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In July’s monthly challenge, entrants were set the theme ‘Fun and Games’; some focused on gaming aids and terrain to liven up their games, while others went for models of a comedic, fun or sport-themed models.

As usual, please cast as many votes as you like for the entries you think deserve recognition, whether that's for the skill on show, the effort involved, the choice of model or anything else that catches your eye. You are also encouraged to leave some feedback if you wish, either here or on the entrants' own blogs or gallery pages. Voting will run for 5 days.

The entrants:


NinjaPirate: Imperial Statue


ChaoticMind: Cthulu Altar


feltmonkey: Wyldwood


Kustomer D: Acid Barrels


U971: Objective Markers


Nevelon: Crashed Aquila Lander



n1ceguypaul: Island of Blood Board


Bottle: Blood Bowl Dwarf Players


Midget Gems: Whack-A-Grot


Modock: Harlequin Shadowseer


Verviedi: Ancient Robot Objective Marker


dukeofbeer: Blood Bowl Orc and Human



Farseer Anath'lan: Ruined Walls


Whittlesey40k: Armorium Cherub Token


NathanD298: Lost Patrol Scout and Genestealer


Moolet: Super Dungeon Explore Treant


Jadenim: Inquisition Scribe and Acolyte



vejut: Barbarian


Chris56: Sorceress’ Cottage


GulGog TufToof: Crates


Keezus: Zombicide Gilly



Paradigm: Howling Griffons Objective Marker

Given there's not as many entries as usual, I found it hard to limit my votes and not just vote for everyone! So there are some really good ones I didn't vote for.

My votes:
@feltmonkey - what can I say, it's amazing. I'd love to have terrain like that!

@U971 - Nice, clean, consistent obj markers. Great stuff!

@Bottle - they're your usual high standard. What more can we say?!

@Midget Gems - your Ork conversions are always great. Funny, but also well executed.

@Moolet - I don't really know what he is, but I like him. Looks cheeky/mischevious rather than scary - don't know if that was intentional!

@Chris56 - amazing detail, and great work getting it done in a month!

@Paradigm - your usual gritty style works really well on this marker.


Great work everyone. An interesting month with some really varied entries.

I'm out now (I said that last month, but definitely, definitely out now!), but I'll be watching keenly and voting each month if I can.

Good luck everyone!

Voted for everyone,apart from myself.
Because there's not a single entry that's not well above tabletop quality,well done everyone...

You get a comment! You get a comment! EVERYONE GETS A COMMENT!

NinjaPirate: Imperial Statue Great bronze color on the statue: I think if you added some greenery to the base, it would be even more striking... like some tufts in the cracks, and add some green wash to the cork to simulate moss growth.

ChaoticMind: Cthulu Altar Squids for the Squid God! The glowing effect from the runes can be enhanced by brushing a bit of the blue tone onto the adjacent rock color and lining the center of each rune with white. I think you need to photograph in more diffuse light as well, as there is a lot of glare on the Old One's head obscuring detail.

feltmonkey: Wyldwood Wyldwood? I remember back in the days when it was the Warhammer Forest... before the End Times. Of course back in our day, we had to make our own forests, out of green scouring pads and toilet brushes. Great job though!

Kustomer D: Acid Barrels Mmmm. Melty. You should post bigger pics!

U971: Objective Markers Clean look on these. Are they for Infinity perchance?

Nevelon: Crashed Aquila Lander Man. I have one of these but I just can't find the time to work on it. Sweet kit! I think adding a few splashes of color on it, maybe some Rebel style stripes or unit markings and some grass will really make it stand out.

n1ceguypaul: Island of Blood Board Sweet board. I voted! Is that a cupcake bottom for the top of the light house? Fits great with the Island of Blood aesthetic. Great job on the ground work too.

Bottle: Blood Bowl Dwarf Players I'll put you in me book o'grudges! Cracking work as usual.

Midget Gems: Whack-A-Grot The lollipop man... I can't even... Love all the little touches! And this was on a shortened schedule? The fact that you slam down a conversion every month is impressive!

Modock: Harlequin Shadowseer So... crispy... *voted*

Verviedi: Ancient Robot Objective Marker Seems too cool to be just an objective marker!

dukeofbeer: Blood Bowl Orc and Human We's not old skool. We's VINTAGE Blud Bowl! Always a pleasure to see models from the days of yore given a modern take.

Farseer Anath'lan: Ruined Walls Mr Gork-bechev... TEAR THESE WALLS DOWN!

Whittlesey40k: Armorium Cherub Token He who captures the little-est objective will forever be blessed with happiness and joy... and a short life. Enjoy....!

NathanD298: Lost Patrol Scout and Genestealer Nice work! Very clean lines. Is that scout head stock, or a conversion?

Moolet: Super Dungeon Explore Treant You must cut down the tallest Treant in the forest... WITH THIS HERRING! Your photo seems a bit dark... teeth look great.

Jadenim: Inquisition Scribe and Acolyte That scribe is awesomely characterful. You badly need bigger pictures!

vejut: Barbarian The first two pics are out of focus! If you pull back the camera, you can often bring the whole model into focus, and then crop later.

Chris56: Sorceress’ Cottage Dude... madness... This looks like a lot of work. *voted*

GulGog TufToof: Crates (Overheard: Dawn of War) Our enemies have claimed the WOODEN BAWKSES... THE COWARDS! THE FEWLS! We shall take away their WOODEN BAWKSES!

Keezus: Zombicide Gilly Nothing to see here... moving along...

Paradigm: Howling Griffons Objective Marker You sir... are the picture of speed and consistency. I am sad that the pic is not zoomable however.

It may have been a smaller field of final entries than usual, but the quality of the entries overall was spectacular! I had a hard time narrowing it down to 5 votes. Here's who got my votes:
Bottle: Those Dwarves look amazing. They are my favorite Blood Bowl team of the ones available. Makes me want to get a set of them myself and start a Blood Bowl team of my own.
Midget Gems: Is there no end of cleverness from that talented mind of yours? Another awesome Orky entry!
Modock: I like Harlequin models in general although I don't play them myself, and you really did an amazing job on that Shadowseer.
NathanD298: I know you were disappointed to only get 3 models rather than 5 done, but the ones you did look absolutely amazing! I have that game, and I hope I can make my guys in there look as good as yours.
Chris56: There are no words...

I may not have participated this time around, but I really enjoyed watching everyone else's entries come together and I will be rejoining you guys for the August challenge. Shout out as always to Paradigm for taking time to organize this show of painting awesomeness! See you all in the Brutal challenge!

Lovely entries!

I voted for Moolet (lovely job on your Treant, very whimsical looking model), Midget Gems (stop being so good! STOP IT! sigh. Love your stuff, I have to echo everyone else: awesome stuffs), Kustomer D (really love the look and feel of these! some great touches) and GulGog TuToof (ok so maybe not everyone else is obsessed with crates, like us - they don't know what they're missing out on! <3 your job)

Yet another round of great entries!
Thanks to any who voted for my model, I appreciate it.

I loved heaps of models this month for heaps of reasons but I voted for:

n1ceguypaul - I love this board and can't wait to see the Skaven to come;
bottle - I really like your colour scheme with a top paint job as always;
Midget Gems - I can't believe the imagination you have, man...great work;
Modock - love this harlequin, some awesome blending and transitions, my vote for best paint;
moolet - cool model with great, big scary teeth; and
keezus - again an interesting model choice painted very well.

Hope to see everyone in Brutal August!

I loved all the entries. Well done everyone who finished some models this month. My votes go to these. For me I'd say technically speaking, best painting goes to Bottle, though most striking mini and similar levels of technical excellence for me is Modocks harlequin. Midget wins on most thematic and brilliant conversion work though I think Paradigm is giving him a run for his money in that regard. I think Kustomer D's work is the most under represented in terms of votes, so far.

Again I had to hold myself back giving more votes out. These were all runners for my 5 though.


Paradigm: Beautiful thematic objective marker. It captures the idea of an objective and your usual high standard of painting!
Chris56: Brilliant work. I love it when people put this much effort into their RPG or armies. Very well done and fantastic scratch building.
dukeofbeer: I find these older minis harder to bring to life than the newer ones and you've done a brilliant job on these ones. Bravo!
Modock: Again an awesome entry and i think your free hand is excellent. I wish i had your brush control! Well done once again!
Midget: awesome as usual.. getting bored of saying it so much! Well done, i love the small touches such as the goblin with the spear prodding the snots and the very well painted lolly, perfect!
Bottle: Again brush control and palette selection I'm eternally envious of. Beautiful entries, I'd love to have my blood bowl team stomped into the ground by your dwarves!
N1ceguypaul: I've no idea what island of blood is but seeing your board makes me want to play. Very nice work.
Kustomer D: Brilliant mixture of metallics and gunk/acid freehand onto the pipes. To get depth on it when its embossed onto the surface is one thing but to get depth just freehand is another. Well worth a vote... excellent.
Verviedi: This one didnt stand out to me to begin with but grew on me as went through the images on a repeat occasion. It think the clean surfaces are done really well.
Feltmonkey: Great work, lots of little details included which a lot of people tend to not include. I'd love to play a game with this quality of terrain.
Keezus: This would have got a vote if its wasn't for restricting myself to 5. To paint this style is difficult but looks as if its easy, I understand as I've tried and struggled with some of my SDE. To get that cartoon type look and done so perfectly is brilliant work. Bravissimo

@keezus.
Not for Infinity although now that you mention it,kinda do look futuristic due to the cleanness,Was meant to be a Fallout/necromunda "Steel Ingot" Quest Marker Set,feeding the furnace.

I voted quite low this month as im finding it hard to vote for some entries that seem quite far off from the actually write up and the beginning of the challenge.

There are some wonderful figures shout out to bottle and modock for amazing paint jobs and any other month would have got a big thumbs up.

So the winners for me this month are.

Feltmonkey-amazing job on this the colours work great together and the little details finish off a wonderful piece of work.
Midgetgems-cracking idea and a very good scratch build. Thats what i thought we would get when i saw what you intended this month and you knocked it out of the park/fairground.
Chris65. Damn thats a fine piece of scenery and a wonderful model that fits well into the scene.

Again cracking job all round and look forward to next months


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@moolet the island of blood was the last box set for warhammer fantasy. Its my little nod back to the world we all loved before the heavy metal age of sigmar stormed in.

My votes went to:
feltmonkey - wonderful work and from having played over that kit for years now I can see how much work you put into hiding all the joins!
n1ceguypaul - fantastic display board. I hope to see it do well at Armies on Parade.
Midget Gems - Bonkers as always!
Modock - I don't think it fits the theme well, but it is a stellar paint job!
Chris56 - Fantastic work both on the exterior and the sorceress. I hope it makes a great set-piece in D&D campaign!

@n1ceguypaul, sad you didn't think mine met the theme as Paradigm explicitly states Bloowbowl minis are a good fit so I went out and bought some for this, haha! No worries though

Edit: Btw everyone, if you're able to take the time out and vote on my minis it would be greatly appreciated (as my gallery never gets any votes lol ) direct link to it is here: link

Cheers!

@Bottle i now what you mean they do kind of meet it being a game about a game and all, but i was looking forward to this month being a little different and seeing people do other things. That said the paint job on those dwarves is amazing and i love all of the miniatures you have done. Really loving the grey water stuff and the wizard and fireslayers being particular favourites. Just wished to see people going outside what is the norm and having a go at some other aspects of the hobby.

Oh of course. It's all just a bit of fun and you've come out with a fantastic display board!

I want to say thanks to those who commented and voted for my Shadowseer. I know it's not the perfect match for the theme but I really wanted to keep the momentum going
and he was the closest thing I had.

This month is a bit messy regarding entries. The pieces are so varied it's hard to objectively vote so I voted quite few.


feltmonkey: Great terrain! The trees look fantastic. I really like the water near the tree...care to share the recipe?
n1ceguypaul: Impressive piece of terrain! Natural looking sea and nice touch with the vines on the lighthouse: As a whole it looks really good! I can see you've put a lot
of effort into it! One bit of advice is to work on your pictures, they are just too small. All those 6 should be just one photo.
Bottle:I LOVE them! The beards and the armor are just phenomenal. So much character. I think those are even better then your usual high standard.
Midget Gems: Pure comedy and thematically is spot on!
Moolet: Amazing looking treant. The expression on the face is pure gold. The teeth and the eyes are masterfully done.
Chris56: I'd say this is my top entry this month. Thematically and painting combined is just perfect! Witch alone is really well done plus all the other details and the house
it's just amazing. Bravo Chris!
Keezus: Well painted little mini!
Paradigm: Cool looking marker! Can't wait to see your BRUTAL entry.

Well thanks Paradigm for keep us going and see ya all very soon!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
Edit: Btw everyone, if you're able to take the time out and vote on my minis it would be greatly appreciated (as my gallery never gets any votes lol ) direct link to it is here: link

I usually vote if picture links me to the gallery. Your pics aren't links, that's why you don't get votes I guess. I'm gonna tour your gallery mate.

I may not be a master of the brush myself, but I like to think I have an eye for a what’s good and what isn’t. Those in red got a vote.
NinjaPirate – The bronze is good, but not great. I like tha marble, and the bedroll is a very nice touch, it give a little character and invites the viewer to create a story.
ChaoticMind – The black is just a bit too shiny for my tastes, and the stone probably could have used a drybrush of a light grey around the edges. The letters and grime are pretty cool though.
Feltmonkey – The stones, ground and post are all quite good, but the wood could use a light drybrush of a lighter colour to give it some more depth.
Kustomer D – It looks like it’s quite good, but rather like my lord of contagion in June, the picture is too small to see properly.
NathanU971 – They look quite good, nice and clean, but due to their small nature don’t have much flavour to comment on.
Nevelon – I like the grey hull a lot, and the green glass. Very well grimed up, congratulations.
N1ceguypaul – Really nice (so punny, I know) set piece. The tower’s stonework looks great and the vines running up it as well. The general vegetation looks great, and that’s probably the best painted water I’ve seen on a base.
Bottle – Stop bringing your pro painting skills into this armatures’ game, you make everyone else look bad in comparison. The beards and cloth are beautifully painted and highlighted, and the damaged armour looks incredible.
Midget gems – Decent paintjob, far and away the most character. Probably my favourite of the lot.
Modock – Fitting into the same category as bottle, great freehand on the cloth and staff, the some looks great and the blending and gems look really good as well.
Verevidi – That, son, is some serious heresy right there. Very creepy, the blood splatter looks so convincing. Also a very impressive conversion job, if you want to share the process I’d appreciate it.
dukeofbeer – It looks good, and I quite like it, but it just feels very obviously painted, if that makes any sense.
Farseer Anath’lan – Hard to get what you were going for here, it might just be the pictures though.
Whittlesey40k – Very creepy, but something about the skin feels wrong, like the grey and beige colours clash.
NathanD298 – Nice paintjob and a nice headswap, but in an effort to keep the votes to ten I left it out.
Moolet – The wood is quite good but it’s the leaves and especially the teeth and eyes that do it for me.
Janedim – The paintjobs look quite good but it’s hard to tell from the pictures.
Vejut – Same issue as Janedim.
Chris56 – Wew lad, slow down there. Everything about this is great, from the OSL to the walls to the stones to the sorceress, it’s beautiful, and although they may not be golden daemon winners, the books, shelves, table and birds all add a little character to the piece.
GulGog TufToof – Pretty cool, and very convincing wood, but not particularly stand-out compared to the competition. Sort of in the same boat as NathanD298
Keezus – An unusual model for this competition, but I think the palette really complements the cartoonish mould.
Paradigm – Classic Paradigm gritty paintjob, and I like the scene, it’s just a shame the tactical marines don’t have any parts that really lend themselves to being casualties.

I am on holiday at the moment, so I don't have time to comment on every entry this month. Sorry about that. I will get back to doing it next month. I'll just say congratulations to everyone who entered. There's a lot of skill, imagination, and enthusiasm on display.

A few I particularly liked -

Chris56 - just wow. Amazing modelling and painting.
N1ceguypaul - it looks fantastic, and I still am blown away that you managed to get it done in a month.
Midget Gems - A comedy classic.
Bottle - A lovely clean detailed paintjob
Modock - Superb painting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks to everyone who voted for me, or left a comment. It's always great to get feedback, and everyone is always so positive and encouraging!

Modock - the water is just a product called Realistic Water from Woodland Scenics. I made the mistake of buying it from Hobbycraft, so it was a bit expensive, but I did get a huge bottle I will never run out of. The thing I found makes it look good is how you paint under the water bit. I blended some Stegadon Scale Green into (I think) Nurgling Green. The layers of the water shrink, so you have to do a few of them. That's an opportunity to glaze some patches of very thin nurgling green between the layers, which also looks cool.

Thanks for the kind words from people. I feel these Bloodbowl dwarfs are among the best models I have painted, and I learnt some valuable lessons while doing them (for example the grey armour isn't highlighted at all - when you are applying so much chipping and there are no hard edges, you don't need to).

Looking forward to seeing who comes out on top as its really close between Midget Gems, Modock and Chris56!

Thanks for the comments and both of you who ever voted for me! Lots really good entries this week and im happy to just get few of votes. Gave my vote feltmonkey. Spot on the theme and very awesome execution!

Thank you very much for the kind words, and votes. I voted for Modock, Chris56, and n1ceguypaul.

The conversion process for the Abominable Intelligence (what is this "Ancient Robot" thing?) went something like this. Here's an unpainted pic of it, I'll point out the parts used and modifications.




First of all, the Ai is based off of the Tau Fusion Collider. The part circled in blue is its "core", the part circled in pink is its neck.



The carapace is a Riptide thigh-plate addition thing. The bit covering the top of the neck is a Space Marine shoulder pad cut down so that the part with the trim is removed.

The neck is half of a Wraith bit (circled in purple), and the head is a Wraith head. The tail/AG hover thing is circled in blue.



The arms are the purple-circled bits, cut down, and attached to Kataphron Servitor phosphor blaster arms, the bit circled in yellow. Green is where I made the cut. The alterations I made to the wraith bits are below.



Wraith bits:


The claws are wraith claws. The additional utility on the side is a Kataphron breacher small bionic arm on the left, and a Prehensile Dataspike from the Ruststalker kit on the right. I glued them together, using some green stuff to pose them like I wanted. I covered the ugly green stuff with a Space Marine shoulder pad.

The third pair of arms are Space Marine shoulders (without shoulder pads), attached to Necron Warrior arms, with Chordclaws on the ends.

The rear part of the abdomen is (I'm pretty sure) a Broadside shoulder bit on the bottom, and a Broadside cooling system part on top.

The fins making up the "tail" are Tau Coldstar Commander fins.

 feltmonkey wrote:

Modock - the water is just a product called Realistic Water from Woodland Scenics. I made the mistake of buying it from Hobbycraft, so it was a bit expensive, but I did get a huge bottle I will never run out of. The thing I found makes it look good is how you paint under the water bit. I blended some Stegadon Scale Green into (I think) Nurgling Green. The layers of the water shrink, so you have to do a few of them. That's an opportunity to glaze some patches of very thin nurgling green between the layers, which also looks cool.

Thanks for the explanation, I don't have a single thing to emulate water so I'm looking for good product to buy.

Thanks Verviedi!

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my entry Whitelsey (Good Luck with the new arrival BTW), Keezus, Zerg, Guild, Chris, Mootlet, N1Paul, Bottle, Modock, Creed, Felt and cheers to anyone else who votes or comments on my work

I had hoped I could execute the idea well since I thought it was quite a fun one. I'm really glad you like it and so many people have commented on it

Standouts for me this month were;

Felt - a great looking wood. Interesting we used the same signpost, I had no idea where is came from, I just found it in my bits box, now I know I'll have to look out for more in the future.
Nice1Paul - Pretty epic journey you took use on this month, when you started I I didnt think you you be able to finish it all let alone to such a high standard. Congrats on now having such a well done board. That collage of pics would have been great if it was bigger on the forums so people could clearer see all you hard work.
Bottle - you get a vote just for the breads alone, it really does look like a "eavy metal panted picture from WD
Modock - Diamonds are spot on and as always your blending is exceptional.
Chris - brilliant work, your last 2 entries have really drawn attention to your skills as a painter, only thing I'd like is a bigger picture

Honourable mentions also go to;
NinjaPirate - I liked the subtle Verdigris and the 1 bit of colour in the helmet, very artistic
Duke - A nice clean paintjob that reminded me of the era of those models, well done.
Mootlet- A fun little chap, that game seems to have some quite cool models.
Keezus - Its like snoopy got guns
Para - Good positioning of the models and tells a story. (also thanks for running the competition yet again)

ps wow its close at the top, good luck

Thanks for the nice words, Midget.

I don't know what happened to the photo - you can zoom in on the one I uploaded in the original thread, but not on the one in this. Is there something I need to do differently, do you know?

Also, while I'm asking, does anyone know why I see everyone else's pictures on the gallery page, but never my own? Is it just because lots of people looked at the others or is there something else I am doing wrong?

That's likely because where you uploaded directly to the thread (rather than going via the gallery upload) I had to take the URL of the image in the thread which won't link back to the gallery, hence less votes and not hitting the front page.

I've swapped it out now, in future if you want links back to the gallery it's better if you upload to there first then use the 'Forums' link it provides. That way, you get easy access to the full-size image and people can vote straight away.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, Paradigm.
That answers both questions in one!
Thanks also for all your work running these challenges, they have been a real inspiration.

Have a good one!

Winners! Sorry this post is a tad late!

In 3rd place, Bottle's Blood Bowl Dwarves:






In joint second, Modock's Harlequin Shadowseer:






And Chris56 with a Sorceress' cottage.



And taking the win by a single point, it's Midget Gems with Whack-A-Grot:







Congratulations to all! See you next month!

Congrats to the winners! See you next month.

Congrats to the others on the podium. I definitely feel very lucky to be on there as it's only because of a tie for 2nd!

Wow that was close at the top, 1 vote separating 1st and 2nd. A honour to be up there with such good painters.

Thank you so much for voting for my Whack-A-Grot scene and the positive comments on it, I hoped people would like it when I thought up the idea. You have made me very happy

Great work Bottle, Modock, and Chris56. It was quite a hard topic to enter so a big well done to everyone that entered and finished. See you in the next one.

Congrats to the winners, they were very well deserved!