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Vote time!

This month the topic was: Out With the Old, In With the New -- Try new techniques, or break out whatever was bought/received as holiday gifts. Alternatively, dig deep in the pile of shame or the back of the painting station and tackle something that has been waiting for while. This can be more of a technical challenge, where the focus is on how you paint (trying something new) a/o meta (painting something actually new/old) or go more literal and paint a raw recruit a/o seasoned veteran. As always take inspiration from the topic and express it in you entry.

As always, you're free to hand out as many votes as you like, and for any entry you feel deserves recognition, based on anything from technical proficiency or model choice, a neat conversion or a cool take on the theme, or anything else! You're also very welcome to leave some feedback here for the entrants, and many of the images click through to the Dakka gallery if you'd like to give out a vote or two there as well.

Daia T'Nara - Chaos Outrider


Captain Brown – Tower


halfling84 - Taurox Venator and Outrider Quad


KidCthulhu - Therion Darksoul


youwashock – Raziel


Xyabis - Elf Adventurers


Mr Nobody – Thousand Sons Dreadnought


XvArcanevX - Varghulf Courtier w/ Crypt Guard


JoshInJapan - Usagi Yojimbo and Murakami Gen'nosuke


Dirk Deadly - Lord of Plagues


Syro_ - Killa Kans


Gulgog TufToof - Gnot Tank.


Geifer - Naboo royal court


Leopold Helveine - Lugganath Eldar Jetbikers


inmygravenimage - Deep One sorcerer on docks


Maharg - Orcs


Vejut - Usagi Yojimbo


Pariah Press - Rogue Traders


Midget Gems - Knight of the Realm


Mothsniper – Sligg Thrall


Turaxa – Zombies


Pursuit Of Happiness - Mollog the Mighty


Jadenim - Mozrog


Pneumo – What If? Witch King of Angmar


CancelledApocalypse - Witch Aelves


Ezki -Triss Merigold


Nevelon – Terminator Librarians


ShadowsAndDust - Char Aznable Custom


DJJazzyJeff - Librarian


Poll will run for 5 days. If I missed anyone or something needs to be fixed, let me know.

Got some time and energy for comments.

Daia T'Nara--nice conversion, good clean white, and some nice freehand

Captain brown--love those hazard stripes, some nice weathering

Halfling84--nice weathering, very flash and well used vehicles, impressive to get them done in a month!

Kid cthulu-- ghost effects are always fun. I like the glow on his chest.

Youwashock--I like the blends on the thighs, and the contrast of texture between the cowl and skin

Xyabis-- clean work on the trim, and nice freehand on the 2nd ones pants and the first one's cape

Mr Nobody-- love how the panels came out on this, the extra highlights on the trim, just a great model all around

XvArcanevX-- love the skin, and the little details with the bloodstains and rust

JoshinJapan-- NMM on the blades is great! Also really like the purple on gen's tunic.

Dirk Deadly-- very inflamed looking skin, nice contrast with the armor.

Syro_ -- scratchbuilds are always fun, nice use of some of the peices for the weapons.

Gulgog TufToof-- another nice scratch build, and great weathering. Hangs together very well, you got the seams right on-not easy to do!

Geifer: nice blends, and very colorful!

Leopold Helveine -- love the use of the checks here, and the yellow wings and pretty nice

Inmygravenimage--dock is appropriately grimey, love the algae effect. Scales on the sorcerer are also pretty ace, I'll have to use that trick with the blue.

Maharg--love the tones on the skin of these orcs! Choppas are wonderfully rusty too.

Pariah press--checkers came out nice, and some nicely quirky characters.

Midget Gems -- wonderful broad set of colors on these guys, love the repeated heraldry on the horses as well as the shields

Mothsniper-- love both sets of skin on this guy, and some great NMM. Little piggy is great. Fun model!

Turaxa--nice color choice on the skin, and picking out all the gribbly damage on them.

Pursuit of happiness -- lots of very intense colors on there, came out very well. Frog is having a very bad day.

Jadenim-- fun model, only thing scarier than an ork is an ork on a shark! Like the heat discoloration on the exhausts. Well chosen tattoo on his arm.

Pneumo -- great sculpting, I like the armor color and the gradient on the sword.

CancelledApocalypse -- hair and leather especially came out very nicely on these! I also like the pale skin.

Ezki-- lots of subtle tones in the skin, different textires and styles on different parts, the nice glow effct, just a great work all over!

Nevelon -- blue is great as ever, like how the witch-rune on the force weapon came out!

ShadowsAndDust --fun to see gunpla! Impressive amount of detail, and nice work accenting things.

DJJazzyJeff--love the freehand illumination on the book. Armor came out well as well, and not a bad power effect on the axe.

Great set of entries all around, and congrats to everyone on another finished year of finished models.

Thanks Vejut!

My top picks this month are: Ezki (just a breathtaking piece of art, Triss has never looked so good), Maharg (lovely work on those orky skintones and so much nostalgia from those minis - makes me want to get my old Combat Cards out!) and XvArcanevX (beautiful grisly work, that blood looks so fresh and delicious... I mean, sickening! Sickening, definitely...)

Great work from everyone (as usual) and thanks to Nev and MG for all they do.

My 5 comment-awards.

Ezki -Triss Merigold
I'm more of a Yennefer fan but that's a beautiful sculpt, such a fine paint deserves all the praise. The Fabric of her tunic looks practically real, and that jewel.. holy heck. Is this even real? The skin and her lips.. you didn't pluck this one out of a witcher museum did you?

XvArcanevX - Varghulf Courtier w/ Crypt Guard
that's some really detailed zombies etc man, grimdark and that vargulf base blood is a great touch.

halfling84 - Taurox Venator and Outrider Quad
I like the sandyness of it all, will be hard targets in a canyon.

Nevelon – Terminator Librarians
Love the contrast of the perfect deep blue again against the snowies. But its the subtle ultra turquoise detail on the psyker and detail on DAT AXE that sell it for me.

ShadowsAndDust - Char Aznable Custom
LOL @ the pic where he's laying down on his belly :')
But more serious; takes me back to the days I was a playing videogames nolifing in gundam dw warriors (maining master-gundam and F91 gundam)
I like it, its a pretty original entry too, and the paint is clean and solid.

Kind regards too all who voted on my entry, I know it wasn't my best because of februari having been disaster-month for me. So its k.
-Helveine.

Vejut, Cancelled Apocalypse and Leopold Helveine … thanks for the comments!

I did think a fair bit about how I was going approach the Flesheaters and was worried about adding the blood effects but, in the end, you just can’t get away from gore with those units.

I used a water effect with a drop of red for the pools and it worked out pretty well.

The green blue tone on the skin was practiced on the previous months zombie models (I used that opportunity to try out a lot of different skintones). It was important to me to find a technique that wasn’t too demanding so I can get through the models I have in a reasonable amount of time. To that end contrast paints played a large role. There was still a large amount of time painting details and highlighting though, but it is still doable as a ‘factory line’ process I think. For this competition I obviously went a bit further than I will for the bulk of the units.

The Varghulf I thought suited the exaggerated maw, so I tried to give his lips the appearance of a Great White Shark with the protruded bloody gums. I like how it turned out I think.

I really enjoyed painting these little creepy fellas, they are an amusing lot.

Anyway, I’ll be posting my obligatory comments for all later today or tomorrow. Thanks again for the positive feedback, I know I say it alot, but it really is encouraging.

Thanks for the comments Leopold and Vejut! I very much appreciate it.

Great showing for the final round of the season

Not had much free time recently between work and the kids but finally had some time to site down and do a full set of comments

Daia T'Nara - You must be getting quite the collection of this style of army/model, good pose and details
Captain Brown - Very nice tower, a good level of detail and weathering in there and interesting additions like the cables and hazard strips.
halfling84 - Excellent weathering on your vehicles, really like the chips and the dust in the tires.
KidCthulhu - Looks very ethereal, well done
youwashock - Very cool character, the details on the face are nicely done.
Xyabis - Good Solid painting, the leg strips can be hard to do and some extra little details added in the painting which are nice.
Mr Nobody - very nice shading on the blue and detail on the metalwork, looks really good.
XvArcanevX - The details look great (just need some bigger pics so we can see all the effort you have out into the painting)
JoshInJapan - 2 unique and very cool models, nicely done
Dirk Deadly - looks very disgusting which is exactly as it should do.
Syro_ - Very creative idea Syro, and nice mob of 5 of them.
Gulgog TufToof - I've noticed grot tanks are getting a bit of attention recently which is great, nice conversion with the missile rack.
Geifer - Blending on the 2 end models/body guards is really seamless, very nice.
Leopold Helveine- the checks have come out really well and are one of the hardest parts to get right.
inmygravenimage - very interesting model + setting and I like the combo of contrasting colours.
Maharg - Some old skool orcs in there, I strongly approve
Vejut - Samurai(?) rabbits must be like buses, I wasn't expecting to see 2 in the vote, nice neat painting
Pariah Press - They look very thematic as rogue traders. good job
Midget Gems - Generally happy with these for tabletop standard, had to make sure I got the goblin green bases in
Mothsniper - great combo of colours on the 2 different models skins, really works well together,
Turaxa - Good neat painting and definitely look like zombies
Pursuit Of Happiness - Nice bright colours with good blending between them.
Jadenim - I like the heat effect on the pipes and you have done very well to get that level of details with the tattoo
Pneumo - Very interesting combination of the 2 different worlds, nice idea.
CancelledApocalypse - good skin tones and eyes, the hair is very well done too.
Ezki - Wow that's absolutely stunning, amazing painting.
Nevelon - good show with the terminators and nice details on the face.
ShadowsAndDust - Very cool that you can pose the model,
DJJazzyJeff - force axe as a good contrast to the rest of the model and the detail on the book is awesome.

Good Luck everyone

Comments of the month time:

Daia T’Nara - Really love the choice of colour on this model and the details on the face are nicely realized. Very cool.

Captain Brown: Nice terrain piece for sure. I like the weathering too.

Halfling84 - I really loved this model and the paint job is excellent. What is the colour you used on the main body? It’s a really nice choice for this. The weathering is superb too.

KidCthulu - It’s a difficult thing to pull off the ethereal entity vibe but I think you manage it. One observation is I think a black background would have really complemented this model (but I am also biased towards black backgrounds)

YouWasShock - Really nice model this and I always loved the game! I can see how much work has gone into the blue hues and the eyes are very eerie and convey the demonic nature of the character nicely. Great stuff.

Xyabis - Nice work on the cape here and I appreciate the attention you’ve given to highlighting different areas such as the hair and belt. One observation I do have is the use of pure white. I think shading that down with a warm and light brown would have really helped with the look. Overall I like them… nice!

Mr.Nobody - Lovely and crisp paintjob here. Very compelling use of colour. Readable and clean. Love it.

JoshinJapan - I really enjoyed these models. The character in the faces superb and the subtle hues are quite lovely. Genuinely thought this was wonderful work.

Dirk Deadly - This is pretty cool. Great work on the skin and some nice highlights. Love the gory puss seeping out of the wound and the base is wonderful!

Syro - They are a nasty bunch of cans! Nice rusty effects…

Gulgog Tuftoof - Nice weathering effects and a very cool little model.

Geifer - Love these figures and the work on the cloth and make up effects are really excellent.

Leopold Helveine - These were amongst my favorite this month. I think the models are painted in a very clean way that really makes the colour pop. As a unit it’s a dynamic scheme and visually striking. Love it.

ImyGravenImage - The mossy and slimy environment and fire effects are a winner here. Love the meat over the spit. It’s a really visually interesting piece this. Nice job.

Maharg - These are beautifully painted. The colour is vibrant and the attention to detail crisp and assured. Very striking work. Love it.

Vejut - Nice work on the bases here and they are fun characters to look at.

Pariah Press - Very clean work. I like the metalwork a lot.

Midget Gems - This was another one of my favorites this month. I honestly think this is really beautiful work. Individually the models are painted very well but as a unit all those bold colors go together in a wonderful way and the overall effect is superb. Genuinely a pleasure to look at these.

Mothsniper - I really do like this paintjob. What I really like about your work Mothsniper is you have a very distinctive style that I recognize every month. It’s really a fantastic thing that you have managed to discover this for yourself. I often think I suffer from constantly trying to think of the ‘right way’ to approach painting something. What you demonstrate with your style is there actually is no ‘right way’ and it’s nice to be reminded of that. The manner in which you use different hues of colour and texture is fascinating. It’s lovely work.

Turaxa - Nice easy to read painting here. Suitably macabre.

Pursuit of Happiness - This paintjob really pops, it’s almost psychedelic to look at! The attention to detail is wonderful too. Very nice indeed.

Jadenim - This is one badass model. The work on the shark mouth and tongue is nicely realised and the shades you’ve used on the bone are very striking.

Pneumo - Lovely work on the sword here and the overall scene is well put together and very menacing.

Cancelled Apocalypse - These are excellent and the pale skin is very striking. Also love the attention to detail on the metallics and the faces are beautifully done. Overall these are great and I am an admirer!

Ezki - Seriously, this is just absurdly good work. Triss is flawlessly realised here, it’s honestly staggeringly good. I can’t fault it. Enough said really. Awesome.

Nevelon - The Leviathan project continues I see… I am feeling a little shamed I haven’t even started one model yet from that box. These just serve to remind me how awesome they are! Very crisp paintjob and the blue works brilliantly against those snowy bases. I really like the work on the cloth too.

Shadows and Dust - Very cool looking model this. Love the little rotary blades!

DJJazzyJeff - Atmospheric character here. I love the detail on the book and the blade is pretty sweet too!

Well I think that’s everyone… thankyou to anyone who left feedback and all the best to the participants. Great fun as always!

Vejut wrote:
Got some time and energy for comments.
Mothsniper-- love both sets of skin on this guy, and some great NMM. Little piggy is great. Fun model!

Thank you sir, I tried.

 Midget Gems wrote:

Mothsniper - great combo of colours on the 2 different models skins, really works well together,

Thank you, Imagined the big boy pale, also imagined him in the Stallone's Judge Dred environment.

 XvArcanevX wrote:

Mothsniper - I really do like this paintjob. What I really like about your work Mothsniper is you have a very distinctive style that I recognize every month. It’s really a fantastic thing that you have managed to discover this for yourself. I often think I suffer from constantly trying to think of the ‘right way’ to approach painting something. What you demonstrate with your style is there actually is no ‘right way’ and it’s nice to be reminded of that. The manner in which you use different hues of colour and texture is fascinating. It’s lovely work.

Interesting. I never though of developing a style, that is cool, thanks .
My goal is to be cheap, and Always to cut as many corners as I can get away with to save time, mostly unsuccessfully where ether model ends up poopy, or I spend way more time than I intended fixing things. If I could paint an entire model, and have it look good, by dipping it in a jar and hanging it to dry, I would be very happy and my goal would be complete and achieved!
(Perhaps I need to get into an army with lots of naked skeletons wielding bone weapons...)
I come from classically trained fine-art oil painting background, and consider general painting principles same over all, with few specifics for miniatures.
Now that you mentioned it; Perhaps my mild annoyance at the youtubers-mini-painters's content unconsciously made way into my process and resulted in the (no ‘right way’) direction?

I enjoyed zooming in and looking for how everyone approached their entry. Very inspiration and few bars set pretty high, a lot to aim for.
All Freehand and Bases get big
Midget Gems - The knights look awesome crisp, I shall Yoink your colors for my sm
DJJazzyJeff - I love the way multiple colors where used in the book for the capital lettering, just like in the medieval tomes. It honestly adds a whole lot to the scripts.
Nevelon - The eyes are glowing blue with the inner lightning, why did I never thought of that before, its cool... Librarians simple color palette and read very well.

 XvArcanevX wrote:


Leopold Helveine - These were amongst my favorite this month. I think the models are painted in a very clean way that really makes the colour pop. As a unit it’s a dynamic scheme and visually striking. Love it.

Too much praise! (I thank you though!) I personally didn't think these were as clean as I wanted them due to having had to paint 10.000 layers of everything, granted they look great in my bookcase along the rest of my Eldar from eye-sight-distance but up close (on photos) I can see too much grain (although we all always see the worst in our own paints). I'm happy with how the colorscheme turned out' especially on the warlock, the lighting takes a bit away from that though.. I really need to have more patience with readjusting my studio-lamps when photographing.

Also lol @ mothsnipers wood varnish, I can just imagine you going "This is my mastapiece" like in the memetic video on captchas painting the mona lisa. (Hope you know the reference or this will not make sense heh)

I think we have a lot in common, I'm also a cheapskate when it comes to mini's rushing way too much until I get to the detail phase.. then I suddenly feel like I have to put in the work. (to salvage the mess)

My biggest sin is that I do not treat my brushes (at all) and only thin paints with the water they stand in.

Vejut, Leopold Helveine, Midget Gems, XvArcanevX - thanks for comments The yellow color is sandy yellow for late WWII German tanks, one of my favourite colours for vehicles.

That should be 5 days, time for some winners!

In third with 20 votes is Mr Nobody’s Thousand Sons Dreadnought. A relic of old, starting a new army!





In a tie for second with 22 votes each we have XvArcanevX with a Varghulf Courtier and Crypt Guard, new released and ready to nobly protect their lands...






... maybe against Maharg's Orcs, who look like they just stepped off the pages of a WD from the ‘80s.




Toss a gold to your Ezki, with an amazing bust of Triss Merigold, winning this month with 26 votes.


--

Amazing work to finish out year 9. Congrats to everyone who entered and joined us painting this month, and season. Please post your thoughts and progress over in the retrospective thread and/or grab a marine and start off year 10 with a bang!

Congrats to the winners and thanks for the comments!

Got to admit I feel very honored to have been voted so high! Thankyou to everyone who liked my entry enough to cast a vote and a sincere thankyou for just being here and taking part in this absurdly fun monthly activity.

I will keep repeating myself, it is a highlight of the hobby for me!

Well done, everyone! Extra laurels to our winners. Bravo!

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you for those of you who took the time to comment on each entry!

The challenges of Dakka really improve our skills.

A bit late to the comment party.
Caught a flu and did not have the energy to respond earlier :(

Firstly, thank you for all the comments Vejut, CancelledApocalypse, Leopold Helveine, Midget Gems and XvArcanevX!
And congratulations on everyone for finishing their entries. Great work.

Leopold Helveine wrote:Ezki -Triss Merigold
I'm more of a Yennefer fan but that's a beautiful sculpt, such a fine paint deserves all the praise. The Fabric of her tunic looks practically real, and that jewel.. holy heck. Is this even real? The skin and her lips.. you didn't pluck this one out of a witcher museum did you?

Thank you kindly.
I'm also more of a Yennefer guy, but as for the first bust I thought the different tones of black (corser, cloak, fur, raven, hair etc.) would be too intimidating, so I started with Triss.
The texture is mostly done using stippling (sorry about that brush). It is very time consuming though. Luckily there were many reference pictures - both art and cosplay - to copycat the tones from

XvArcanevX wrote:Ezki - Seriously, this is just absurdly good work. Triss is flawlessly realised here, it’s honestly staggeringly good. I can’t fault it. Enough said really. Awesome.

Thank you. I'm truly flattered.
There are quite a few things I could improve on, but being totally honest, I'm quite happy with it too.
Tried to put my best into every single detail, not rushing anything.
Painting it took something between ~50-55 hours, so squishing it to a single month meant that I had to sacrifice a bit of sleep haha.


Some comments. Still a bit under the weather, so keeping this brief:

XvArcaneXv: I really like the muted tones and the grimdark feel. Well done.

JoshInJapan: Usagi Yojimbo and Murakami Gen'nosuke look great and the NMM on the weapons is very well done.

CancelledApocalypse: Crisp colors and neatly painted details. They truly look the part!

Pursuit Of Happiness: Great results with such a small amount of time!

Mothsniper: The NMM looks quite convincing, especially on the shoulder pad trim and on the backpack chair thingy. Fun and great looking model overall.

Wow! Thank you for the comments - I appreciate the acknowledgement and critiques

Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone who entered this month. The quality of everyone's work keeps getting better and better.

Brilliant work everyone, well deserved laurels to the winners!

Thanks to Ezki, XvArcanevX, Miget Gems and Vejut for the kind comments. I didn't get the models I wanted to get done finished this month and had to rush a bit to have something to enter, but I think the pair of Witch Aelves came out okay and they've given me the bug to build and paint a load more female heroes from AoS. I hope to enter some in future months.

Congrats to the winners, and as always thanks Nevelon for keeping the wheels turning. And thanks to everyone who left comments, I'm sorry I haven't been so talkative lately, it's just... what's the 40k equivalent of not enough spoons? Not enuff dakka?

Vejut wrote:
nice conversion, good clean white, and some nice freehand

Credit for the white really should go to Apothecary White more than me - I do love chopping and changing plastic minis though, and freehand has turned out to be very rewarding (even if it's not always as clean as I like) since I've gotten into the habit of it.

 Midget Gems wrote:
You must be getting quite the collection of this style of army/model, good pose and details

Somewhere around 170 at present - it's only recently I've gotten past thinking everything I do has to be part of the warband (even when it's a free-mini-of-the-month that's from another faction, or Sigmar). Brother Quiff from this month's contest kind of jolted me into realising I can just paint a one-off mini unrelated to anything else, and that's fine - I just finished up a Necron, and have a Scourge assembled waiting for paint, both retrieved from boxes I got just for warband conversion parts.

 XvArcanevX wrote:
Really love the choice of colour on this model and the details on the face are nicely realized. Very cool.

Thanks

Congratulations to the winners.

Vejut wrote:
Geifer: nice blends, and very colorful!

 Midget Gems wrote:
Geifer - Blending on the 2 end models/body guards is really seamless, very nice.

 XvArcanevX wrote:
Geifer - Love these figures and the work on the cloth and make up effects are really excellent.

Thanks, guys!

Nice to see a lot of variety of mini's/styles being entered and terrain pieces (need to try build something one month)

Thanks for comments & congratulations to the winners

Congrats every, I've been very ill the last week so not had time to update the table yet, will try to get it done over the next few days.

Oh no! Don't stress yourself about it MG, make sure you get yourself better, first. Health is the most important thing.

Hope you're feeling better soon!

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
Oh no! Don't stress yourself about it MG, make sure you get yourself better, first. Health is the most important thing.

Hope you're feeling better soon!

Cheers CA, not 100% but better so here is the final league table,

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

enjoy and any issues let me know