Come and join us for another delve into the Projects to find the best of the best from the last week or so. We'll be getting stuck into lots of great-looking miniature wargaming painting and hobbying this week...

...always let us know what YOU have been working on and share it across the site.

Retro Space Marines by civilcourage

We start off this week's Community Spotlight with a look at someone turning their dream army from their boyhood into a reality. One of the nice things about being an adult is that you get to afford all the tiny fighting men that you couldn't when you were younger and that's exactly what civilcourage is doing with their project.

There were inspired by the image of some 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines that they saw in an issue of White Dwarf. They want to recreate that scheme and the feel of those miniatures from the old days and so dug out some retro, classic Space Marines and got to work painting them up as you can see here.

The idea is that they want to pit these Ultramarines against the retro Eldar that they have in their collection. The miniatures have all been painted up to match that classic style with the bright, poppy yellow trim on their shoulder pads and on their chest armour. We're missing the Goblin Green bases but I think the updated look of the bases here does the job very nicely and frames the miniatures nicely.

civilcourage has been documenting the look of a fair few of the miniatures for this classic army and there is also a bit of a breakdown on the Project concerning the painting process that they had to go through for achieving the 'Eavy Metal look from back in the day. There's something special and very charming about seeing these older miniatures getting painted up for another go at battling on the tabletop. I guess this ticks a lot of the nostalgia centres in our brains!

Armoured Clash Enlightened by elmir

Next up, we're looking at some painting by elmir who does some sterling work in the realm of 10mm and on the Armoured Clash range by Warcradle Studios. They recently got their hands on some of the Enlightened miniatures and painted up the impressive walker from the newest set.

The work on this piece is absolutely fantastic. They have managed to get across the Pulp/Steampunk/Victoriana Sci-Fi vibes of the Enlightened in the use of different metallics with plenty of glow effects to make the miniature really stand out. Considering it's a centrepiece, it deserves to have been taken to another level as elmir has done here.

If this is what elmir has been able to do with the massive walker in the set, I imagine the smaller armoured vehicles and infantry are going to be off the charts. I'd love to see more of the glow effects on show amongst the ranks and ranks of somewhat twisted troops the Enlightened call upon.

If you thought that was impressive, you've also got this ace Land Train that they finished off recently for use with the Union.

Another fantastic bit of painting from elmir, who seems to have a supreme talent for painting these small-scale miniatures. You could easily use the work by elmir as the basis for your own painting and follow along to see if you can match your final miniatures to these schemes.

Frostgrave Warband by collins

Last but not least, we're having a look at some of the work by collins who has decided to document their adventures in painting for 2025 but with a bit of a twist.

The idea here is to tackle the pile of shame but with a bit of a New Year's resolution which, at least at this point, they are sticking to. They aren't banning themselves from anything new but instead are going to start taxing themselves (stay with me) and putting that into a savings account, which will be boosted by the government. This means that anything that collins buys costs them double but it also goes into a savings account, which will earn money over time AND in turn means more toys.

This means that they are keeping a tabs on what they are spending, what they are painting and how effective this ends up being as a scheme throughout the course of the year. They have already started on a bunch of miniatures and the most recent additions ended up being this Frostgrave warband using Scibor figures.

The miniatures look brilliant, and I was particularly taken by the bases for this collection. Balefire is one of my favourite types of fire and it's good to see it here as part of this rather magical Fantasy warband. It works really well against the dark robes of the cultists and then the battered, broken bodies of the skeletons that they have summoned forth.

I am fascinated to see how collins' idea works across the course of a year and what they end up painting and how much goes into that savings account!

What Are You Painting Right Now?

Every week we’re absolutely blown away by the incredible topics that are put into the Projects, it’s getting more difficult to choose Community Spotlights! We love your work and we hope to see a lot more of it in the future!

If you fancy getting your hobby fingers out and showing off your newest paint job, terrain piece or even greatest gaming achievement, we want to know about it! We don’t mind if you’re a newcomer to painting or a veteran of the brush, everything you do inspires us to create more and more content together!

What do you think of the entries this week?