Painting Challenge The End?

First figures entered in the Challenge.

So the Painting Challenge came to an end on Tuesday. I was more than happy with my final score of 900 and 11th place out of 24, roughly the position throughout the whole Challenge give or take a few places. My utter respect to all those that finished above, especially the top 5 as these guys produced high standards and just dominating quantities. My thanks and respect also go to Curt for running the show, the amount of work he had to do must have been just crazy. Two things really stood out right from the off, the sheer good will and friendship displayed was heart warming. Such a competitive lot us wargamers are it was a credit to us all that we really were supportive and pleased for each other. Secondly, the standard of painting was overall rather good and in the odd case stunning. I certainly enjoyed showing off my painted figures whilst fully aware that I was certainly rubbing shoulders with my peers.

I must confess to have had mixed feelings about the end run, much like a really good read. I could not wait to reach the end whilst wanting it to go on forever. As I have mentioned a few times before, painting is one of the few things I can do that does not make me more ill, but the level of painting in the last 10 days of the contest was really stretching my ability to keep at it. I was conscious that I should not push more than a set amount but at the same time I wanted just one more unit, just one more. The last three units painted was expected to be a unit or two too many as time was close to the end but in the end I managed to get all three finished with the last touches done just after taking the kids to school. I finished with 19 hours to spare! To do this I had to stop doing almost everything else. Blogging came to an almost stop. My other blog Wall Advantage was not posted on for 6 days, a first in about two years. No ASL other than a weekend game for a few hours. Yes it was all hands to the pump.

Now I already planned to have a very small break when the deadline was reached. The plan being to catch up with the other interests I have. I also needed to thank Cath with a nice home cooked meal as she has been very understanding and has followed closely this last three months. In all honesty I was shattered, cooking a meal added to it, but after two whole days I now have the next lot of figures cleaned up and base coated, all 108 of them. I guess it's a good job they are 6mm. Shamefully I have held off them till post challenge as the work to points ratio was not good enough. But I have had them next to the PC waiting till this day and whilst I am dog tired I can say I am looking forward to painting them more than I would have guessed.

I will be blogging the final entries in the challenge over the next few days.