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--Year 7--

March 21 -- No Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Space Marine
April 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Traveling in Style
May 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- From Ages Past
June 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Boots on the Ground
July 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself
August 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Rebel Scum
September 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Heavy Metal
October 21 -- No Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Halloween Special
November 21 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Catch Me If You Can
December 21 -- No Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Open Round
January 22 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Force of Nature
February 22 -- Poll -- Challenge -- Vote -- Age Before Beauty.

I know we’re not quite done with the year yet, but I like to ramble and woolgather over my weekend coffee, so am starting this thread a little early. It can also serve as a reminder that the month is almost over and people still working on their February entries really need to get a move on. Please take a movement to look back at all we’ve achieved this year. I know it can come across as cliché, but it really is an honor to paint alongside all of you in the challenge every month. It’s a great supportive community all pushing to improve ourselves and fight the endless grey hordes of the Pile of Shame.

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So a lot lower volume than last year. 32 models. Which is actually closer to my normal level of competition count; last year was abnormally high. Part of me wants to see if I can get to the 60 model max year goal, but practically finding 5 minis that fit the theme and are in my pile of shame for every months is unlikely to happen. Plus would pretty much mean everything I painted would be for the comp, which would impact my other goals. Still, I continue my streak of entering every month this has gone on, and 32 is not a bad number.

For variety it’s nothing earthshaking in paint schemes. Mostly just executing my standard jobs on more minis. The biggest stretch was adapting my tyranid scheme into GSC for the old Magus. Looking at it, putting new paint on old minis was a quarter of the year. I’m not one of the painters in the comp who routinely breaks out the old lead, but I do my bit from time to time.

The big standout for the year was the flyrant actually getting me on the podium. It was a 6-way tie for 3rd, but I’ll take any sliver of bronze I can get. The Exocrine/Hausperex also polled well. I guess you guys like the big bugs. They were also pretty tight on their respective themes, which helps. The tyrant was probably my favorite thing for the month, but I’m also quite fond of the assault intercessors. Bottom of the pack is the War Walker. Just could not get into that model, and it shows on the paintjob. Bit flat and phoned in.

I really enjoy the arctic camo on the incursors, and am a bit sad I’m running out of phobos units. Still have some snipers, so not finished yet. And it will show up on Eldar scouts, stay tuned for those...

Flyrant was fun to do, and came together incredibly quickly. Might have broke my record for sprue-to-finish. I gush on about the virtues of contrast paints and nids for good reason. Solid work, fast.

It was fun getting old lead across the bench. 2/3rds of those guys were part of my original BA army. While remote, there is now at least a chance to see battle again.

Assault guys are just so much more fun than riflemen. So much more dynamism and character. Really enjoyed these guys and how they turned out.

H/E is another big bug. After the flyrant he felt just more like kicking the model across the bench. Still fun, but less interesting.

The Magus was a bit of a stretch. I don’t play a lot of “rebel” factions so I dusted him off and gave him a bodyguard. Some day I might kick off a full cult uprising, but have enough pots on the fire right now.

The HI are just my Ultra paint on slightly chunkier marines. More tabletop work, but progress for the battle company. And not bad on the theme.

Chainwrasps are starting to scrape the bottom of the Soul Wars box. I painted 10 of them and chose the best 5. I have another 10, but should really do something different next year for October. Getting tired of entering nighthaunts.

I wanted to get both WWs done, just managed one. Not a lot of love for the model. So many nooks and crannies to get a brush into. Not sure painting it in parts would help a lot, unless it was just on the sprue. Out of the Pile of Shame, so that’s a win. Trying to clear the old stuff out of there, and it qualified. Especially want to clear the decks for the new Eldar.

Eradicators. These guys were included mostly to help me reach my goal of getting a demi-co of primaris done by the end of the year. Which they did. Open round is good for helping motivate towards non-competition goals.

SK is another big bug, although smaller then the other ones this year. Which seems odd when talking about carnefexes. Game-scale creep at work. They used to be living battering rams of destruction. Now they are a middling threat. Still, fun to paint.

This month was going to be an old TML/HB speeder that has be loitering in the primed pile for WAY too long, but then the banshee sub-challenge started and I had to dust off the old gal to participate. She was fun to do. I might find guns for her lost sisters and bring them back into the fold.

Good work on getting those Ultras sorted out. I particularly like the Incursors, riffing on the camo theme.

Love the Haruspex as well. Its so gribbley!

I managed to complete 8 out of 12 this year, which may be a personal best. I got into a great run over the summer, then burned out by October and had to miss out a few

Concentrating on random stuff for Stargrave and Necromunda. Still firmly in the "decent quality" category I think. I get great enjoyment for completing stuff, but definitely don't have the patience to win any awards

Main skills expansion was on the airbrush this year. At my comfort level, it gives great results much more easily that with a hairy brush. Starting to learn about pre-shading a bit more.

I also gave contrast paints a go and got some really nice effects. Especially that blue!

Favourite entry this year was my hunting party with the spider-mech and doggoes I think. Its also been nice to finally finish my Mass Effect APC from 11 years ago this month!

This year ended up being a very Marvel-focused year, with half my entries being models from the Marvel Crisis Protocol skirmish game.

Apart from the Porphyrion (which was painted to match an existing (older) collection), and despite a lot of my entries still being gaming pieces, I'm pretty happy with all of these pieces.

I think Baby Yoda is definitely my favorite entry of the bunch (and hilariously was also the quickest to paint as well, taking only a couple hours).

I think tangentially this has also been a really good year for my hobby; while I haven't been painting a lot for competition, I haven't been grinding out armies either, which has allowed me to just focus on painting fun single-models that I don't need to duplicate (yay MCP!).

Do I have any goals for 2022-2023? Probably more of the same for now. I don't think my gaming patterns are going to change, which means I still won't be grinding out armies. However, because my goal for 2022 is to finish the year with no unpainted models, I do have some larger pieces I'd like to fit into this painting challenge when the theme allows.

This was my first full year of painting for this contest with the exclusion of a month I missed back at the beginning of 2021. I've jumped around a lot between styles, models, manufacturers and games.

There are things I would do differently but even with them, I feel quite proud of what I've learned this last year. It feels like my first real attempt at getting serious and applying what I've seen. I'm nowhere near the level I want to be and that means that I'll need to grow some more over 2022... and indeed no doubt the rest of my life.

I think my favorite piece from the lot of these represented here is that famous Dakkasaurus. It was a blast to paint and it reminds me daily that I have come so far and that I have so far yet to go. That's what this is though... a place to learn and grow.

I took the leap into competition painting this year and in the last two months have placed in the top 8 three times. Once claiming a second place prize. It feels really surreal to me... A year ago I was terrified of NMM and today I'm trying to beat pro painters in competitions. My target has shifted so much... I feel a need to cling to this one grounding thing in the whole of the internet. A place where I can always go to learn and be inspired by people that know me by my highs and lows of art.

Goals? Honestly, I'd like to learn more. I haven't even really started to scratch the surface on so many techniques, not to mention freehand art... It's daunting... but it's what I intend to focus on this year. Becoming an Artist. If I'm any bit lucky, I might finally be able to replace my 9-5 with something I have a passion for. I consider that my ultimate goal.

Thanks Nev, you made it easy with the links to all threads to get my pics quickly together

I managed to go the full year again, but some entries were last minute. I don't really like painting and it shows in that this is the maximum of effort that I will ever use on miniatures They are fine for gaming and when viewed from normal distance. Sometimes I may get gaudy and paint some eyes, but other than that I take every shortcut I can get. Happily Contrast helps with that a lot. And my main goal with the comp is, that I paint at least something every month.

Going through the year I definitely erred towards Marvel towards the end. My favorite is Daredevil, he painted up so quick and looks just like I wanted him too.

@ Viterbi - your results don’t show your aversion to painting that’s for sure! Solid work, and the colours on the undead knights look amazing.

@Freya - great work all year. The Dakkasauraus is epic, but I prefer the demon Hunter. The textures and glowy runes just look superb!

@DV8 - I love seeing your entries. I’m glad you feel that you got to slow down a bit this year. It’s no fun being under pressure to grind out more of the same.

Yay, thanks for starting this thread Nevelon. My 2nd year in the challenge and still enjoying it a lot, even though it's sometimes an extra challenge to get though this while being both super ambitious and really sceptical of competitive affairs (I'm being the same in regard to online gaming, funnily) :p



Got something done every month and the only entry I phoned in was the Deathwatch dude/Stealer pair. I do feel a bit stuck with this 'grimdark, but with fancy colours!' style, maybe should experiment a bit more with the Kimera set I got last year and ultimately just used for one mini. Interestingly, my 40K to Fantasy ratio switched from 8:4 to 4:8 from last year, mostly due to the Cursed City minis which are just too good ... ^^

Thanks to Nevelon for starting this thread. It's been a blast looking at what everyone entered this past year.



Participating in these challenges has inspired me to push myself outside of comfort zone and really improved my painting. Thanks to Paradigm for running these events every month!

@ Nevelon : Well done for getting all of those onto the painted shelf, and all to a good standard too.
@ Flinty : That's a nicely eclectic collection. Your Evangelion-themed hover bikes are cool, I like the way that you repurposed the misprints as scatter terrain.
@DV8 : Consistently excellent work, even your collage looks professional. My favourites are the sharp black armour on the Deathwatch biker and the “illustration style” paint scheme on the Beast.
@Freya : All hail the Dakkasaurus! Fun though the D-Rex is, I think my favourites are actually your moody take on Revan and your 80's-fantasy-illustration-style dragon, which is one of your best yet.
@Viterbi : I would not have guessed that you don't like painting, given all the painted terrain in your backdrops and your signature use of that turquoise metallic colour in many of your models.
@MobileSuitRandom : I like your “grimdark with fancy colours” style. I'd like to paint more in a similar style myself, it's atmospheric without being drab.
@ JoshInJapan : The muted tones and NMM you use really suit the classic miniatures. Those Banshees are lovely.

As to my own efforts, my goal was to submit an entry for each month this year, but I missed the last two. My subjects were quite similar to last year, generally a mix of Eldar and Imperium plus an SD Gundam for good measure.

I've been painting various ersatz Deathwatch marines to perfect a black armour colour scheme. This marine was my first, those since are better and hopefully an actual Deathwatch marine in the final scheme will appear at some point this year.

The grot bomb is a characterful little model. I was using it to try out some new paints. I struggled with them a bit but the sculpted detail on the model is very forgiving and responded well to washes and panel lining.

The robot from Blackstone Fortress was painted as a Gundam homage, but it got hit by an exploding bottle of sand pigment and cleaning it up did the already rather sloppy paintwork no favours.

Five more troopers from the 122nd Cadian. Since I had already painted five of these guys the previous year I decided to push my skills and paint the eyes on these ones. They came out quite well.

The first of two harlequins, painted to resemble the model's art from the original box these miniatures were sold in.

A trio of cultists. The blotchy skin effect came out better than expected, and I'm quite happy with them.

For this 54mm figure I painted in the highlights and shadows rather than using washing and dry brushing to achieve them. It looks good from a distance, but I'm not sure the result was worth the extra effort. I made sure to paint the eyes on this miniature, which is much easier at the larger scale.

For Halloween I painted this LotD marine with an emphasis on the bones on his armour. The base effect was a nod to the LotD's traditional flame motif.

Another Harlequin, again based on box art. The bases on these Harlequins are my attempt at the style from Blackstone Fortress.

Lastly, Space Adventurer Kitty. This is a slight modification of an official Gundam / Hello Kitty crossover kit. It was painted as a gift so I spent all month on it, which paid off with it being my highest-polling entry this year. It was also the first time that I'd used a medium rather than plain water to thin the paint, and it made a big difference to being able to get thinner, smoother coats of paint.

Once again, thanks to Paradigm and Nevelon for running the challenge each month.

Finally done the final table

A fun year every done everyone, 366 entries from 74 different people across the year. Only 14 more to go until 100 challenges run

League table is here if people want to see their positions

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/732117.page#9481149

 Midget Gems wrote:
Finally done the final table

A fun year every done everyone, 366 entries from 74 different people across the year. Only 14 more to go until 100 challenges run

League table is here if people want to see their positions

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/732117.page#9481149

It is kind of crazy how long we’ve been at this. For 100 challenges you should stitch all the data together for a mega-league table and crunch all the stats. But that’s over a year out, so plenty of time.

Thanks for keeping that updated, always fun to see the standings.

@flinty

I do love that demon hunter very much. She was a ton of work and I can see what I'd do different next time but she pushed me to my limits of blending and it went so nicely. Next time I'll add more finish work to the end half and I'll be able to feel like it's complete.

@turaxa

I also love that Revan a lot. I am planning to send it to a friend of mine who loves Revan and I think he's gonna flip once he sees it.

The dragon was something I was experimenting on and while I didn't feel like I really gave her my best and that I could have done more with her, I also didn't have the ability to so I can't hold it against myself too much. The colors, the finish, it's a lot more in the direction I'm trying to go. It's what I want my style to be. An old fantasy illustration... my inspiration is actually a magic the Gathering artist whom I am in love with their art style. Jason Chan (favorite art is Gisela, blade of Goldnight) is my eventual goal.

I think my favorite of yours is you'd fighter plane. You went out and did some hand made decals and that's huge. It's a great way to make models stand out and to show your love for the craft.

@josh
I loved your work this year and I think my favorite was you'd war dancer. Remember that you can have an amazing piece and still lose. That's the beauty and pain of art... you're up against dozens or more pieces and sometimes someone else just does something amazing. Doesn't mean you didn't do a fantastic job... but more that a couple other people did something slightly more catching or fancy. I lose all the time in bigger competitions. And yeah... sometimes it's heartbreaking. But in the end, it doesn't make you a bad artist. We're all here to learn and help others to learn from us. So please keep playing and painting and loving what you do.

@mobile
Your art is really inventive. I like your style and I hope you push your painting more this year!