Welcome all to the 58th round of the Dakka Painting challenge. For those who haven't seen the challenge before, it is a community-focused friendly competition open to anyone on the site, regardless of your skill level or experience. Every round contributes towards a League table, which ultimately means nothing but is a lot of fun to keep an eye on and jockey for position with Dakka's other painters.
This month, as is traditional for December, we have the Open Round. There's no theme to stick to, so while as the usual rules apply as far as proof pictures and model count ect, the choice of miniature is entirely open to you. Need to get something painted for a Christmas gift, or eager to get started on your own new shinies, or just looking for an excuse to paint the cool model that's been sitting on your desk for months, now's the time!
How To Enter - You may enter up to 5 MODELS as a SINGLE ENTRY, and are permitted one entry per member per month. If you enter multiple models, they should ideally be related in some way, such as part of the same squad, unit or scene if you are doing a diorama - You MUST post a 'proof' picture of your entry in the thread of the state it was in before you started working on it; this must be either unassembled, unpainted, primed or coated a single colour. Entries that do not submit a valid Proof Picture will not be eligible for voting. - After this, you may post WIP pictures in this thread and your own if you wish, and on completing the entry, you may post up to 6 final pictures IN THIS THREAD that will then be used for voting. Please note that pictures in a montage or collage picture will be considered individual images for this purpose, so while these types of presentation are certainly acceptable, please keep the image limit in mind when compiling them. For example, a collage of 5 images and one separate image would count as your 6 picture allowance.
So What Do I Win? - Points... and points mean... bragging rights for the next month! Following the vote, points will be awarded to every entrant. This year, the Points you receive will be equal to the Percentage of Votes your entry receives in the final Voting thread; if you get 10%, you get 10 points, if you get 6% you get 6 points, so on and so forth.
These points will be used to form a league table, which will be updated month on month as the results come in. The overall winner of the League for this year will receive a set of Dakka Dice.
How Long Do I Have? This challenge begins 1st of December and will end at midnight UK time on the 31st of December. After this, I shall compile the finished entries into a new thread, and voting will run for 5 days.
This Corvus Blackstar has been collecting dust for some while now (can't even remember which grey I used for the drybrush test). Will probably go over it with black and try something completely different.
Nother bust for me. This is for my old man for Christmas. Young miniatures RAF bomber pilot. Got a little ahead of myself and basecoated the face before I remembered to photograph it.
Bellerophon wrote: I'm going to finally get around to something that's been sitting in the bottom of my cabinet, resplendent in grey, for the last year or so...
I am going to try and do two (soon to be obsolete) Immolators, that I had traded for to replace my very obsolete Mark I Immolators. Goal is to finish at least one, and stretching for two.
Not for this month. I am doing my best to stick to my plan of getting specific projects done by end-of-year (Necrons, Nighthaunt, Titanicus, and DCU Bane).
I'm definitely going to be painting a lot more Infinity next year though so the Avatar will definitely be submitted at some point!
I have painted Infinity before, albiet a couple years ago (I believe my YuJing were from early 2018). It's definitely a game I care much more about spending time-per-model on, so expect more than my usual AoS/40k efforts!
Wow, those are stunning! If there's ever a month where you and Modock have an Infinity-off, the rest of us might as well pack up our brushes and take a holiday!
Hot damn ...what a beautiful sight. I didn't know you're into Infinity.
Paradigm wrote: Wow, those are stunning! If there's ever a month where you and Modock have an Infinity-off, the rest of us might as well pack up our brushes and take a holiday!
Thanks! I've dabbled, but never actually picked up the game to play seriously. The YuJing were done for doubles at Adepticon last year, and that was the last time I "played" them!
My goal for 2020 is to become much more familiar with a handful of new game systems, Infinity amongst them. The Combined will be my first serious foray into learning the game; I love TAGS and the Avatar seems like the most competitive option available (plus I love the entire Combined range), so hopefully I can stick with it!
Hello, I would like to enter my Cadian Lascannon. In all honesty, the proof picture was taken on the 29th of November, but since it's far from finished, I hope to squeeze it in anyway.
I'm looking forward to seeing the other entries painted! It looks like we'll have some nice variation.
That bust looks great, the skin tone looks so natural!
I started painting and am already hating myself for attempting this color scheme. There will be a lot of cleanup neccessary after I have finished with the "edge" highlighting
(ignore the reiver with his gun, he was halfway done at the start of the month, but is getting his finish with his brothers)
Reiver bodies are done, started on the arms and put the first black down on the agressors. I need to have them all wrapped up and done by the 18th, so not a huge amount of spare time this month. Plus I need to bake a few dozen cookies.
Yeah, they're lovely. I think I surprised myself when I bought it - I was at Warhammer World, wandering around the Forgeworld store and I saw one on the shelf. Couldn't resist. But that was over a year ago and although I'd built it I'd put off painting it until now.
Progress, I've pretty much got the green done. Now to paint a forest of Biel-Tan thorns all over it, and keep working on the white...
I always look forward to Decembers challenge, you never know what you are going to get, good luck everyone
Wow done already Queen Ann. You make me cry, takes you 4 days to create a masterpiece, takes me 4 days to clean the model lines off a model.....
also the 2nd photo looks a little blurry/out of focus.
That green is looking mighty fine already Bellerophon
I normally do quite a big Xmas scene with Orks but I've been really struggling with time the last few months and this month looks no different, so this will likely be my entry:
Proof pic and WIP. Really it's already done, I just need to make a base for it. The original plan was to have it be a part of a diorama, and in fact I have already made most of it. I have, however, decided to get a few more models and basing materials to put onto the diorama, so I will finish it at a later date. For now I will just make a base for this model so I can enter it here, and then put the model back onto the diorama at a later date.
Great work Power Elephant (really like the coat) and Yorknight (good pose like the red should pad to add some colour to the model) two really good entries finished very quickly
Wow, very impressive work everyone! My favourite is probably Power Elephant's trooper, it looks so naturally water-coloured. Here's my entry, painted and assembled.
For your information, the 414th Cadian are deployed by Adeptus Astra Telepathica to hunt for mushrooms, as explained in my blog here on Dakka. The giant stag beetle is just one of many dangerous animals that they encounter in their duties.
Took this pic a few days ago, forgot to post it! My proof pic:
I'm entering a Dark Angels Primaris Master. It's based on the limited edition Primaris Captain with Power Fist and Plasma Pistol, but I added some Dark Angels stuff (like a winged helmet) to make him look more unique.
queen_annes_revenge wrote:Finished. Busts are awesome. 4 days to finish this as opposed to 2-4 weeks for a single 28mm miniature. Weird.
The bust looks very nice QAR! I'm usually of the opinion because busts are of a larger scale, the details are less finicky. There's a lot more room to work with where you can really just lay in with a brush. I find I'm also much more textural with my paint (brush strokes, blends that aren't as smooth, etc.) on larger pieces too which makes them paint much faster than single minis would.
Power Elephant wrote:Proof pic and WIP. Really it's already done, I just need to make a base for it. The original plan was to have it be a part of a diorama, and in fact I have already made most of it. I have, however, decided to get a few more models and basing materials to put onto the diorama, so I will finish it at a later date. For now I will just make a base for this model so I can enter it here, and then put the model back onto the diorama at a later date.
Really love the textural work on this guy, especially the back of his jacket! Looking forward to seeing the full diorama!
Bane's Crew is finished. While I hated the casts and the material, painting these guys up was a lot of fun and I'm really happy with the results. It was also a nice break from the previous months of army grind to paint 5 (6 if you count the bear) unique models, even if the colors were similar.
queen_annes_revenge wrote:Finished. Busts are awesome. 4 days to finish this as opposed to 2-4 weeks for a single 28mm miniature. Weird.
The bust looks very nice QAR! I'm usually of the opinion because busts are of a larger scale, the details are less finicky. There's a lot more room to work with where you can really just lay in with a brush. I find I'm also much more textural with my paint (brush strokes, blends that aren't as smooth, etc.) on larger pieces too which makes them paint much faster than single minis would.
I can feel December running past us fast, and with Christmas and the family holidays coming up, I'm not 100% sure I'll finish that admiral in time. Since I missed my entry last month, and I don't want to end up late again, I have decided to finish something tonight.
A fun little project. I somehow forgot all about paint thickness and my wet pallet in the late hours, but I think there is a potential at least. He needs a few layers on the base and his hands and other small areas need rescue after the base work/sloppy brushes, also better pictures. Let us see what December brings, he got done in the late hours of a single night, from conception to (almost) completion, so I declare victory non the less . I imagine a lone guardsman, conscripted from an affluent mining world rich with lesser minerals. He got caught on an ancient spacehulk, where he sadly starved to death, lonely and cold. Before getting back up again. He doesn't taste great, which is why he isn't more mauled.
The sculpting tools I ordered for the morgraur still haven't arrived yet so I'm going to need to change my entry. Here's the new proof pic, we have 3 gifted and one black lamp from Carnevale.
Yeah some fantastic entries coming in, well done Bellerophon and power elephant.
Here's my current progress, thinking I'm going to have a stab at the osl used on the studio paint job for black lamp shown below. If anyone has any tips I'm all ears.
The number one tip for OSL is to lighten the area where the light is hitting first. This seems obvious, but a lot of painters just jump in with the colour the lamp or whatever is giving off. Also, and this is quite a personal thing, don't use an airbrush. Light does not act the same as paint, and airbrush OSL only ever looks like a squirt of paint, not light coming off something. In my opinion at least.
feltmonkey wrote: The number one tip for OSL is to lighten the area where the light is hitting first. This seems obvious, but a lot of painters just jump in with the colour the lamp or whatever is giving off. Also, and this is quite a personal thing, don't use an airbrush. Light does not act the same as paint, and airbrush OSL only ever looks like a squirt of paint, not light coming off something. In my opinion at least.
Cheers Felt monkey. I don't have an airbrush so no worries there. Was planning to highlight the whole coat then go over that with the blue effect so the highest points should already be brighter.
feltmonkey wrote: The number one tip for OSL is to lighten the area where the light is hitting first. This seems obvious, but a lot of painters just jump in with the colour the lamp or whatever is giving off. Also, and this is quite a personal thing, don't use an airbrush. Light does not act the same as paint, and airbrush OSL only ever looks like a squirt of paint, not light coming off something. In my opinion at least.
Cheers Felt monkey. I don't have an airbrush so no worries there. Was planning to highlight the whole coat then go over that with the blue effect so the highest points should already be brighter.
That only works if you highlight the jacket as if the lamp were your only light source.
The lamp, as a light source, will create additional highlights on top of whatever other light source (directional or ambient) that is illuminating the model. And simply applying a blue wash will also be insufficiently convincing, IMO (I don't think the studio's blue OSL is terribly convincing either). Light affects color, and you need to mix your colors and apply your highlight colors in consideration of that.
For example, a brown coat being hit by a yellow light (sun) will have a different highlight color than a brown coat being hit by a blue light (lamp), because the two colors are interacting with the object's local color in a different way. And likewise, an area that is being illuminated by both will have another color of highlight.
Power Elephant wrote: Here is my finished entry. Some people have been complaining that the pictures I post are too big, so I shrunk these in half. Is this better?
Banging!
Where did you source your scenery bits? The road signs and barriers etc?
Thanks for the input DV8. So are you suggesting mixing the bright blue lamp colour with the black of the coat to make the highlights for the areas lit by the lamp? Then use something more subtle for the rest of the coat highlights?
Real noob when it comes to this so any advice however obvious would be appreciated.
Power Elephant wrote: Here is my finished entry. Some people have been complaining that the pictures I post are too big, so I shrunk these in half. Is this better?
Banging!
Where did you source your scenery bits? The road signs and barriers etc?
The barriers are just a wooden stick (the kind that you put meat onto) carved and sanded into something a bit more rectangular.
The signs were printed onto paper and glued onto a straightened aluminium can.
The road is made of plaster that I cut, sanded down and smashed into smaller parts.
By the way, does the pole and the back of the sign look metal to you? I painted them in nmm because the kid had a bit of nmm on him so I didn't want to have both nmm and tmm on the same diorama, but I also didn't want to spend too much time doing the nmm.
Finished. And with these guys, the last of my primaris Deathwatch Fortis Killteams are complete. Half of them done for the comp here, and enough for a solid, flexible team..
Spoiler:
The core 5 Intercessors:
Inceptors:
The other KT snuck across my bench between painting the competition works.
But don’t fret, this is not the end of the Deathwatch. I’ve got one squad of normal vets (with all sorts of toys) just waiting for the right month to come out to play...
Made some progress today, mask maker, star spawn and artist are nearly finished. Not sure I will have time to try anything too fancy with black lamp but will definitely get some finished pics up.
Apologies for the lack of a subject poll/winners announcement for last month, I've been fighting a really nasty bout of flu since before Christmas. Just about coming out the other side of it now, so I'll get back on top of things soon.
Rather than set up a new poll today and thus leave people with only a couple of day's notice for the Jan theme, I'm thinking we'd be better off just carrying forward the runner up theme from last time, 'Not as clumsy or random', if no one has a problem with that? Just gives people a little more of a heads up before the round begins?
Paradigm wrote: Apologies for the lack of a subject poll/winners announcement for last month, I've been fighting a really nasty bout of flu since before Christmas. Just about coming out the other side of it now, so I'll get back on top of things soon.
Rather than set up a new poll today and thus leave people with only a couple of day's notice for the Jan theme, I'm thinking we'd be better off just carrying forward the runner up theme from last time, 'Not as clumsy or random', if no one has a problem with that? Just gives people a little more of a heads up before the round begins?
Not as clumsy or random...... That's the one looking for models with precise weapons like swords and sniper rifles right? All good with me anyway but will start thinking about what to do.
Not as clumsy or random, eh? Not sure what I've got for that. Might be just the excuse I need to get back to painting Blackstone Fortress stuff, as Amalyn Shadowguide carries a nifty sniper rifle. Pity I've already mostly painted all of my Dark Angels Eliminators for an event in November, or I'd do those. I'll figure something out.
Oh, and I hope you feel better soon, Para. Sorry if I sometimes nag about the poll threads/subject threads, sometimes I kind of get ants in my pants about stuff for no reason.
No worries, Zergsmasher. Without the occasional prod it would definitely have slipped my mind and I know people do appreciate a bit of time to plan entries. With that in mind, the full text of the theme description:
"Not As Clumsy or Random: The lightsaber. The sniper rifle. The duellist's blade. The knife in the back. Your entry should feature a model toting weaponry that requires a great deal of precision and skill to use well, rather than that which relies on brute force or crude methods."
Just as a heads up, as everyone is probably super busy at the moment (and I'm still not feeling 100%) I'm going to let this round run a couple of days longer than usual so as many people as possible can get their entries in.
Just as a heads up, as everyone is probably super busy at the moment (and I'm still not feeling 100%) I'm going to let this round run a couple of days longer than usual so as many people as possible can get their entries in.
Thanks for that Para! I'm travelling back to Scotland right now and I doubt my girlfriend will let me prioritise transfers and photos over her after 2 weeks apart Great to have an extra few days, very much appreciated!
Here's my finished pics of the Carnevale gifted (technically the black lamp isn't a gifted but it feels like the best description for the bunch). I have also had the Christmas flu so not my finest work but I am pretty happy with the mask maker and artist.
Looking forward to seeing all the finished entries this month, I think it's going to be another difficult choice for votes.
Wow, some great work as always!
Those carnevale guys look really cool, Jamie - great job.
Felt - awesome paintjob on an awesome model!
My model this month was an experiment in lighting. I had this idea for an Idoneth Soulrender deep underwater so that the colours were all muted and monochromatic, lit mainly by the lurelight on his helmet.
So...that is what I have tried to create here. I think it works a little better in real life as all the grey-blue colours flatten out and run together a bit too much in the photo.
Anyhow, here he is - I enjoyed painting him.
That's fantastic, evocative and freaky as hell. Thought it was a Kingdom Death or Dark Souls mini from the first impression, only realised it was Idoneth on a second take.
Where did the time go this month? Can hear the pub calling so these aren't getting any more love before the deadline so will have to do. Happy new year all
Managed to snap my pics today as I finished early at work! Proudly presenting, Vladimir Umbros, Captain of the Blood Raven's Eighth Company, Lord Executioner!
These pics plus fluff will be hitting my instagram tomorrow for anyone interested!
I've finished as much as I'm going to, only a couple of photos, because this is really awkward to get a camera on:
Might see if I can get a couple more photos of the individual tiles, depending on how I can frig a camera angle, but thought I'd get these in the bank.
Some good stuff coming in! Just in case anyone missed it, this round is going to run until the 2nd Jan, so still a couple of days to get stuff in.
I'll edit some more pics in tomorrow, but just for the sake of getting something in before midnight, here's a wizard and a bunch of zombies:
Really pleased with this one, did what I could to evoke the book cover of Half-Blood Prince and I think that more artistic, painterly approach has worked nicely whereas just going for the movie look would have left it a bit flat. Was done as a late birthday/early Xmas present for my brother who's a huge Potter fan, and he was thrilled, so mission accomplished in any case!
'Fraid I'm not going to make it this month. Too much RL things were going on with the holidays and stuff, plus working retail is very draining this time of year. I fully intend to be back in action next month though.
Nice entry Para, I like it when you mix your light and dark colours hope you are feeling better now
I'll also get my photos in sometime tomorrow, was a good idea to extend the deadline, meant I could spend New Years with the Wife rather than sneaking off to paint
I'm out of the open round, I managed to basecoat the priest and that's all.
I will add them to the pile of shame and finish then in between other projects
If someone wants to volunteer, that would be fantastic. But the trouble is that as the illness kicked in mid way through December, I didn't get the OP compiled in the first place so if someone did do it themselves they'd have to work from scratch, hence why I didn't ask as that's loads of work to ask someone else to take on.
As I said in the other thread though, I'll try and get the OP done tonight, so if someone else is happy to set up the poll then I can hopefully at least give them the OP to work from rather than doing it from scratch completely. Otherwise, I can do it myself, it just might be a couple of days from now before it's all together. Apologies again for the delay, hopefully this flu will sod off at least moderately soon!
get yourself on the lemsips. my signature brew is 2 sachets, a spoon of honey, a squirt of lemon juice and a slug of jack in a cup of hot water. works like a dream, especially before bed. maybe skip the jack before work though.
Brilliant, thanks so much for that! All looks good to me. Just checking as it's the one thing I can't see from my end, did you set it to the usual 5 day run time?
Made some decent progress today and got some better pics, the cloak and trousers need more highlights and metallics need finishing but feedback is always welcome and appreciated.
...what a beautiful sight. I didn't know you're into Infinity.
Sorry for the delay!
