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Once again, it's time to pick your favourites from the last month's array of awesome entries into the Unofficial Painting Challenge here on Dakka! As ever, please vote for as many entries as you like, and for notch painting, cleany reason! Whether it's topver use of the theme, an inspiring conversion or just a really cool entry that catches your eye, give it a vote and propel it up the leaderboard! As usual, voting will run for 5 days.

Without further ado, the entrants:


Bottle: Aelf Mage


ChaosDad: Deathwatch Librarian


ZoBo: Akka/Dakka- Da Magik of Rokk


Nevelon: Ultramarine Librarian


Januine: Eldrad Ulthran



Zergsmasher: Black Legion Sorcerer


Kustomer D: Ultramarine Librarian


Retrogamer0001: Dark Angel Librarian


Pneumo: Dark Apostle



Paradigm: Eldrad Ulthran


toothgrinder: Thousand Sons Sorcerer



methebest: Emperor’s Children Sorcerer



albinoork: Terminator Librarian


rollawaythestone: Harlequin Shadowseer


keezus: Oracle


Possumcraft: Eldar Farseers


Fantom Antichrist: Thousand Sons Sorcerer


Jadenim: Grey Knights Librarian


Moolet: Blood Angels Librarian



Farseer Anath'lan: Sturgis


angelofvengeance: Flamer of Tzneentch


vejut: Silver Fang


Midget Gems: Ork Weirdboy


Red_Ink_Cat: Blood Angels Librarian


Spuj: Deathwatch Librarian


Feltmonkey: Necromancer


Zambro: Dark Elf Sorceress


space/-_-/faced\-_-\mate: Sanctioned Psyker

Good entries this month. The only one which made me go "oooh!" was Januine's Eldrad work. Excellent stuff.

NOTE: Moolet's entry picture is not showing.

Gotta be Jan, that cape...

Fixed! Cheers for spotting that!

My top 5 this month go to:

1. Januine - Ulthran, a fantastic paintjob featuring some of your best freehand and basing.

2. ZoBo - Goff Rockers, that thing is just too crazy!

3. Rollawaythestone - Shadowseer, a great concept piece!

4. Paradigm - Ulthran, the mind still boggles how you did that in a couple of hours!

5. Feltmonkey - Necromancer, great choice of colours. Love the deep regal blue.

Hey Para, scratch that, the links are now working.

Weird.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I voted for exactly the same entries as Bottle, for pretty much exactly the same reasons, with two additions; one was actually for Bottle as well, there's so much detail and eye-popping highlights on that Aelf. The second was Spuj for a super clean Deathwatch librarian.

It was tough to keep it down to 5 votes, but I managed to prune it down, so here's who got my votes:
Bottle: That Aelf looks good, even if GW forgot how to spell Elf!
ZoBo: Pretty self-explanatory, really. I'd have given you all 5 votes, but Dakka won't let me do that and I like to spread the love around. It's a seriously amazing piece!
Januine: Eldrad looks amazing, I especially like the design on his cape!
Paradigm: Your Eldrad looks really great as well, definitely a different take than Januine's, which is good. I think they are about equally well done.
Moolet: That BA libby looks great, I may have to refer to that picture when I get around to painting my own Librarians (even though I don't play BA).

Really awesome entries by everyone! Special thanks to Paradigm as always for putting on this challenge, especially managing to run it while also doing college studies! See you all next month!

I voted earlier, and I'm doing the usual thing of trying to remember who I voted for...

In no particular order, and quite possibly with a couple of omissions:

Bottle: You seem to improve month on month. Your Aelf is fantastic - the work on the face, the deep blue gems, and the purple swirly magic stuff around his feet are my favorite things about the mini.

ZoBo: Well of course I voted for this. Great idea, well executed. A lot of fun.

Januine: That cloak! It's so good you almost don't notice the runes, the gems, the interesting colour scheme, and everything else that's wonderful about this wonderful paint job.

Paradigm: Lovely blending on the cloak. The blues picked out across the model really make the paint scheme.

Keezus: It's a shame you couldn't get her based, but nice job regardless. The pink/blue scarf and the glowing eyes are my favorite parts.

Possumcraft - A fun and eyecatching mini. I love the colours on the base.

Thanks to everyone who's voted for me, and to Bottle for the kind words.

Eesh... I usually try to keep it to 5 votes tops, but spilled over to 8 this time around. Great stuff everywhere.

Misc comments:

Bottle: I really dig this sculpt... My attention jumps right to the face, and then travels around the model, lingering on the staff and the purple whatever it is!
Zobo: For those about to r'ork... we salute you!
Jaunine: Another cracking nice job.
albinork: Smooth transitions and an awesome base. It is a bit unfortunate that none of your photos show your bloke's face clearly as I am curious as to which head you used.
rollawaythestone: Awesome take on the shadowseer... such shadow... so seer!
possumcraft: Great job on the 100% legit farseer! *high fives for Reaper*
Feltmonkey: Face tattoos in real life... ehhhhh, its a lifestyle choice... Face tattoos on models? Sweet!
Kustomer D: I quite like the freehand on your Librarian's tome!
Pneumo: Your photo previews are doing your work a diservice: photos look a lot better zoomed in. You should consider cropping some of the empty space out of the picture so that your model fills more of the image.
Toothgrinder: It looks like you are photographing your model with all the light coming from the top as the lower body and the bottom of the staff is very dark! Try putting your light source to the sides, tilted down on your model... its a sweet conversion, but its very hard to make out what's going on in your photo.

 keezus wrote:

Toothgrinder: It looks like you are photographing your model with all the light coming from the top as the lower body and the bottom of the staff is very dark! Try putting your light source to the sides, tilted down on your model... its a sweet conversion, but its very hard to make out what's going on in your photo.

Thanks for the tip! Bit of a rush job on the last bit of painting and the photo, this month I'm going to try to give myself more time to take the photo so that I can implement what you've suggested and find a better way to get a good view of the mini.

My choices this month go to:
Bottle - beautiful depth to the colours
ZoBo - great conversion, but carried off with great ork skin tones (this is a painting challenge after all)
Januine - Mate, honestly, wow. Just wow.
Rollawaythestone - this has a very sinister appearance to it and I like the contrast with the base stones
Keezus - great colour choices and highlights. Think it might be worth looking at the way you take the photos, the images came out grainy sadly. (That goes for a lot of the entrants this month, it was hard to see detail - lots of light needed and try to buy "cold" bulbs - White not yellow glow effectively. Makes a huge difference)

I would like to take a moment to give a big shout out to Farseer Anath'lan. You need to go back and take a look at what you've done since first participating. Your skills have massively improved. Again, photos are your downfall and you may want to look at thinning paints a bit more, but his was a great piece this month. Also, unlike me you enter pretty much every month, you are dedicated to getting better and put the time in. If only my RL was less busy I may improve as much as you are. Bravo!

And to everyone else, superb entries. You have all done really well and every entry had great qualities. I hope to have an entry for next month, so fingers crossed I'll see you then.

Great work guys, was really interesting to how people interpreted the theme.

There were 2 real stand out entries for me Zobo, for the amazing scene and Jan for the cloak alone.

After those 2 it was then quite hard picking who got a vote since there are at least a half dozen or so of a similar level in my eye for one reason or another like Para and Keezus's excellent blending on the cloth/cloaks, or Spuj's great scrolls work and sooth finish, and Red ink cats very good model for a first entry and your right you did get the eyes spot on. Voted for about 7 in the end.

I'm just glad I got mine mostly finished in the end wasn't sure I was going to make it after a tough month. Good luck everyone.

Great entries as always!

My votes:

Zobo - you had my vote from the start - love those old rokkers and you've done a great conversion job with loads of detail.

Jadenim - loads of little details on that libby made him stand out to me. Great work!

Moolet - a really sharp, clean paint job. And I really like the detail on the base.

Midget Gems - great entry as always. Lots of great little details!

Spuj - really clean and sharp. For me, it really stands out from the back with those sharp edge highlights. Always tricky to shade/highlight black!

Thanks Whittlesey!

Great entries this month again, its hard to whittle them down but these are my favourite 7, though many more almost got a vote.

ZoBo: great concept, great execution. Congratulations on a very unique model/s. A lot of care and though has gone into this and it really shows.
Januine: Fantastic mini, very nicely done. I can’t not vote for this one.
Pneumo: great conversion and well painted, Love the banner. You need to sort out your images though =)
Paradigm: i try not to vote for the same mini twice. They are slightly different though and this a beautifully painted mini.
Rollawaythestone: simple scheme but very well executed... captures the mini very well.
Keezus: i enjoyed watching your WIP pics during the month, great to see the smooth blends brought together.
Feltmonkey: Lovely blends and i really like his facial tattoos.


Thanks for those who voted for mine and also voted in the gallery section, I'll endeavour to do the same soon. Thanks Whittlesey and Zergsmasher for your kind comments and paradigm for organising this challenge.

Fanfethingtastic entries this month. Lotta freat stuff to pick from. There's defintely a few that I reckon deserve many more votes but tiny photos without a plain background are making it harder for folk to appreciate the great paintjobs. Even holding up a blank piece of A4 behind the fig makes a huge difference.
Best of show for me this month went to Bottle (love your metallics), ZoBo (lunatic!!), Albinoork (lovely light transitiions esp on the pauldons), rollawaythestone (my fav of the month - great monochromatics - simple scheme but so effective), keezus (love her robes), moolet (very nice classic paint scheme), midgetgems (really captures a moment. the grots hanging off the back are spot on), feltmonkey (those robes - love that blue. very nice clean job and great work on the face, dark, evil look. cracking).
And that's ....8..........yeah, no way was just 5 even remotely possible!!!!!
Great job folks and see you for the next one

Thanks a lot for the mention Whittlesey and Jan

I understood all the words in how you said you painted the cloak Jan, but no idea how I would actually do it myself (not sure I ever will). It does leave me somewhat in awe of the range of painting techniques you have at your disposal.

My votes this month go to:

Moolet- one of the best I've seen from you yet, you're coming on in leaps and bounds!

ZoBo- Because that's just awesome!

Angelofvengeance- really nice execution of quite a tricky concept!

And also to rollawaythestone, Jan and Keezus for some top notch and inventive paintwork!

Time for the winners to take a bow!

In third place, Bottle's Aelf Mage!




In 2nd place, bringing Da Magik of Rokk to the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, ZoBo and Akka/Dakka!






And taking the win, way out in front and to no-one's surprise, Januine and Eldrad Ulthran!




Congratulations to everyone who took part, there were some mighty fine entries this month! See y'all next time for a spooky, scary monster mash!

Spectacular work all.

@TP^DC Deputy ManagerMade.
Wow. Cheers. Not sure I deserve that, but thanks.

Cheers folks and well done to all who entered. Cracking stuff Bottle - gorgeous gorgeous work. Top banana there Zobo - the Akka Dakka wagon is a peach - really outstanding work
See you all for the next one

Gj all stunning entries this month

Thanks to everyone who voted for me, it's a real honour to be up there with ZoBo's cracking entry and Januine's which quite frankly blew us all away.

See you all next month ;-)

3 superb entries there, congrats to the winners and well done to everyone that entered.

See you on the next one