So Concludes the 4th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

Whew! 

Holy smokes. I actually made it though all, eh!? 

From my last count I posted 38 entries in the final twelve hours of the Challenge. It was an amazing, final-push by many of the participants that left me buzzing through the night, updating the blog every few minutes. Great fun.

First, I want to congratulate the top three finishers in the points roster.  It was a UK sweep this year with DaveD, KevH and the unstoppable AndrewS showing the world what could be achieved in three months with a small brush, a few pots of paint and a bit of glue. Bravo to the three of you!! 

I will be contacting each of you regarding your prizes which have been generously provided by the following sponsors:

On that note I wish to take this opportunity to thank all of the Challenge sponsors for their incredibly generous support. Of course the event would proceed without prizes, but they do provide a nice sparkle to all the hard work, noise and glory! So, again, I thank you!

In the coming week I will be announcing voting and selection for Challenger's Choice, People's Choice, Sarah's Choice and Judge's Choice. So please stay tuned...

One of the great surprises to me was the overall success of the theme bonus rounds. I was really delighted by the response to them, both by the Challengers and from the viewing public. I received many emails from visitors who thought this to be one of the strongest elements of the event. I will take the lessons learned from the process and think of how to improve it for the next time.

And yes, there will be a next time, but with qualifications. Four years ago the Challenge started out as a very small affair, but it has gained support and greater interest over the intervening years. This year I have to admit I barely kept it all together. It was a hell of a lot of fun but I think I may have hit the limits of my meagre abilities. But don't worry, I have a few ideas for improvements for next time so rest assured, the show will go on.

Finally and most importantly, I wish to thank all the Challengers for their support, enthusiasm and tremendous good will during the event. The Challenge is all about you and your efforts, and in both of these things you put on an incredible show of talent, energy and good sportsmanship. Our hobby can often seem rather introverted and isolated so I delight that our little event allows us to reach across the world to meet new people and create new friendships. 

In closing, I will take my usual prerogative by submitting the last Challenge entry. 

I opened the event with 'The Long Walk of the Wild Bunch',

...and so I thought it fitting to close it with 'Pike's Peak' (thanks for the great title Miles!)

This is a 38mm figure from Onira Miniatures. Excellent sculpt and casting. 

I adjusted the posing of the figure to shift Pike from a purely shooting pose to give him more of a sense of taking a pause amongst the furor of the moment, reflecting on the end - I think it gives an interesting introspective quality to the scene. In a sense it is an fitting figure for me to end the Challenge. 

So, my 'Wild Bunch', there you have it. With this last entry I officially close the 4th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  Thank you all for making it such a wonderful experience and a great success.

Curt

The Votes are in for the 'Last Stand' Bonus Round

Our final bonus round was rousing success with many excellent entries spanning a wide variety of periods and topics (and visions of reality!).  

So, without further ado the runners up were:

MartinN's (Nick's) poignant  'The Death of Arthur' 

Curt's 'Eagle of the 18th'

On the podium we have in Third Place MichaelA's inspiring 'Say Hello to One's Little Friend'

Michael will receive 25 bonus points for his wonderful vision the the Empress in action!


In Second Place is DaveD's fabulous 'Butch and Sundance'

Dave will receive 50 bonus points for his fantastic rendition of these iconic screen legends.


First Place was claimed by Millsy with his amazing 'Ney and the Rear Guard, 1812' 

Millsy will receive 75 bonus points PLUS a generous gift certificate from the folks at J&M Miniatures.

All of the bonus points have now been tabulated and the FINAL points tally is now reflected on the chart. 

I wish to thank all the bonus round participants for their support of this new element of the Challenge. Your enthusiasm and amazing entries made it a unqualified success! Bravo to you all!

From AndrewS: 28mm Napoleonic French Infantry Battalions (203 points)

I thought it best to have Andrew, our top-ranked Challenger in the points standing, to bring up the rear-guard before I officially close this year's Challenge.

From AndrewS:

For my  final submission I wanted to return to the Napoleonics and go out on a high these should take me over the 4000 point mark if I have done my sums right.

3 battalions of 28mm French and allied forces. These are all Perry Figures with a splash of Foundry to make up the numbers.

First up is a 16 figure regiment of line in greatcoats with flag again the mix of figures has worked well for these.

Next is my Battalion of 12 figures of the 1st Swiss all Perry plastics, playing black powder at the reduced scale we do really works for the smaller table we regularly play on and does save on the time getting a unit to the table.

Finally I present 12 figures representing the 1st battalion of the 2nd Berg regiment a mix of figures, these guys were a touch more work but I think I got the campaign look just right without detracting from the unit as a whole.

Well that is all I have for this years challenge it has been a very good one this year thanks for having me along for the ride.

Ah, it's great that you end with figures for 'The Beautiful Game' - thanks for this Andrew. Lovely work as usual but I have to say that those lads from Berg are very fine indeed. I really like the campaign look of these fellows.

These three battalions will give Andrew 203 points which will be more than enough for him to break the 4K level. Fabulous stuff Loki and congratulations on your First Place standing in the points race - a monumental (and inspiring) amount of work. Bravo!!

On an administrative note: I'm going to be tallying the bonus round and posting my last entry later today. This may be a few hours as I've been up for quite sometime (yawn). Please check back for the wrap-up... Thank you all!!

From DaveD: 28mm 'The Mountie' (15 points)

From Dave:

OK so here we have a new "lawman" for the town of Serenity, He has come come down from "The Great White North" on the trail of that infamous Badger smuggler and alround ner'do well  "Budgie Ray" and has decided to search for his target in the seedier parts of town. 

Now a certain German bombshell "Miss Lilly" plans to work her charms .... will he be "like wet saurkraut?" or will he resist her charms?

Now "Stumpy" and his street howitzer  don't take kindly to outsiders... will the Mountie get his man..?

This lad is yours to keep after our meet up in May my friend..

Haha! I've been up for waaay too long and I needed a good chuckle, thanks for that Dave.

'The Mountie' will give Dave 15 points to his tally and my grateful thanks. I look forward to seeing 'The Mountie' in York in a few weeks...

From KevinH: T34/85, Zombie Cowboys, Cowboys, Rasputina Gang & Challenge Desperado (160 points)

From Kevin:

OK, just call me "Last Minute Larry"...

Right down to the wire this time.  Here we go...

First off, a set of three Warlord/Bolt Action T-34/85 tanks.  These are the older, resin models - as such, no decals it seems.  Therefore, I had to hand-paint the turret numbers.  After recently watching a clip on Youtube for an old, Czech movie, "Tank Brigade" ("Tankova Brigada"), I think I might try and find some Czech tri-colour roundel decals for the turrets!

Next - FINALLY got my "Wild Bunch" entry finished!  I had to AT LEAST get that one done!  This is a Foundry model, from the "Maxmillian Adventure" line, I think it was...  The model on their site is painted a bit oddly - all "white shirt" but the model doesn't seem to be sculpted that way.  So, since it looks like it's wearing a "sweater vest" over it's shirt, I decided to paint it like a peasant sarape.  I think it turned out pretty good.  And it's got EYES!  I hate painting eyes (hands just aren't steady enough anymore) - so hopefully Curt LOVES those eyes!  ;-)

Next, a pack of Foundry Western Gunfighter Zombies.  I found this pack among the items I bought from my friend's Estate sale.  Nothing too fancy here - I figured they'd be a quick few points as the deadline was drawing near.

Since I did the Western Zombies, I decided to paint up a few Foundry 'human' Gunfighters too.  You can always use more Western Gunfighters!

Last, but not least - the Rasputina gang/crew for the game, Malifaux.  There is beginning to be more interest in this game locally, so I decided it was time to paint up some figures.

The 'crew' consists of Rasputina (a spell-caster type), an Ice Golem, a December Acolyte (a 'tribal/cultist' type with lots of "sneaky" skills), a Wendigo (the model looks like a Chewbacca "mini Me!"), and three Ice Gamin (these are like small Demons or Imps).

I replaced all the "Warmachine/Hordes" style bases with aftermarket resin bases from Dragon Forge < http://www.dragonforge.com/ >

Since the back story on Rasputina has her being up in the mountains of Malifaux, I decided to add a "snowy" touch.  A little thinned white glue and baking soda, and presto! --instant snow!

Well, I haven't had time to total it all up, but I don't think I made my points projection this time around.

I wanted to do some of the Baker Company "Winter War" figures, but I'm still waiting for some to arrive (he had lots of problems with his casting machine, but at least he's keeping people "in the loop!"  I like that.)

Thanks again, Curt.  Hopefully, I have a better showing next year, if you invite me.

Always a pleasure Kevin and thank you very much for the Desperado and providing us with such a feast of miniatures to enjoy.

This collection of excellent figures will give Kevin 160 points, which is precisely what he needed for him to achieve his 300 point target. Nothing like chipping it into the cup Kev! Seriously, brilliant work.

From Burkhard: 28mm WWII British Tankers and Achilles Tank Destroyer (44 points)

From Burkhard:

First of all let me start with what I did not enter for this round. I had initially planned to enter a bunch of Sherman tanks for the vehicle theme round. When I started on these I decided that these would depict two troops from the Irish Guards in Market Garden livery. Unfortunately I had to find that while the inventory in my head said that I had the appropriate decals, I had not. Well one trip to Doms Decals and most of my problems had been solved except for the fact that the Guards painted the centre of their tactical markings (that is those diamonds, triangles, circles, and squares) in black and that no one did these in 1:48th or 1:56th scale. So I began looking for someone who would do me some custom decals, which I eventually did. They were shipped last week and while I was wainting for them, I started work on some Bauhaus Hussars for Warzone Resurrection. When the decals arrived on Monday these were done except for the weapons, gloves and basing. Seeing that time was a premium, I decided to do the tanks and if there was to be time finish them, too. Which I think proved to be a bad call. Tonight with just some 7 hours to on the Challenge (which is around midnight local) and after a day of painting, I find my eyes were going sore and I have to call it a day. Now what is missing? Well the tracks and dust on two troops of Shermans and as a result the Hussars, too. I guess I would have needed 3 more hours to finish the tanks and another two for the minis, but that did not happen. So here is the photo of shame:

What did I finish? Well the tankers for the Shermans (and some other tanks and armored cars) were painted in February so here they are (all Warlord Games):

They are still glossy since they were going to be matt varnished after mounting them into the tanks.

What else? Well before my eyes gave out, I at least managed to finish the Achilles Tank Destroyer (incidentally the only tank model I do not have crew figures for yet). It is a Tamiya 1:48th scale kit, that has been heavily converted using aftermarket packages. One to convert the gun breach assembly and the turret counterweights from the standard 3” M10 to the 17pdr.. another one to give me a brass and aluminum barrel for more detail and robustness and then there is the stowage from a third aftermarket kit. 

For those interested… I will finish the Shermans and Hussars over the next couple days. So if you want to see them they will be up on my blog www.dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com over the next couple of days. And you can also see the further progress of my WWII British in coming weeks. Really hope Curt forgives me this shameless plug!

But alas, now it is time for famous last words. I really enjoyed this, my second Analogue Hobbies Challenge. As before the comrade and quality of entries has been great! While I found the theme rounds took a lot of my time and often put my other painting into disarray until I learned (after four rounds) to just work through all of them and enter them well in advance I loved them, especially since they allowed me to tackle some topics like ACW that I had not touched in ages. Given that I had even less time to paint than last year, I really like the fact that I actually got more points under my belt than last year (and that is without the 195 points group of shame I almost finished) and that I managed to succeed in one of my side challenges (congratulations to Tamsin for pulverizing us on the other one!!! ;-)). As always this has proven a great boost to my winter painting!

But I would like to applaud my fellow Challengers. The quality and sheer amount of minis painted has been impressive. But even more impressive has been the comradie. Thank you all for that and the nice comments you have left me! Really looking forward to the next installment!

But my special thanks goes out to Curt. I am always amazed at what he does here. For three long months he puts up with 60 loonies bombarding him with photos and text of painted minis to allow them to slave through their lead mountains. It takes a lot to keep sane through that! I think we should all appreciate this and give him a huge thanks.  Thanks for having me along!!!

Thank you for the kind words Burkhard - I wouldn't do this if it wasn't a pleasure. 

I think you're in good company as many of us felt the crunch going into these last few weeks. Nonetheless I think you've done marvelous work here. That Achilles TD is absolutely gorgeous. For sure the extra bits are great but it's your paintwork that really makes it sing. Fantastic.

This Tank Destroyer and the dozen tank commanders will give Burkhard 44 points. Well done!

From PeterD: 28mm War of 1812 US 13th Infantry (82 points)

From Peter:

So I got these guys finished just in time for the final deadline for the 4th Analogue Painting Challenge. These are 16 members of the US 13th Infantry from the War of 1812.  The are Victrix figures from the British Penninsula infantry boxes, with heads from the Victrix artillery box wearing the Belgic Shako.  Let's just say that the honeymoon is over with Victrix and I have deliberately not given any closeups of this unit.  I think that I've got bits from 3 different Victrix sets with torsos from the flank company box with left over arms from the centre company box.

For the 13th I gave them the regulation blue coat - the coats are blue but my lighting and camera skills give them a purples hue.  I have used the Belgic shako to represent the false fronted "Tombstone" shako adopted by the US regs in 1813.

Loki has mentioned the Fat Lady Singing.  Hopefully at our house Sadie (picture enclosed) will be singing- she's not over sized but certainly has some nice curves.  No Fat Ladies singing, only an out of shape middle aged dude bashing out Beatles songs on a guitar. 

Thanks for running the Challenge Curt.  Have a large glass of something strong - you've earned it.

I'm glad you made it in with these - nice work Peter. You've really had a great push over the past 3 months with your 1812 project and I'm looking forward to some games in the near future.

This regiment of US regulars will give Peter 82 points. Congratulations, you've almost doubled your original goal - Well done!