Russian Snipers by Black Tree Design

Back to trying to catch up with the painting done during the Challenge. Towards the end I was finding less and less time to both paint and post hence the ten day gap between posts. Given I was on holiday last week and found I had even less time kind of is ironic.

Black Tree produce some really nice figures with most of their WWII living up to this reputation. I have painted these figures up before so knew what I would be getting. They tend to be fairly good regards flash and clean up with mould lines easy to remove. 

The snow smocks being white need more attention than you might think. I did a base spray of white but then used ivory, off white and normal white to shade them and give them some depth of colour. The flesh and equipment just received the one colour before adding a wash to all none white parts.

The last four are a big contrast to the previous eight with the snow really making them stand out. I use Scenic Snow by Deluxe Materials and have tried a slightly different approach this time and like the finish better. Showing more of the ground work kind of improves the overall look for me.

Black Tree tend to add a lot of detail to their figures than some other companies leave off. It does add to the time to paint but the end result is far more satisfying and looks the part.

I have about twenty more figures left to paint for my Sniper Reminders and once these are done probably won't do any more.

I have changed the tufts to a winter look as well after Curt's recommendations from last year and he is 100% right these do look better.

So the Challenge is at a close and I finished 31st after spending quite a bit of time in the lower twenties. Slightly disappointing as I thought I had a chance of finishing in the top 25% but given that I finished of 1019 points and doubled my original goal I am overall very happy.

Indeed I enjoyed this years challenge more than any of the previous challengers, possibly as I was not sticking to any one theme over much but the addition of a Minion to run each days submissions was a great idea and saved Curt's sanity. It meant that each day a fresh adjudicator would jump in after a seven day rest and each of the five brought a great deal of humour and style to their days entries. I had Peter who really got into the swing with his intro's, so a big thanks to Peter and would love to be teamed up again next year.