Wait, what?

Something different for next month. To celebrate the middle of the year, I thought that July’s challenge should be something a bit more open than Squads or Neglected Models (don’t worry, we’ll see a lot more of both of those!) Based somewhat on Decembruary, but more open even than that, since Decembruary was all about centrepieces, so it excluded small hero models and scenery. This coming month, we open it right up.

Oh – and all of the images I’ve stolen used in this post are illustrative of things that do indeed count for challenge purposes. This July is a wide-open month that above all, aims to be fun. Just as importantly, all images are clickable and will send you to that person’s blog post. So do indeed check out some stuff that’s new to you!

I’m under no delusion that everyone I’ve linked here will have the time/inclination/etc to participate this next month, so don’t feel “called out”, but I did feel like this post would be a good opportunity to provide a ton of examples of stuff that can be considered valid models for June July. JULY, and rather than just populate it with models from my own collection – use models from your collections instead with links so people can check out more of one anothers’ blogs. Because community and all that.

The Jewel of July is about painting (almost) anything you want that you think will be cool, or impressive, or just nice.

It’s for Heroes. Big or small. named or otherwise. A Lieutenant or a Medic or a Warlord Riding a Dragon. An Inquisitor’s aide or a Star Player or a Bounty Hunter.

It’s for Vehicles. A Motorcycle or a Maus. A Starship or a Gaslands Car. A Panzer IV to a Kettenkrad. A Rhino APC or a Konigstiger or a War Rig or a M’ak I. (or M’ak II?)

It’s for the more impressive scenery pieces. A desert oasis or a (ruined?) temple or a bunker complex or a single bunker or a skyscraper or a Ferratonic Incinerator or a Kwik-E-Mart. A forest worth of trees or a jungle worth of plants.

It’s for Monsters. Ogres or Ogors. Dragons, Giants, decent-sized Daemons. Bronze Bulls and Dinosaurs and Great Wight Sharks and Goremaw and Cthulhu.

It’s for Dieties and Demi-gods. Primarchs and Titans. Atlas and Aeres and Abaddon. Horus and Hercules. Venus and Vulkan. Saturn and Sanguinius.

It’s for Mechs and the Mechanicum. Steampunk walkers, Dreadnoughts, Imperial Knights, Warjacks, Tripods, Titans.

It’s for Dioramas and Vignettes. Historical, Fantasy, Sci-Fi. It’s all good. Even better if they also feature something from the above!

So yes. Anything from a USMC Corpsman to a 28mm scale Warlord Titan counts for this coming month’s challenge.

What isn’t it for? It’s not for the truly small stuff – units of line infantry, or barrels and crates. Little bits of scatter terrain.

Units are okay, if they would individually fit in with the above categories. This means units of tanks, or Inquisitors’ retinue members, or units of Ogres or Carnifexes (Carnifii?) or what used to be Space Marine Command Squads all work, but an Imperial Guard squad, or a Space Marine Squad, or a unit of Fallschirmjaeger don’t.

As always, the biggest distinction between this painting challenge and many others out there are that I only care about you completing these models. It’s not a “start-to-finish” challenge set during a single month, so regardless of whether you just missed out on finishing that diorama or tank this month, last month, or six months ago – or you’ve got stuff that you’ve been chipping away at for six months – or, indeed – if you’ve got models that have been shelved for months or even years, feel free to dig them out and join in.

Similarly, if you want to go start-to-finish, then feel free to go right ahead. It’s about completing cool things. The challenge is designed to easily fit into your (and my) painting schedule and be flexible enough to encompass quite a lot, and hopefully just act as a bit of an impetus or inspiration to get this stuff completed.

As I said up the top of this post, I don’t expect that everyone shown above will be able to join in, but if you’ve been on the edge of joining in on one of these challenges, or just painting some stuff anyway that fits into the many categories, please do feel free to join in. This goes for you, too Marouda!

Once again, I will NOT be posting regular updates over the course of the month on it. I WILL do a round-up of all the participants I’m aware of just after the end of the month, though – so once again – please DO LINK to this post when you finish something that you want counted in the round-up – because I WILL forget your post otherwise. It happens every single month. Also, if you’re doing June-It, be sure and link your finished units over there. There’s still a week left to go!