Painting Table - February

I have been painting again recently after one of my periodic bouts of inactivity, and I was noticing the other night that right at this moment I have to have to oddest collection of stuff that I have ever had in progress on the table at one point in time. I gathered up a few samples of each bunch and took a picture.

On either end of the front row is a medieval knight figure, flanking a few Warhammer fantasy Empire archers. Off to the left are 3 Warhammer 40k Tyranids (science fiction bug-things like in Alien or Starship Troopers). These go along with the Imperial Guard walker at back right. Empire fantasy Knights in blue and red schemes are in the middle. The are sandwiched between pieces of a Vampire army for them to fight - almost completed Dire Wolves in front and assembled but un-primed skeleton cavalry behind. Each of these samplings is the tip of its own iceberg.

Why the fantasy and sci-fi figures all of a sudden? Good question. I'm not really sure what possessed me to take the plunge other than that I have always had wide ranging interests, and that despite the ridiculous pricing, I have always been greatly impressed with the quality of Games Workshop's figures. I have periodically bought a box of this or that over the years, but never really done anything with them other than assemble some of them. For whatever reason, the thing that got me out of my painting doldrums this time around was the decision to pull out some of these figures and paint something completely different. And these are completely different...