The 1 hour speed painting challenge

I remember the speed painting coverage in White Dwarf from Games Days in the late 80's and was always hopeful that one day I could enter. Well I didn't, but Orlygg at Realms of Chaos 80's has re-kindled that desire, so on a digital platform I had a go the other night...

I was certain that I wouldn't get near completing a model in an hour, being, I thought, quite a slow painter, so I chose a very simple miniature to speed paint up:

A model that's been in my painting queue for a while. It looks pretty simple, but can I complete it in an hour?

 10 minutes and 45 seconds, timed by my trusty Casio:

Skin. Several washes of Asurman blue (with a little bit of washing up liquid) to help get the depth of hue. Some Druchii Violet added  for the extreme recesses and to warm up the colour. Highlighted up with the addition of white to Asurman blue. 

 25 minutes and 54 seconds:

Most other areas blocked in and a combo of chestnut ink and badab black washed onto the metallic parts

My painting space with the paints I have used so far

This was happening in the evening, so not the best light to take photos - here's a close-up to try and show some of the subtleties of colour in the skin and hair

 35 minutes and 12 seconds:

Hair and boots highlighted up and the chainmail areas picked out with some appropriately named, chainmail paint

 42 minutes and 46 seconds:

Added eyes and painted the weathered bronze areas using a variety of Vallejo game colour and some green/blue corrosion washes. The sling got shaded and dirtied with some Earthshade.

50 minutes and 58 seconds. Finished - say what?

Hobgoblin Orange on the bandana, highlighted with orange/white and glazed with orange ink. Some black and purple inks were heavily diluted and added to create old blood on the sling followed by some spots of Tamiya Clear red for fresher blood.

 Seriously, apart from the base. He's done. Now my basing technique takes a while and I like to do this in batches so I'll base him later in the remaining 9 minutes.

And I even painted his back too.

So. I'm amazed I can paint that quickly when I'm being timed and not distracted by other elements of the hobby (including procrastination, bitz box rummaging and paint queue re-organising). It certainly helped that the mini is very straightforward, but I'm seriously impressed by myself!

Does this mean I can now work through my lead pile in double quick time?