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It's that time again! We've had some superb entries into April's 'Primal' round, a fantastic range of games and models and some great paintwork on show, and now it's time to pick the winners.

As usual, please feel free to cast a vote for any number of entries that catch your eye, for any reason, be that paintwork, conversion, ambition or anything else that you think deserves recognition. After 5 days the winners will be announced.

The entries:


Whittlesey40k: Heroquest Greenskins


u971: Tyranid Spore Mines


Chris56: Lizardman Carnosaur



ZoBo: The Chase


DanceofSlaneesh: Orc Warrior


Moolet: Ork Meganobz


CREEEEEEEED: Predator


GiraffeX: Elspeth On Carmine Dragon


TheDraconicLord: Ironjawz Brutes


methebest: Brass Bull



Guildenstern: Terrorgheist


Nevelon: Chaos Marauders


Vejut: Harbinger of Sobek


keezus: Arena Rex Gorgon


NinjaPirate: Orc Wyvern


Shuma-Gorath: Ork Runtherd


PossumCraft: Furie


El-Torminator: Tzaangor


ChaoticMind: Wookies


Modock: Ogre


Gundor2: Alien



Midget Gems: Snakebite Chariot


EmberLordofFire8: Adeptus Mechanicus Magos



GulGog TufToof: Bomb Squig


n1ceguypaul: SLAUGHTERPRIEST WITH HACKBLADE!


SmallChanges: Genestealer Abberants and Patriarch


Elbows: Thaug



feltmonkey: Varag Ghoul-Chewer


Paradigm: Possessed Death Guard Marine


Dukeofbeer: Morlocks



nathanD29: Great Unclean One

Just thought I toss out a few comments along with the vote:

Chris56: Sweet transitions on the Carnosaur skin color. I like it a lot. I think having more greenery on the base would help the composition a lot and your entry is let down a bit by the sparseness of the base.
ZoBo: Great storytelling in your scene.
DanceofSlaanesh: Love me some oldhammer complete with oldhammer codex styling. Awesome.
PossumCraft: This is very cool. I wish you posted a bigger picture.
El-Torminator: Nice job. I especially like the texturing on the blue.
Modock: I spent a LOT of time looking at your Ogre. It is awesomely painted... Unfortunately, I feel the bright green is drawing the eye directly to the pants, and then the eye follows down to the ankle wraps, and away from the upper torso where the focus would normally be. The metals are amazing. I especially like the purple tones you added.
n1ceguypaul: What did you use for the base of your diorama. It is a neat composition.
Guildenstern: Looking at your entry: I think all those painted highlights would 100% make me crazy.
Elbows: I don't know what your entry is... but I like it!
Gundor2: Nice work on a very cool model. I think that taking the photo from a bit further back might eliminate the focus problems.

I liked Chris56's Carnosaur, the DanceofSlaanesh's classic take on a 2nd ed. Goff, El-Trominator's work and the brass bull was really cool from methebest.

A lot of entries this month.

Voted,Special Thanks to ZoBo for teaching us how to make mushrooms,with which i made a necromunda hive fungus crop.


ZoBo,Now that is one damn good diorama.
Guildenstern,Sweet Dragon.
El-Torminator,Very Nice Colors on your Tzaangor.
ChaoticMind,how can i not vote for your Wookies there so fluffy.
GulGog TufToof,Very cool sclupting skills.
Paradigm,Scary Marine,lots of arms,very chaotic.

This is who i voted for:
Some great entries this month

Chris56 - My favourite entry, the blend from one colour to another is stunning on a great model!
Zobo - charachterful and fun, impressive paintjob to go with it. almost my favourite.
GiraffeX - Great model with a paintjob that does it justice
Keezus - groovy paintjob on that blue skin bro!

looking forward to taking part next month

Some really good stuff this month, can't wait for may's challenge!

Chris56 got my vote. Absolutely gorgeus work.

I have to it was a very fun challenge! Will definetly join into this competion in the future.

Great job everyone. I really enjoyed painting my HeroQuest figures, which I wouldn't have painted if it wasn't for this comp. Thanks Para!

My votes:

@Chris56 - great bright, sharp colours. I really like the change in colour from purple to green/yellow at the tip of the tail. Very subtle and well executed.

@ZoBo - the small squig looks terrified, the gobbo looks like a nasty little bugger, then the big squig is clearly about to stick up for the little 'un. A great diorama!

@DanceofSlaneesh - 2nd ed oldhammer. Always getting my vote!

@Guildenstern - great job. Those wings were worth the effort - great texture!

@Shuma-Gorath - another oldhammer Ork! Really good choice of colours - the green, red, blue and yellow shouldn't really go together, but work well.

@El-Torminator - a great model all round, but I love the disc. And very primal!

@Midget Gems - as always, loads of great little details. I always love your work!

@Elbows - still don't know what it is, but I like it I think I said it before, but the mouth looks great. Well, not great...terrifying!

Votes, in no particular order, this month for:

Chris56 - Nice, colourful work.
ZoBo - Great storytelling and humour in your diorama.
Moolet - Technically very nice. Great vivid ork skin.
Guildenstern - A very impressive model all round. Very eye-catching.
Modock - Another great piece. The base is great, and the textures on the wood and metal are very nicely done.
Midget Gems - A fun, colourful model. Great humour and detail.
n1ceguypaul - I love the base, and the sheer OTT nature of the gore. There's something funny about the contrast between the quite pretty tree and the scattered body parts!
Elbows - The best thing I've seen from you, I think. Nice work on the eyes and the details inside the mouth.
Paradigm - Pretty grim! I like the pose a lot.
NathanD29 - A really good, clean (if you can say that about a Nurgle daemon) paint job.

Great work everyone, though. It was hard to whittle it down to ten votes.

 keezus wrote:
Just thought I toss out a few comments along with the vote:


PossumCraft: This is very cool. I wish you posted a bigger picture.

Cheers
Dunno why the picture shows so small, it was bigger when I uploaded it

A very good set of entries this month if I do say so myself! My votes went to the following:
methebest: I love how that Brass Bull looks! For being one color (with shades and highlights of course), it is very interesting.
Guildenstern: Your Terrorgheist really turned out exceptionally well! You should be proud.
keezus: That is a very interesting sculpt, and your paintwork on it is really good.
Modock: Excellent job on that ogre! The colors on the model really pop.
SmallChanges: You are yet another painter that I've seen do an excellent job on those Genestealer Cult models from Deathwatch: Overkill. I really am going to have to pick up that set and have a go at those models myself. Awesome work!

It's a pity I wasn't able to focus on my entry and finish it, but it just wasn't going to happen unfortunately. Hopefully I can get something done for the May challenge. Shout out as always to Paradigm for running this inspiring challenge, and for his own outstanding paintwork! See you guys in the BOOM! challenge.

Another really tough month - I only joined a few months ago and people's entries seem to get better and better every time...which I suppose is kinda the point, I guess.

Anyhow, I loved the following in no particular order:

ZoBo - great diorama, I love the real sense of narrative in these models;
DanceofSlaneesh - very retrocool;
Moolet - awesome meganobz conversion, I am going to have to steal this idea for myself at some stage;
GiraffeX - a really good job on a tough model with both Elspeth and the dragon;
Guildenstern - really llked the terrorgheist;
keezus - as usual a really interesting model and colours;
Vejut - also a really cool model and paint scheme;
El-Torminator - cool tzaangor, really like the colours;
Elbows - great glossy realism;
and my fave Modock - the textures of the metals and stone on your ogre are really impressive (another thing I am going to try to steal...)

...AND so many other models were great as well.

See you all in 'Boom!'

Oof, Varag isn't going down very well!





:(

Tough luck for me that this theme isn't actual anymore. It's three days I've got a box of Beastmen Gors. :(

Still not last.

Lol no Votes,no surprise there my spore mines would get stuck in the toe of most of the models here ,ahh well not even slightly bothered learned new stuff,and helped me get in some practice painting tyranid flesh.

I always seem to vote for about a dozen people in these things. Good on ya' for everyone who entered and finished; I firmly believe that you gain something by doing so, particularly if you keep entering and finishing. I've tried to put in a few Dakka gallery votes here and there, but only if your pic links directly to the dakka gallery (we orks are lazy like that unless there's fighting about...) There have been a few times where someone has put in a comment on everyone's entry, and I know I appreciate the input, so here goes:

Whittlesey: Classic minis and a suitably classic paintjob; I particularly liked the treatment on the sword blade.
u971: Your lament about a lack of votes is justified; it is disheartening. That being said, I think you did a good job on these but there were just some more impressive minis in the comp (the bar in this thing get higher every month, I think). This is solid tabletop-quality work, and I hope you continue to enter the comps.
Chris56: The range of colors on this thing and the blending from one to the other is superb. Besides, what's more primal than dinosaurs, right?
Zobo: Nailed it (again!). The fourth pic down where you can see all the character's faces is what did it for me. This is narrative and fun but also flawlessly executed, which makes it one of my favorite entries this month.
DanceofSlaneesh: At first I thought you just copy/pasted an old 'Eavy Metal picture, but once I figured out that yours was an original that was going for that particular aesthetic, as someone else mentioned I think yours is actually better than the one it's trying to mimic (and I got a soft spot for old-school ork models).
Moolet: Klawz and sawz baby, klawz and sawz. I think the paint job could be a bit more dynamic, but I understand how much work goes into conversions and given that you modeled and painted a whole squad in just a month, I think they're pretty impressive.
CREEEEEEEED: (had to copy/paste to ensure I got the right # of E's) This is a decent tabletop-quality predator, but if you want to up your game a bit, research some other predators here on Dakka; there's lots that can be done for vehicles to make them go from good to jaw-dropping, and I suspect Dakka has all kind of tips probably even particular to this model.
GiraffeX, Guildenstern, and NinjaPirate: Dragons! (Sorry if you feel cheated that I'm lumping you all together, but it's late and there are like 30+ entries about which to rant) These are all solid paintjobs, and I think they all have similar strengths, namely that the (presumably large) amount of time involved to make them look this good is evident in both the overall effect and the details. These all have a nice range of colors, and solidly applied technique (highlights, etc.)
TheDraconicLord: These are good tabletop-quality minis too, but I think your photos don't do them justice.
MetheBest: I like everything about this miniature except the brass paint on the base. It's primal, classic, the brass/bronze tone was well executed, but the devil is in the details when you're looking at blown-up photos of miniature objects.
Nevelon: Nice to see something besides marines from you. These guys fit the primal bill to a t. The standard bearer is my favorite because of the shading/blending on the standard. Nice entry.
Vejut: Nice use of lighting effects; I think this worked really well for you on this model and I'm sure you could use the same technique on other models in the future.
Keezus: I think you captured the deific (it must be late, I'm making up words) essence of this model with the hues in the blue skin. Nicely done.
Shuma Gorath: I like that you took the time to paint the details like the stuff popping out of his fanny pack. I think a couple of washes would really help to differentiate the recesses from the raised bits though.
Possum: The red is working much better than the blue but I imagine you must have been stressed to switch mid-stream like that. Glad the mini turned out well in the end.
El-Torminator: Keep coming back to this one; I think this may be my favorite mini this month. If it were up to me, I think you would get the blue ribbon.
Chaotic Mind: Wookies! As someone else mentioned, the teeth on these are a little over the top, and since that's a result of the way they were modeled, I think you could have put a wash or something in there to tone it down a little bit. Otherwise a nice paintjob overall.
Modock: This is really well done; it looks like he's about to burst a blood vessel in his forehead or something. Very primal and excellently executed.
Gundor: I hate to say it, but I like the base more than the model. Monotone paintjobs are tricky, and I don't have any advice about how to do it, but the alien itself needs something more to make it not just grey.
Midget Gems: Snakebite Skorcha. You perfectly envisioned and captured the essence of what those two words could mean. This fits the primal theme flawlessly too.
EmberLord: It's definitely grimdark, but the photos don't do your mini justice. Can't really see the paintjob very well.
Gulgog: Wut Wut, Squigbutt!
niceguypaul: This is a solid paintjob and base; good effort. Because there was a painting competition recently with just this mini, there are better ones here on Dakka, but yours is up there.
Smallchanges: Nice tabletop minis, but I feel like there's more you could do to make these stand out.
Elbows: Holy crap, what is that thing and where did you find it? Primal and a solid paintjob to boot. The different fleshtones in the mouth are particularly convincing.
Feltmonkey: I like this guy (he's an ork after all, and he's got personality). It seems like you've got the same problem I typically do where the paintjob looks a little chalky. I'm not sure if it's the photo or the technique, but I think the conventional wisdom is to thin your paints a little more and maybe zoom out a bit when taking the photos.
Paradigm: The speed at which you consistently produce amazeballs-quality grimdark minis never ceases to amaze me. I must say though, I think I'm getting too accustomed to your style; I click on it, go "yep, another amazing Paradigm model" and then have to remind myself to actually take a minute or two to appreciate the work that went into it.
DukeofBeer: I think these are good, but would be better with a little more subtlety in blending of the different shades and maybe toning down the intensity of the color on the last one.
NathanD29: This one for me is kind of like paul's in that there are so many amazing Nurgle demons on Dakka that it's hard to make one that stands out. That being said, this is a great paintjob, and I'm sure that you must have spent a considerable amount of time on it.

Whew! Goodnite to you all, see you next month... Boom!




.

 u971 wrote:
Lol no Votes,no surprise there my spore mines would get stuck in the toe of most of the models here ,ahh well not even slightly bothered learned new stuff,and helped me get in some practice painting tyranid flesh.

Don't be discouraged. I think it was the combination of slightly iffy photos and a very simple model thats limiting your votes this time.

The concern I had with your pictures was focus; the depth of field seemed a bit off, so everything was out of focus except the one thing with all the mouths growing from the ground.
I can't really offer specific advice to fix that, as I don't know you camera, setup etc and generally get my own photos by pure luck

In terms of model, I suspect it's just tricky for people to be wowed by a simple model after looking through half a dozen of the very detail-spam type things that make up a lot of GW models.

I was personally only a half a fart from voting for you - it was just the blurriness of photos that made me hesitate.

Anyway, all that is not meant to down anybodies votes or choice of models Rather to say, keep it up, these challenges are great for improvement, motivation, and for finding really obscure models that other people have

Well, two votes for me is an all-time low. Sigh...

To be fair my images have improved, but they still have a ways to go.

PossumCraft wrote:

 u971 wrote:
Lol no Votes,no surprise there my spore mines would get stuck in the toe of most of the models here ,ahh well not even slightly bothered learned new stuff,and helped me get in some practice painting tyranid flesh.

Don't be discouraged. I think it was the combination of slightly iffy photos and a very simple model thats limiting your votes this time.

The concern I had with your pictures was focus; the depth of field seemed a bit off, so everything was out of focus except the one thing with all the mouths growing from the ground.
I can't really offer specific advice to fix that, as I don't know you camera, setup etc and generally get my own photos by pure luck

In terms of model, I suspect it's just tricky for people to be wowed by a simple model after looking through half a dozen of the very detail-spam type things that make up a lot of GW models.

I was personally only a half a fart from voting for you - it was just the blurriness of photos that made me hesitate.

Anyway, all that is not meant to down anybodies votes or choice of models Rather to say, keep it up, these challenges are great for improvement, motivation, and for finding really obscure models that other people have

EmberlordofFire8 wrote:Well, two votes for me is an all-time low. Sigh...

To be fair my images have improved, but they still have a ways to go.

Not my best showing either, But I’m OK with that. Got them off the bench and it was nice to paint something different for a change.

On photography. I’m sure someone who knows the stuff better could you give you some technical advice about depth of focus and F-stops, but the quick answer is to keep your camera farther back and then crop the picture. Most point and click cameras have a lens designed for average use. Even if they do have a macro mode for close ups, the glass bits are still not optimized for it. Most cameras do have plenty of resolution. And we’re not going for something that’s going to be blown up 20x and put on a HD screen. It’s for web use here.

When your camera is 6” away from the mini, the an inch of depth is a significant chunk of the field of view. When it’s 2’ away, that’s no problem for an average lens.

Hope that helps. I’ve done some research to help my own pics. But my undercafinated brain might not be explaining it well.

Yeah I agree was not my best photo's on the spore mines,i can take good pics just look at my gallery's pics most are bright in focus and clear,just one of those days it were,the mines used to be on my to do list,was more of just what i was doing and wanted something that took no effort that was small,happy with them anyway.

I got 6 votes! I did far better than I anticipated!

I think people shouldn't be hard on themselves. I've never gone above 4-5% in votes (i.e. a handful at best). The way I vote is completely illogical and wretchedly biased . I click on a picture. I either think "ohhhh..." or nothing. If it makes me go "oohhhh" then I'll vote for it. That means if the model is boring, I probably won't vote. If the paint scheme is not attractive to me, I won't vote. It's just a very quick gut instinct reaction. There are some great paintjobs I haven't voted for because they didn't do anything for me. Simple as that.

If we voted by perfection or pure skill in painting we'd end up with two or three of the same people each month. In fact I've skipped voting for a few things because they were too nicely painted (so much so that they were almost boring - if that makes sense!)

I ended up voting for like a dozen entries as well. I was really pleased to see a very unique selection of models this round!

And in other news, I'm finally able to place an order for the models I'm going to use for April's entry (not a typo)

as usual, a lot of great entries, and as usual, I wound up voting for about 15 I think

I'd have to say my favourite 3 are:
Chris56 - love the purple to yellow blend down the full length of it, really striking, and also nice and smooth...the base is a little barren though, a few rocks, maybe some grass tufts or something, and it'd be all-round great

El-Torminator - nice striking tzeentchy colours, but not overboard, and just a nice clean paintjob overall...I think the freckles around his shoulders really make it though, weirdly...just that extra bit of detail, y'know?

Modock - love the skin tones, and all the natural-looking variation in colour of the woods and armour plates

...I have to assume that a lot of people keep to a strict 1-5 vote limit or something, because there are a lot of entries that I feel should've received far more votes than they have...

...this challenge is also certainly not a purely objective painting skill quality assessment or anything like that, not by any means! - sure, a really well-done paintjob will get you votes...but it's also heavily influenced by everyone's subjective tastes in model choice, modelling, painting style, colour choice, general theme/tone of the finished piece, and also quite significantly, the quality of the images, even the background of the images plays a part...

basically...what I'm saying is, if you didn't get many votes, try not to let it get to you, as there's a fair chance it wasn't even your fault at all...there could've just been a handful of other entries that some people just preferred for whatever reason, even something as simple as the pictures being a little small/blurry/overexposed/underexposed...low votes are certainly not an attack on your painting/modelling skills

great entries again.. wish I could have voted for more. Again I've voted for those I've got the most pleasure from looking at rather than any particular criteria.

Well done Gulgog on commenting on everyone, I've done it twice before and its quite a bit of work. I almost did it last month (still have a file on my desktop with the first 3rd of the entries) but I just didn't get time.. so well done for finding the time.

to those who are disappointed by your number of votes, you've put a lot of effort in and I enjoyed looking at every model but so have others too so don't get disheartened. keep on joining in and enjoying the process. Some of the entries I've put the most effort into have got the least votes. The photography is also a huge part of it. My first ever entry I think I got the least votes I have ever got but during a game its one of the units people often ask to look and complement me on (my photos were quite poor). And my entry this month deserves way less votes than its got in my opinion, the painting on them is what I class as 'good' table top but I guess they have caught some peoples imagination as twist on normal meganobz though their actually painting is just 3 different colours (green skin, silver metal-weathered and a few browns) - Gulgog picked up on this in his comment =)


I think a lot of the votes go to those that are immediately pleasing to the eye. bare that in mind when you are painting and taking your pictures.

My votes + comments:

ZoBo,This is the winner for me. Great composition, palette, paintjob and theme. Blown away, be very proud of it.
Giraffe.This one didn’t jump out at me immediately but all the colours and textures are very well done. I think a light box, and a crisper shot would really do this model justice.. beautiful. Well done.
Guildenstern: Superb. This is a visually stunning model. You have a real eye for highlights. You’ve shown that you don’t need to have super smooth transitions to create a show stopper. Well done.
Vejut: no idea where you get all these cool models from but i love your pieces. The models you choose are often not as finely cast as something from GW and I know the pain of having to paint some of those models and I think you do it excellently.
Keezus: love your paint style and this is a great model painted so well. Bravo
El-Torminator: this model again didn’t jump at me to begin with but the more i look the more i appreciate some of the subtleties to it. The dark blue recesses to the light green flesh looks great though not immediately obvious. Well done.. love it.
Modock: this was my winner until i saw ZoBo’s entry. I’d say this wins on technical expertise though. Month after month i see some much attention to detail put into your palette selection, its incredible. Beautiful.
Gulgog: another person i find myself voting for again and again. All your entries, much like midget’s have such character.
N1ceguypaul: great entry. Lots of character, lots of colour. A bit too much blood for my tastes (i did the same with my slaughterpriest [slaughternob] though) but a well painted model on a carefully put together base.

Hey, decent table-top has been all I've wanted for 4-5 years now, so it's good enough for me.

Cheers guys for the feedback really happy with my entry this month. Hats off to all you guys who finished and for all the guys who gave actual feedback. Will try and up my own contributions over the coming months but actually finishing and getting photos is hard enough.

Great job zobo really loved the fun feel of this wonderful piece. Wish i didnt have to vote for it ( ggggrrrrrrr) but its so damn good

n1ceguypaul wrote:
Cheers guys for the feedback really happy with my entry this month. Hats off to all you guys who finished and for all the guys who gave actual feedback. Will try and up my own contributions over the coming months but actually finishing and getting photos is hard enough.

Great job zobo really loved the fun feel of this wonderful piece. Wish i didnt have to vote for it ( ggggrrrrrrr) but its so damn good

haha...thanks man ...I really liked your entry too...should've got a lot more votes imo...great base on that wooden dome, and all those cool little details like the mini leaves, flowering shrubs...and a full-on tree!...and the scene of him standing there admiring the horrible mess he's just made of that poor stormcast chap! ...I dunno man, might've just been the pics letting you down a bit again, but for a different reason than last time with Vulkan...this time the pics are nice and clear...but, the bright white background kinda overwhelms it and sucks all the light out of the model, it almost just looks like a silhouette at a glance...you have to really stop and have a good proper look at it to really "see" any of the details ...maybe a stronger light, or a lamp or something pointed at it from the front?...or slightly darker, more neutral background, like smoky grey or something (disclaimer: I know sod all about photography, and just use my phonecam and get lucky...but just I have a hunch that either a darker background, or a light pointed at it might help)

So, my votes went:

Chris56
PossumCraft
El-Tom
Modock
GulGog
Elbows

will probably write more later, but just a short note, I felt those were among some of the best examples of the theme this month. Everyone did such an awesome job it was really hard to pick! as usual