Hello you apes! It is early, we have energy! We paint! We revel! We enjoy! It is surely going to end soon… but for now let us use this energy. I am posting here a short summery of the ‘in progress’ shots of what people have been doing. This is the first “bulletin” from the Challenge… might not be the last – but at some point the steam will go out!

I am not going to post anything that has been finished, as I have urged all participants to keep their finished stuff secret until the digests at the end of the month.

So what has been happening?

Adrian Bell intrigued us with these conversions on his female marines (from Satyr Studios). Adrian is basing his whole army on the range of 10 figures, and therefore considerable conversion is involved.

Ted laid down a whole tutorial for painting his Bloodletters with nostalgia ’88. He has gone further now and I am sure they will end up looking terrific and terrifying. This is – even though I should know better – my favourite Bloodletter sculpts. I never really knew about the old bendy ones… so this was my introduction.

Some of our Guardsmen started getting into gear! These people feed off of the prospect of painting innumerable infantry figures I am sure…

And in a stark display of contrast Tom Reynold’s went from the above left image, to the above right image in just 5 days. I am sure some of our Gamer’s participants will be hard pressed to even see the difference, and that is part of the beauty of this challenge. Rest assured though, Tom is an expert painter and knows exactly what he be doing.

In his usual breakneck pace Tain has more or less finished 12 figures in January already. I get exhausted just by counting them! He’s doing a huge Chaos pledge and these Stinky Bois will be a gem I’m sure.

Momma Negan got started on the Dark Angels… now that is more than I can say that I have done! I love the colours being applied here, and I am yet again going in debate mode on my own Dark Angels! White or bone?! White or bone?! The question keeps ringing.

’90s pizza

Since 2nd edition 40k was originally set in the ’90s during Beverly Hills 90210, and this is the Cowabunga Journal, I thought it would be fitting to end this news flash with a recipe for the “bradepandepizza”. This was a fad in the early 90s in Denmark and every good housewife would make it for the kids as they played D&D, 40k, watched Sunday morning cartoons, had long hair and listened to Iron Maiden.

The basic concept is that of a lump of bread cooked in the oven with tomato and cheese on top. I am sure any Italian readers would cry “outrage!!!” at the mere thought of calling it pizza.

Anyway here goes:

Water 4 dL / 1.7 cups
Boiling water 1 dL / 0.43 cups
Yeast 50 g / 1.7 oz
(Oats 2 dL / 0.85 cups)
Flour 10 dL / 4.3 cups
1 can of tomatoes / 1 jar of pizza sauce
Grated Cheese (enough to go around)
Salt

Combine the water and the boiling water. Mix in the yeast and salt. Combine yeast dispersion with fluor and oats. Mix until doughy. Roll out to form pizzas. Add tomatoes, add cheese and then any other topping. Heat for 20 mins at 220 °C/ 428 °F / 493.15 °K.