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Welcome all to the 53rd round of the Unofficial 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. I am stepping in this month for Paradigm who normally runs these challenges but is busy with important RL stuff! (He'll still be able to finish a unit before I've done 1 model)

This month, the theme is Wild World. From alien horrors to wild beasts to powerful druids commanding elemental forces, the natural world is often every bit as fearsome as that of technology. Your entry should be themed around nature, the elements, wild creatures, untamed killer rabbits and so forth.

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.


How Long Do I Have?
This challenge begins 1st of JUly and will end at midnight UK time on the 31st of July. After this, We shall compile the finished entries into a new thread, and voting will run for 5 days.

List Of Entrants:

Nevelon: Wood Elf Dryads (Finished)


Rybrook: Space Marine Librarian (Finished)


Jadenim: Kroot Cold One Rider (Finished)


Captain Brown: OOP Forge World Eldar Wave Serpent (Finished)


Tikay Fortooun: Wulfen (Finished)


queen_annes_revenge: Manfred von Richtohofen, Der Rote Kampffleiger (Finished)


OzAl:


DV8:


Modock: Vortun from Mierce (Finished)


Bellerophon: High Elf Flamespyre Phoenix! (Finished)


Jamie Shred: Karcharos (Finished)


Tim the Biovore: Gorthor Beastman Chariot (Finished)


ZergSmasher: Wulfen (Finished)


Tyranid Horde:


Oryza Sativa:


Midget Gems: Ork Snakebite Cold One Riders (Finished)


Maharg: Beastmen (Finished)


feltmonkey: Swamp Thing (Finished)


Theophony: Beef or Pork? (Finished)


Warpig1815: Carcharodons Primaris Lieutenant (Finished)


Gulgog TufToof: Sector Imperialis buildings (Finished)


Chris56: Rocket and Groot bust (Finished)


Argive: Eldar Spirit Seer


Deadshot: Savage Orcs (Finished)


dukeofbeer: D&D Druid (Finished)


Stormatious: Abaddon The Despoiler (Finished)


Vejut: Oathsworn Shrews (Finished)


Paradigm: Morki, Blood Claw (Finished)

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas...

Pics to follow once I’m a little less trashed from a 9 hour road trip and have time to dig through the depths of my pile of shame to find some little chunks of forgotten metal.

Edit:
Got wood?


From my WHFB Wood Elf army that never really got off the ground. But a bunch of angry trees to get some paint. I’ll grab 5 out of the pack and slap some paint on them. Might try out some effects with the new contrast paints over some different basecoats.

Anyone got a tip what I could use for the Eldar to match the theme
Really hit a wall on this one (I had an awesome thing planned for the "helping Hand" vote but that's not happening )

This theme is my perfect excuse to build and paint my High Elf Flamespyre Phoenix. I'll sort out a proof photo in a couple of days.

 Argive wrote:
Anyone got a tip what I could use for the Eldar to match the theme
Really hit a wall on this one (I had an awesome thing planned for the "helping Hand" vote but that's not happening )

Exodites are the obvious one, but if you want to stick to craftworlds... Perhaps a converted psyker with some sort of elemental power effect?

 Bellerophon wrote:
This theme is my perfect excuse to build and paint my High Elf Flamespyre Phoenix. I'll sort out a proof photo in a couple of days.

 Argive wrote:
Anyone got a tip what I could use for the Eldar to match the theme
Really hit a wall on this one (I had an awesome thing planned for the "helping Hand" vote but that's not happening )

Exodites are the obvious one, but if you want to stick to craftworlds... Perhaps a converted psyker with some sort of elemental power effect?

Shhhh! That's my planned entry!

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

 Bellerophon wrote:
This theme is my perfect excuse to build and paint my High Elf Flamespyre Phoenix. I'll sort out a proof photo in a couple of days.

 Argive wrote:
Anyone got a tip what I could use for the Eldar to match the theme
Really hit a wall on this one (I had an awesome thing planned for the "helping Hand" vote but that's not happening )

Exodites are the obvious one, but if you want to stick to craftworlds... Perhaps a converted psyker with some sort of elemental power effect?

Shhhh! That's my planned entry!

Phoenix twins! Or do you mean the psyker? Or the exodites...

Ah should have clarified, Exodite psyker was the plan

I might do a bit of fantasy for this one as I don't really have nay other ideas.. Maybe someone on a nice natural base.

Does a librarian count as a druid, they can summon lightning after all


*EDIT*

I'm entering Tiggy as a druid/ mage.

Can the real tiggy please stand up?

So I am thinking some Rashaar from Carnevale, hellhounds/aliens/predators from Aliens Vs Predator or Kroot from 40k.

What would you like to see? I'm on holiday til the end of the week so will get proof pics up then.

I am painting an Eldar Wave Serpent...old FW style.

Cheers,

CB

Probably going to be short of time again this month, so I’ll probably only do the front guy (and the rear one is too far along for the competition), but I’m going to give my Knarloc rider conversions a go:

Wild World for Captain Brown is an old, partially rebuilt (with a few parts scratch built) Forge World Wave Serpent...with resin jewels and bridge (none of these weather vanes). When this model was in it's heyday it was way too powerful and wildly out of step with it's intended role...I mean it was like a main battle tank that flew and carried troops. So I painted several up over the years, but they only started seeing the field in 7th and now 8th Edition.



Including two turrets for alternate weapons.

Cheers,

CB

I have some Wulfen I need to paint. And some fenrisian wolves. I’ll try to do the lot and pick my favourites at the end...

I changed my mind. Got this bust of Manfred Von Richthofen. What's more wild than defying nature in a aircraft combat.

YES QAR! I've wanted to see you let loose on a bust for months now!

I have an Orc Pirate bust that I will paint up for this. What's more wild and untamed than the unholy union of savage Orc and swashbuckling Pirate?

I'll post a picture tonight when I get home from work.

Yeah I'm looking forward to it! Will be nice to have a break and do someting bigger.

Never done one of these before but excited to have a go!

It’s about time I painted my Aspect of the Storm.

Proof photo attached.

Proof pic.

Cool bust that one...it's gonna be a sight to behold.

I've been painting mostly Infinity minis and I definitely need a break from them.
Gonna do a "proper" mini for this theme, a troll from Mierce miniatures. IMO Mierce does the coolest and meanest looking trolls.

Vörtun, Two Axe Troll Kappi

 Argive wrote:
Anyone got a tip what I could use for the Eldar to match the theme
Really hit a wall on this one (I had an awesome thing planned for the "helping Hand" vote but that's not happening )

Maybe something with lots of Wraithbone in the model?

Good idea Jadenium, I was thinking of maybe doing a cold one conversion too, still tbc.

Quuen Ann, DV8 really looking forward to seeing your "bust off"

Welcome and good luck OzAl

Thats a very cool model Modock, looks like lots of nice detail for you to work your magic on

Proofs now up to date, lots of good entries already. Not sure what I'm going to do to, still trying to work it out

Thanks Midget Gems; one tip if you (or anyone) want to convert Kroot riders is to swap the legs between models. The standing poses have some of them with right foot forward and some with left foot forward, if you split them and remix so that you have two “forward” feet, with straight legs, or two “back” feet, with bent legs, they work much better as straddling models. For example the one at the back of my photo has two “back” feet, which works well for a “standing in the stirrups” pose.

Finally sorted out my proof - High Elf Flamespyre Phoenix, new on sprue. I bought last year sometime when I had a sudden burst of nostalgia for my WHFB and decided I wanted to add some more models to my High Elf army. Bought it, and promptly went back to painting Eldar. So, this month's topic is a great motivator to get it built and painted. I'm probably going to do it as the flamespyre variant, if only because it fits my red-and-cream high elf scheme better than the frostheart. I'll also probably do it without a rider, if only because that feels marginally more fitting to this month's theme.

Thanks for sharing that tip Jadenim, sounds like a cunning plan if ever I've heard one.

Really looking forward to seeing what you do with that entry Bellerophon, your last ones have been great .

Hopefully gonna get mine sorted over the weekend, will be raiding my boxes and ideas book to see what I can find and get finished in a month.

Here's my proof pic. A Karcharos from the Rashaar faction for Carnevale. Half shark half beast.

And here's today's progress. I have tried a bit of a rough wet blend for the skin as it's a one off model I won't need to paint again. Started with Russ grey, then some coat d'arms shadow grey, then mixed in a bit of eshin grey and finally pure eshin grey. All pulled together with a stripe of coelia greenshade down then middle and a 2:1 black/blue wash everywhere else.

As always feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Storming ahead on this bust. The larger scale makes blending on the model much faster. Will probably have him done by the end of next week.

Been meaning to join in one of these for a while now. I'll throw in Gorthor the Beastlord.

Proof -

Waited longer than I should have to throw down with a proof, but here it is:

For this month, I'm going to really challenge myself and see if I can paint a unit of Space Wolves Wulfen. These guys have a lot of detail on them, and I also have other painting stuff I need to get done, so I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

Starting my Exodite force with a Seer of some description: