Category Archives: Monthly Painting Challenges

Mechanismo May ’19: Community Painting Challenge

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Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I haven’t posted anything for awhile, and the Community Round-Up from March still isn’t up. Well, the best I can offer is that normal service will resume when it resumes, and the monthly round-ups WILL still be done – as will my own backlog. I just don’t have the time nor inclination right now for blogging, nor for diarising the shitshow that is my life at present..

Regardless of that, the world marches on, so without any further ado, I present you with May’s Community Challenge: Mechanismo May. (Named for a book in inherited from my brother, years ago – not the Dredd story).

What is Mechanismo May for? Well, simply put: anything mechanical – vehicles, power armour, droids, bots, walkers, mechanical scenery.

Does this mean that there’s a lot of cross-over with the “Armoured April” challenge? Well, sure. Tanks and Power armour and the like obviously fit into both. On the other hand, this month isn’t for Chaos Warriors with a 2-handed maul, but it is for a Trebuchet, or a cannon, or an artillery piece – or for a… well, you get the idea.

Is the model (or a significant part of the model) mechanical? Is it more than a modern dude who happens to be holding a firearm? Then there’s your answer!

(Yes, it’s time to get that Magos and/or the Crashed Aquila done!)

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 knight 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 entirely about completing cool things.

#Monster March 3 – 2019 Personal Round-Up

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I usually don’t do these dedicated round-ups when I participate in other people’s monthly painting challenges as I usually only finish a single model, or a couple of models, but this year’s Monster March has been a little different. While my initial plans involved completing four models – a giant, a bone giant, a giant worm and a dracoloche only ended with me completing the last model from that list (with several additional unnamed models considered as mental “stretch goals”, the fact was that my father’s health issues put paid to my early month’s painting work on that angle – in fact he’s been in for over a week now with serious heart issues, and we’ve had a rollercoaster of different medical opinions that have included a multiple bypass open-heart surgery to the off-pump version of the same, to a stent possibly being possible after all, to the stent having too great a risk of exsanguination (it’s a real word, Blood Angels fans!)

So the last over-a-week has been one of the most fucked-up ones in my life. Cue slightly more aggro, more swearing in general and more specific use of the word “cunt” in this blog than usual. In any event, following a week of “surgery tomorrow” that hasn’t happened and “angiogram and stent tomorrow”, which also hasn’t happened – after a meeting this afternoon with a doctor who turned out to be one of Melbourne’s top cardiologists (I googled her name afterwards), the final verdict, in her words, is “do no harm”, so rather than fucking with pointy and sharp things, there’s a slight adjustment to medication and some observation, and we take him home (finally) in a few days so he can return to his garden and real food. (I’ll get some photos up at some stage for TUG – at least one person will appreciate it!)

That’s all well and good, Azazel. But what does that have to do with the important business of Toy Soldiers? I’m glad you asked. It’s because I’m exactly like a self-absorbed 16 year old girl with her diary. It’s also because the last week (off work, because obviously – and yes, they’ve been very supportive, though no-one from there follows this blog) has necessitated me diving heavily into distraction, occupying my mind as much as possible and trying to avoid additional stress. In this case, that’s been attempted largely by painting monster models like a motherfucker and playing The Division 2. I got one model done, then another, then another …and just kept going (until they leaked into April!)

It’s also the reason that I’m (once again) way behind in reading and commenting on other people’s blogs and haven’t even started on the Round-Ups for the dual-mode March Challenges. I’ll get to them of course, but I’m not going to go nuts rushing.

So to finish up, I’d like to thank Swordmaster for running the challenge again this year, as it’s given me something external and productive to distract myself and focus on over the last couple of weeks while things have been so …fucked up.

Here’s the models!

Shadows of Brimstone Dark Stone Hydra

Conan Kickstarter Dragon

The Others: 7 Sins – Avatar of Gluttony

Scotia Grendel Dungeon Crawler (Giant Centipede)

Reaper Bones Dragon Plant

Castle Ravenloft Dracoliche

The Others: 7 Sins – Avatar of Wrath

Ice Elementals – Mantic Games

The next couple of posts will be my final models for my own March Challenges that haven’t gotten posted as I focused on getting the MM stuff up ASAP and as I completed them. After that, round-ups and April models.