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Time to kick off the new year of challenges with the traditional Space Marine round!

As usual, the community gets to pick the winner! Feel free to cast as many votes as you like for as many entries that catch your eye, be it for the paintjob, the imagination, the conversion work or anything else you happen to appreciate! Voting will run for 5 days, at which point the winners will be announced. You're also encouraged to leave some feedback or gallery votes for the entrants if you wish to, it's always appreciated!

The entrants:

ZoBo: Vulkan, Primarch Of The Salamanders


ZergSmasher: Dark Angels Veteran Marine


mrhappyface: Traitor Deathwatch Marines


NathanD298: Deathwatch Kill Team


u971: Ultramarine Tactical Squad


Nevelon: Ultramarine Apothecary


JamesY: Kharn The Bloody


KINGPIN54: Assault Marine


Guildenstern: Iron Hands Tactical Marines


Whittlesey40k: Stark Crusaders Terminators


n1ceguypaul: Vulkan of the Salamanders



ApaceKittens: FINISHED


Keezus: Bakunin Taskmaster


Paradigm: Deathwatch Watch Master


feltmonkey: Arhiman of the Thousand Sons


Chris56: Tyranid Hunters


Groo_The_Wanderer: Wolf Guard Terminators


ChaoticMind: Terminator Chaplain



dukeofbeer: Wolf Priest


Bottle: Deathwatch Veterans


Midget Gems: Blood Angels Terminators


Manalishi: Iron Warriors Dreadnoughts


Drummernathan: Kaldor Draigo



Sissal: Dark Angels Librarians and Champion


Moolet: Blood Angels Baal Predator


EmberlordofFire8: Geigor Fell-hand


CREEEEEEEEED: Thousand Sons Space Marines


DanceOfSlaanesh: Chaos Chosen



Verviedi: Mechanicus Space Marine


Jadenim: Captain Artemis


Ezra Tyrius: Fallen Dark Angels


Farseer Anath'lan: FINISHED


Vejut: Mousemarine


Modock: Space Marine Veteran


Melcavuk: Abbadon Ascendant


albinoork: ‘Gravatina’ Space Marine


JustaerinAtTheWall: Ultramarine Herald



darkstar6783: Fallen Angel

Thanks Zobo for stepping in last month, and to Para as always!

Great work everyone - some great looking entries out there.

My votes:

@ZoBo - the sharpness and clarity of the detail is superb and what really makes this stand out.

@Nevelon - I reckon this is one of your best yet. He looks like he's been wrestling with a polar bear!

@Bottle - your usual high standard! As always, the detail and contrasts make the models really pop.

@Manalishi - a different style to what we usually see. Just very 'mech'. Love the battle damage (and the fact you got all 3 done in the month!)

@ssissal - I think these are your best yet. You can really see how much you've improved over the last year or so.

@Moolet - one of my favourites this month. A lot of weathering/damage, without going over the top.

@DanceOfSlaanesh - it's the sharpness of your highlights that really make this model stand out.

@Melcavuk - a great conversion and beautifully painted. Bobby G's never looked better

Damn that actually took effort to decide,managed to keep it below 10votes just about all the entry's are interesting in there own ways,first time actually had trouble picking though.
Good Luck to the many challengers.

Wow, such an insane amount of entries this month, and to such a high standard too! I see a lot of regulars in this one posted some of their best work to date so that is really inspiring to see!

I couldn't choose 5 like I normally do, so I went for 10. In no order:

ZoBo
JamesY
Keezus
Paradigm
Feltmonkey
Chris56
Manalishi
Moolet
Modock
Melcavuk

If I had to choose a top-pick of the bunch... I want to say Modock for the incredible vignette with top notch blending, but I feel very strongly that the flamer nozzle should be drilled out! So I will instead pick Melcavuk's jaw-dropping conversion as my favourite this month!

 Bottle wrote:


If I had to choose a top-pick of the bunch... I want to say Modock for the incredible vignette with top notch blending, but I feel very strongly that the flamer nozzle should be drilled out! So I will instead pick Melcavuk's jaw-dropping conversion as my favourite this month!

Thanks mate!
I forgot about the nozzle. I noticed it after I already started painting.

I'm still trying to work out why two people voted for me as opposed to the vast array of superior work here, but in the meantime, I really like that predator.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
I'm still trying to work out why two people voted for me as opposed to the vast array of superior work here, but in the meantime, I really like that predator.

Same here. 3 votes is pretty good for this early.

(Yogurt one of my votes, BTW)

Why aren't more people voting for Keezus?

Keezus was my favorite this month. You got some cool blends going on.

Wow, this is a bumper crop of entries. It was hard to keep it down to 5 votes. Here's who got my votes:
ZoBo: You painted a Primarch, and painted it really well. Vulkan is one of the better Primarch sculpts, and you aced it!
Paradigm: Your Deathwatch guy came out really well. Deathwatch are perfectly suited for your gritty painting style!
feltmonkey: Ahriman is an awesome model, and you did really well with it. I may be picking up Burning of Prospero myself soon, so I hope I can do as well on that model.
Bottle: Yet another stunner from you (actually two of them). You really have been knocking it out of the park with the Deathwatch Overkill models!
Moolet: I love the weathering on your Baal Predator. Makes the vehicle look like it's been through some action, which is great.

Everyone did well. Like I said, I had a hard time narrowing it down. Maybe I should have just voted for everyone. Special shout out to ZoBo for running the challenge this month so Paradigm could get his classwork done. You did a great job! See you all for Primal!

Thanks for the votes so far I feel like my photography has let my painting down, but looking at all the other entries, I'm not sure a better picture would have made much difference.

My votes went to

Bottle (for the suitable building up to the highlights on black armour so that they don't seem to appear out of nowhere).

Zobo (the muted pallet gives the model a realism that suits it well, and makes it stand out from the typical bright space marine aesthetic)

Melcavuk (Well executed idea, both in conversion and paint work.

So many great entries, but I always try to stick to three votes. It was a tough choice this time!

Oh man, heaps of great stuff this month!

My votes went to Bottle, Modock, Paradigm and Melcavuk...far out.

Good lord another tough lot of entries!

ZoBo - Love how you did his skin, it looks really really good. The attention to detail is awesome on the whole mini.
Nevelon - Your Apothecary made me think, "Physician, Heal Thyself" lmao awesome job!
JamesY - really like this one, very clean and a good colour palette imo
Keezus - lovely shading, I quite like that skin/under the armour bit (not sure what model it is so not 100% sure it's skin)
Paradigm - as always, you're just paradigmatic
Feltmonkey - lovely clean job on Ahriman! beautiful look to him
Chris56 - lovely clean job, great little diorama!
Bottle - dude, seriously stop just reproducing the cover art... ok really lol just a beautiful job!
MG - not a huge fan of BA, but those Terminators look sweet!
Manalishi - fantastic work on those Iron Warrior dreads, they look badass
Moolet - TANK TANK TANKomgomgTANK so pretty
Emberlord - I really like how you did Geigor, lot of details and good colour choices I think. He really stands out
DanceofSlaanesh - I was impressed with the gold especially and the fine edge highlighting, just an overal awesome job
Vejut - MOUSEMARINE!! <3 love for the Mouslings =D
Modock - I thought, besides the sheer paint job being awesome, the use of the primary colours really worked, which I woudln't have thought it would
Melcavuk - that Abbadon is a bad ass model, well done on him!
albinoork - Gravatina has such sweet blends, and great colours. Plus the conversion... it just works!

Apologies to those I've left out. you know these things are getting bad when you have to take notes while looking at them

Just saw the 'Tyranid hunters' entry from Chris56. Top notch stuff m8, very nice conversion.

Lol at this rate I will actually do worse than last month

5 votes is pretty damn good for me. Definitely one of my favorite months to participate in yet, vey well done all of you! I don't think I quite managed to keep my vote count under 10.

There were so many entries this month that I decided to keep my votes down to ten, which meant some difficult choices. In the end I voted for:

ZoBo - An amazing Vulcan. Nailed it.
JamesY - Very characterful, with a nice sense of movement. Some nice weathering.
n1ceguypaul - The other half of the Vulcan-off. This is a weird one, but I've seen this mini in the flesh, as it were, and it's fantastic. The photos don't really do it justice. Having seen how great it is I had to vote for it.
Keezus - One of my favourites this month. Nice blends, Great glow effects.
Paradigm - Unbelievable that you painted this in just a few hours. I love the ancient-looking armour.
Bottle - Probably my favourite this month. Your usual level of polish, fine detail, and stellar edge highlights.
Manalishi - Three dreadnoughts in a month is quite the achievement! Three very nice, weathered dreadnoughts, too.
Moolet - Another of my favourites. I love a bit of weathering, and this is an excellent example of the art.
Modock - Smooooooth blends, and a fantastic scenic base/mini diorama.
Melcavuk - A stunning conversion and a great paint job.

Thanks to everyone who voted for my entry, and to Zerg, Bottle, and Guildenstern for the kind comments. I was going for a very clean look for Ahriman, as he strikes me as the prissy sort who wouldn't wear weathered armour. I think the photos flattened out the highlights on the armour, which may be to its detriment or possibly advantage. It's not that subtle in the flesh! In fact, it's so "shiny" that for some reason if you look at it in a darkened room, it looks luminous pink.

Thanks for the kind words from feltmonkey, Guildenstern, JamesY, ZergSmasher and Whittlesey40k, and anyone who voted for me.

I have to say WOW, the battle for 3rd place is hotting up. There are 5 of us in the running, even more if someone gets a couple of votes in succession.

Ye, the battle for 3rd place is getting intense.

Well, so is the battle for last place. :(

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Well, so is the battle for last place. :(

That's exactly what i was thinking

At least we can say we're part of the 1% for once in our lives

Congrats to everyone who participated this month, lots of great entries on display

3 votes might be the worst I've done, but then I look at others with similar/lower votes and there's some really good entries, so I think it's just a tough month!

Really had fun this month know for a fact i painted my ultramarines well plus nailed the winter theme i was going for,it's all good.
As for the votes,learned pretty quickly that they are no reflection of how well your minis are painted,as virtually all the low vote people have nice tableworthy models that should have more votes than they have,so basically gotta be in the challenge just to get stuff painted rather than win,kinda expected to get not many votes this time not a surprise the top few models are well sweet looking.

I think it's more to do with photography, my set up was two iPhone 6s as lights and another as the camera...

 Whittlesey40k wrote:
3 votes might be the worst I've done, but then I look at others with similar/lower votes and there's some really good entries, so I think it's just a tough month!

Absolutely agreed. I think I spent too much time on converting, and too little on painting. That will be... rectified.

I voted for ZoBo, NathanD, Paradigm, and Guilderstern. Very pretty entries, all.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I think it's more to do with photography, my set up was two iPhone 6s as lights and another as the camera...

Mine was an IPhone 7 and a Desk lamp I need to get a decent camera

I take my pictures on an iPhone 5 with a single standing lamp for light. I want to make an article on how I get nice results but still haven't got round to it. Having good light is 90% of a good picture though!

It's a tricky month, because there are so many entries, but an awful lot of really good stuff is sitting on just a handful of votes. There's loads of entries that absolutely deserve more.

I wouldn't read too much into the voting this month, or possibly any month. The important thing is that you yourself are satisfied with what you painted. If you've achieved what you set out to do, and if you learned something while doing it, then that's the important thing. Remember, it's a painting challenge, not a painting competition.

If you are wanting to grab some extra votes, or just show off your paint jobs generally, then good photographs are crucial. I'd love to know how you get such good results with that set-up, Bottle. My own set-up is a lightbox, two desk lamps, a DSLR camera and, crucially, a wife who understands photography. If you can get one of them it helps a lot. One of the desk lamps is a problem though, as the bulb is going, so it just casts a fairly dim orange light. I combat the orange by putting a blue rubber glove over it, but you can always tell in my photos which side the good light is on, and the colour reproduction is sometimes not great.

This is a pretty epic month, if people feel a little disappointed with there number of votes/positions don't be, its for fun after all and your own personal challenge more than anything. We just all get to share it which is nice.

Thanks for the comment Guildenstern I was happy how my guys turned out after painting Orks for a year it was something different.

My list of top entries are similar to those already posted plus a few of my own unique voting criteria, but great work everyone, a pleasure to join you in this challenge with so many good entries.

 feltmonkey wrote:
My own set-up is a lightbox, two desk lamps, a DSLR camera and, crucially, a wife who understands photography. If you can get one of them it helps a lot. One of the desk lamps is a problem though, as the bulb is going, so it just casts a fairly dim orange light. I combat the orange by putting a blue rubber glove over it, but you can always tell in my photos which side the good light is on, and the colour reproduction is sometimes not great.

Similar to my set up (minus your wife) I have a bit of a mix which I'm sure doesn't help give the most professional image. A overhead lamp + magnifier, a small clip on LED goose neck and a big floor lamp. All different bulbs and light colours but it works enough to photograph most things. I've started tying tissue paper directly in front of them to reduce the glare/direct light on the model which has made the photos a bit darker so still need to do some tweaking.