done later but I just needed a break from all those redcoats! The Rifles are a mix of Perry metals and plastic conversions, and Front Rank and Foundry.

Wow, what a huge stonking entry! Much like Dave's submissions the sheer mass of these units are incredibly impressive, well done Lord Hill! The only caveat is that it is difficult to focus in on one figure or even set of figures. That being said I do appreciate the slight variations in poses and the odd bandaged head does reinforce that these lads have recently seen action.

These four companies of the 33rd will give Lord Hill a very impressive 480 points! This will move him from his original 23rd position to 8th and within sight of his Challenge target. Wow. An amazing amount of work!

New Prize Sponsor for the Painting Challenge: 'SG2 Creations'

I have great news! Another of our Challengers has kindly offered to provide prize support for the Painting Challenge. Woo Hoo!!

Byron recently purchased an industrial laser-cutter (or two?) and has just opened his business: SG2 Creations which provides custom cut MDF, plywood and acrylic gaming items. A future lucky Challenger will be enjoying a choice of products from SG2 Creations, post paid! Otherwise I urge you to check out his new website and drop him a note if you wish to discuss any specialty items you may want crafted.

Thanks very much for your generous support Byron and I wish you the very best in your new business endeavour!

From SteveM: 15mm Vietnam War U.S. M113s APCs (93 points)

From Steve:

mfg: Flashpoint Miniatures
scale: 1/100  (15mm)
There are two platoons of 4 m113 vehicles each.

M113 Beast

M113 106 with mortar and figs to support it.

A lot of custom work went into these to try to match photos from books and web resources. Riders were added from Flashpoint Miniatures line.

Stowage was added and some made from scratch to add some details that one normally doesn't see at this scale.

I used MIG Pigments for the Vietnam earth ground colours. The mud was applied using a plaster, pigments, and brown paint mixture and then airbrushed/brushed on.

Some head swaps were done to mix it up a bit. 

A couple types of washes were used; my own mix of oil paint washes of various colors and CGR Painters Magik Mudd Wash black.
The chainlink fence was made from tulle.
The straps are a mixture of greenstuff and thin cut masking tape
The barb ware is Galeforce Nine product.
The aerials are Beadalon bead stringing wire, black.
The corrugated sheets are styrene.
The decals are from Battlefront Miniatures 

It has been a pleasure painting these up for Scale Creep Miniatures.

Hopefully I have done these justice for all that have actually used them in service.

Next up on the plate is either some more Vietnam, WWII, or sst mechs.

Really beautiful work Steve! The extra work on the stowage, crew and weathering really have paid their dividends. I like that that the actual mortars from the carriers can be deployed separate of the vehicles and that you have dismounted crew to serve them.

These two platoons of M113s will give Steve 93 points. Great job!

From BrendonW: 28mm Early Imperial Romans (56 points)

From Brendon:

Another bunch of toys I got completed.

These are 28mm plastic Imperial Roman Veterans from Warlord Games. I have been slowly building an Early Imperial Roman army (at glacial speed) but I was inspired to build and paint some more recently. This was after reading the most recent 'Macro and Cato' novel 'The Blood Crows'. An excellent Christmas present from the family. Still plenty more of these in my Plastic Mountain but these are the first of the Veterans box for me. The bodies are the same as Romans in the regular Legionaries sets but you get different heads, armoured arms (with different positions) and shields that have seen some action and need repairs or thrown away.

I used the Army Painter method. Paint them base colours then splash on some army painter strong tone dip. I painted the dip on rather than dipping them as it gives me more control. No flock on the bases yet as I haven't flocked any of the previous Romans so far either. Saving that until I have them all painted. As my previous Roman unit standard bearers they are positioned so that if you do not wedge them on the base the standard is not as up-right as you imagine how they should look in a traditional war games army. 

I had this bunch in a very, very close to completed way before a short stay in hospital and being well enough to get them over the line and sent to Curt is excellent. Good health everyone.

Great work Brendon. I quite like the grizzled look of these fellows. I also find it interesting that you mention applying Army Painter stain with a brush instead of using the dip approach. I've used the same method and have found I get better control of the shading effect, keeping it away from parts of the figure I want to keep relatively bright or unstained. 

These eleven Legionnaires will give Brendon 56 points to add to his growing total. Well done.