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Time to vote for the winners of 2016's first challenge! For this round, the theme was 'Up close and personal', challenging entrants to paint minis geared for the bloody press of close combat.

As usual, you may cast as many votes as you want, 3-5 are recommended but you can use more or less if you like. Please feel free to vote not only for the best painted, but also the most creative, unique, improved or that otherwise catch your eye. Voting will run for 5 days, at which point winners will be announced and the League table updated.

Without further ado, the entrants:

Nevelon: Ultramarines Terminator Captain



Lechine: Tyranid Hierophant


Zergsmasher: Fire Warriors Breacher Team


Ustrello: Raven Guard Vanguard Veterans


methebest: Dormaru


Kustomer D: Ork Nob and Blood Angel


Januine: Adeptus Mechanicus Arch-Magos and Scyllax


GulGog TufToof: Ork Warboss


LordRahl: Sisters of Battle Repentia



TP^DC Deputy Manager: Dark Angels Scouts


Guildenstern: Mousling Adventurers


Matthew: Space Wolf


GiraffeX: Parawan The Dragon


Deadshot: Blood Ravens


Slaphead: Nork Deddog


Hawky: Imperial Guard Commissar


Midget Gems: Blood Angels Terminator


AUGmaniac: Valkia The Bloody



Kryczek: Eldar Autarch


Winter: Baldur


Jadenim: Roboute Gulliman


Farseer Anath'lan: Dark Angels Command Squad


Grimdork: Orc Moreax


Kleggt: Orc Adventurers


casey33: Ork Gargant


Paradigm: Shattered Legions Command Squad


kb_lock: Tyranid Haruspex

Thanks for your work this month, Para.

Know you're up against it with college and knackeredness.

Thanks Para for all the work. Sorry to be a pest, but my third pic isn't showing up of the four scouts.

EDIT - Scratch that, yes it is - doi!

Thanks for organising this =)

Cheers again Para. Thrown my votes in. Sitting in Seoul airport at the mo waiting flight #1. Bloody great turnout this month and really nice to see some more new names appearing and taking part. Some really top pieces. Well done one and all see yez on the flip side folks

Great job there Para, well done for finding the time to put this competition together. Everyone that has participated has done a cracking job and put in some really good work

Great stuff as usual
But if Mousling Adventures dosent win this month, I'll be mad!
So cute!!!!!

Votes cast. Very cool entries this month from all contestants. I found it really hard to pick only 5. To those with less votes than they would like - don't despair, I would be proud to have every single mini entered this month in my collection. They are truly all fab!

Really excellent stuff from everyone this month, and a heartening number of entries as well! Time to cast my votes:

Best Painted: anyone want to take a guess? Januine and Lechine take this one, simply stunning work from the both of you.

Most Improved goes to GulGog (you've really made that model your own with the conversion, and the paintwork is great too), Ustrello (one of your best squads yet), TP^DC (Excellent conversion work, and some great use of new techniques there) and Kryczek (did you say that was your first proper model? Splendid start!)

And in a new category, here for one month only, titled 'Propa Orky', votes for Kustomer D and Moolet, them boyz look ded killy!

Lots of votes there, so I shan't cast any more, but I also want to shout out to Deadshot, GiraffeX, AUGmaniac and Slaphead for some great work!

Super stuff from everyone, really!

Thanks for doing this again para, I tried to help by compiling the vote post for you and almost did myself a mischief. Gave up after about 6 painters!

I'll vote from the office, then I'm getting paid to do it!

I found you need to master tab-fu to do it, KB.
The mix of online and Dakka hosted images makes it a joy.

Pretty damn hard only picking 5, great job folks.

kb_lock wrote:Thanks for doing this again para, I tried to help by compiling the vote post for you and almost did myself a mischief. Gave up after about 6 painters!

I'll vote from the office, then I'm getting paid to do it!

Buttery Commissar wrote:I found you need to master tab-fu to do it, KB.
The mix of online and Dakka hosted images makes it a joy.

Must admit I just take the short-cut of copying the OP of the challenge thread in quote view and then deleting the relevant parts like proofs and unfinished entrants! Still takes a good half hour to get it all sorted and make sure I haven't missed anyone and that all the pics are working.

Took a lot longer before September, though, when I was just working off a tablet rather than a laptop. Easily took an hour plus each time, many cups of tea per thread were required!

Well, very tough to decide on which five of you blew me away the most! Amazing entries by everyone, but here are my 5 picks:
Januine: As always, your paintwork blew me away. That AdMech stuff manages to make creepy look awesome!
Guildenstern: Those Mouslings are awesome miniatures, and your paintwork really made them awesomely cute!
Talys: I love 40k bikes, and these are truly exceptional, as is most of your work!
Winter: Not sure what game Baldur is from (Warmachine/Hordes?), but who cares? He is really cool looking!
Jadenim: All the Primarchs are amazing models, and you did this one very proud. Outstanding work!

As always, special shout out to Paradigm for having these contests even when busy with college life. You've no doubt gotten many of us to push ourselves and paint better stuff than we would otherwise have done (I know I've improved from this time last year, and a lot of it is because of these challenges).

Yup thanks from me as well Paradigm, I have no clue where you find the time/energy to do this while at uni. I'm just glad the internet hadn't gotten really running when I was in school lol

I really wanted to vote for everyone, so many excellent entries sooo many ugh

Anyways, if I didn't mention you, it's *not* because I don't think your entry was awesome! I hate having to pick.

Lechine: Tyranid Hierophant - lovely work, great little moment of motion captured on the base with the smaller figures
Kustomer D: Ork Nob and Blood Angel - beautiful, love the base! And the whole, "In yer face!" on the part of the ork nob towards the blood angel - just perfect ^_^
Januine: Adeptus Mechanicus Arch-Magos and Scyllax disgustingly perfectly beautiful work I'd applaud if I weren't so damn jealous
TP^DC Deputy Manager: Dark Angels Scouts - love the cloaks and the model that's hoisting the (whatever other model is!) up is awesome, very "up close and personal" lol
Matthew: Space Wolf - cuz .. chainsword! \m/
GiraffeX: Parawan The Dragon - I absolutely *love* the way the dragon's about to stomp that adventurer lol plus your paint job is excellent! the wings especially I love
Winter: Baldur - oh yeah, them's fightin words! he looks ready to roll! love the colours you used, it looks really vibrant

Thanks Para and Guildenstern, had loads of fun with these. The mini being punched is a Dark Eldar troop person thing (he's from way back in 3rd edition and I care little what he is other than I have loads of sprues of them that I don't want units of so they get to be casualties every know and then )

Thanks ZergSmasher, really proud of my work this month, and also thanks Paradigm for organising the whole thing so well.

Seriously good month guys. I love how the standard is going up and also attracting more and more people. (does mean its harder to get those points!)

Hats off to Lechine and Januine both stunning pieces of work.

I also have to shout out TP^DC Scouts, the Mouslings, GiraffeX's dragon and Kustomer D who consistently produces great dios among many other entries.

Very impressive collection guys - Lechine and Januine especially, that is very good!

Votes are cast - Good luck to all attending!

Great job everyone, some really nice models there! The Challenge was some great motivation to actually get some painting done.

Thanks Para! Also, thanks to anyone who voted for my work. She really was a new experience for me (First time with Chaos, WOOT)
My votes were to
Ustrello: You painted Raven Guard vets cleanly, bravo. I can't do that
Lechine: The blending on that titan is AMAZING!
TP^DC: The movement from that sergeant is great
Jadenim: IT'S A PRIMARCH! But seriously, he is so clean and the marble is well done
Para: All the various schemes that you brought together with the weathering was extremely well done.
Overall, these were all amazing, I love these competitions!

Wow, I got 5 votes so far! Thanks to whoever voted for me!

Ah finally get a bit of time and have found the napkin which I write some notes down on at 30,000+ft somewhere over the Urals in Russia when flying home last wednesday!!!

What a seriously awesome groups of entries this month. Fething lovely I downloaded all the photos onto my ipad before taking to the skies so I could browse through them during my 11 hour flight (I can't sleep on planes - so what better way to pass the time )
I actually found this the toughest month yet to pick 5 so I picked 7. Sorry Para - just couldnt get it down any further - lol

So - Close and Personal was the theme and I tried to really stick to that as most of the entries also did so that didnt really help me narrow it down any further!!

First up - @Ustrello - Love these guys. Black is a bit of a gak to do at times as we all know and very often less is more when it comes to highlighting - don't overdo it and you didnt. Those blacks came out very nice - smooth with just enough of a uplight on the top surfaces to make them convincing. The really pale skin tones though are what I especially like. Again - you didnt over do it and on skin it is very common for folk to do so. You hit a lovely medium and stuck to the flufff - nice job and I love the Scooby Doo - you meddling kids photo at the end

@KustomerD -Great wee vignette there. Although he's shooting the marine - but by making it point blank and using a vignette to include just that personal moment between the two characters, I reckoned it totally fulfilled the criteria. Again - this is a nice exercise in the power of less is more. No overcrowding or banging in loads of extra junk to fill out the basing. Simple base to set the scene and then let the characters tell the story. Lovely compostion. My only suggestion if I may, would to be next time add an extra base layer to the bottom of the vignette base. It serves to add a litttle height and frames the piece better.

@Gulgog - great figure. The viscousness really comes out. You got some sweet tones especially on the leather work that I really liked. Nice job though on the skull warpaint - that really was a great touch that makes the fig more of a character with his own story. sweet. Some of the photos are a little dark and some very bright.

Photos at times can be a right bugger as we all know. Try this sweet little piece of free program - it's called photoscape and its freeee plus its great for making the subtlest to strongest of tweaks to photos. Plus you can stitch photos together to if you want to

@TP - Most improved in my eyes this month. These guys are defintely your best yet. The modeling touches you tried out all work great especially the gauze on the claok to give that camocloak texture - what a fethingly brilliant idea - I'm so nicking that Paintwise - your layers and highlights are so much smoother now - the transitions are really nice. great job

@Guildenstern - the mouselings!! Cute cute yes yes. These had me stuck for a while. I really do love them but the highlighting on the metals and blue armour is a little rough - sorry. But then your treatment of the skin and fur is bloody gorgeous. Great examples are the axe mouse and the pirate mouse. Tone are lovely and you flawlessly transit from skin to fur. perfect! really love them

@Moolet - nice!!! These fella stomp up to you and rip your fething face right off - all kloos n' personhell like. What really sold me here was the weathering and the yellow paintwork being worn back to expose the rough used metal. really nice job. Maybe a little more attention on the bases - nothin much - few bits of grass maybe to break up the plain cracked earth

and finally

@Para - These guys ARE story. One glance at them and you know there is a whole novel just waiting to be told. Superb paintjob - each one so individual yet all are intrinsically tied together - I've now got Dire straits echoing in my head! The weathering, the damage, the wear and tear and the blood - they are no longer just wee plastic figs - they are characters in a story. They are marines the way they would and should look. Gorgeous work. My one niggle is .....yes ......yet again.....sorrry.....the photos! I really want to see close-ups of them. They deserve it and so do we have a bash at that above program and see if it's any use to you.

Right - I'm done! Jaysus that ended up way longer than I'd intended. I did fill 4 napkins mind - hey, it was a long flight and the movies were pretty gak!!!

Well done everyone who entered and thanks a million to everyone how has stopped by, had a look and took a few minutes to vote - it means a lot to us all. Cheers m'dears

Cheers for taking the time to write up all that feedback, not just for my own entry but all of it, I'm sure it's very much appreciated!

I'll check out that photo software, the only question is whether it's good enough to counteract my piece of junk excuse for a camera! It was state of the art... in about 2004! Still, I do keep trying to improve the pics, in theory I should have a tripod handy soon enough which might help (I know it's around somewhere, just not a clue where!)

There's a day left on the voting everyone, as I was late getting this posted. I think first and second are pretty damn clear, but there's only half a dozen votes between about 3rd and 6th, so still everything to play for!

no worries Para - didnt realise how long(winded) my post was till after i hit 'submit' lol. That Photoscape program is really good. can be as simple more involved as you want

Jan, Thank you for the kind words. And the for giving me the tip with the base. After that I realised how right you are with it.
I ll keep that in mind for upcoming dios and pics!

Cheers

K D

No worries K D - it's a cracking piece

Aaaand that's a wrap on the penultimate round!

In third place, with 26 votes, Kustomer D's fantastically brutal Ork vs Blood Angel diorama:







In second place, with a massive 50 votes, it's Lechine's monstrous Tyranid Heirophant! Not something I'd want to be up close and personal with!







And out ahead, with a monumental 60 votes, it's Januine's wonderfully atmospheric Arch-Magos and Sycllax:





Splendid stuff from those three, and from everyone else who entered; this has been one of the most impressive months so far, great effort and improvement from so many painters and several pieces that just hit it out of the park! Massive thanks and congratulations to everyone who took part this month! One last round in this rotation of challenges, then the League will be reset (with a new and more balanced scoring system), ready for another year of awesome challenges!

Until then, well done and thanks, everyone!

Big congrats to the three winners. Great jobs from all and the same from all the other contestants.

Ou all have permission to beam with pride

Well done all!