skeeve

Good morning, folks!

We got back from Baltimore yesterday, about 12 am. This year GD was much more impressive, representative and intense that the one before it. Competition was pretty fierce albeight uneven in several categories. As usually, 40K single, Fantasy single and (this year) LOTR single were incredibly intense with multiple very strong entries by several top painters. More unusually, 40K vehicle, 40K squad, 40K Large, Large and Open were well represented and high quality as well.

Fantasy categories, in my opinion, were less well represented; so, people, get cranking we would like more Fantasy monsters and Fantasy regiments. Diorama had several strong entries as well.

There were several “guest” painters from Australia (Andrew Ralph, Kyle Morgan), France, Russia (Natalia Melnik) and Canada (Mathieu Fontaine and I think several more). I think there was somebody from Germany as well.

I entered only 2 new entries this year. My 40K squad took bronze and my Grumlock&Gazbag took honorable mention in Open

PS. I didn't expect that this posting will be popular enough to crash my photobucket account. The problem was fixed and images should be available again

1) 40K Single Miniature - 1st place (Natalya Melnik)

2) 40K Single Miniature, 2nd place (I belive it is Kyle Morgan from Australia, correct me if I am wrong). The picture is horrible. the miniature is tiny and the light was far from perfect

3) 40K Single Miniature, 3rd place

4) 40K Squad 1st place. Squads in general and this one in particular was dificult to take pictures of. They were strongly lit from one side and I had to do some interesting little dances to pull it off. It will be especcially obvious on the 2nd place squad. Fortunately Luchbox has this squad posted here on coolmini just follow the link.

The squad that took first place had one of the best natural metallics I've ever seen.

5) 40K squad 2nd place (Jeff Lybett akaLunchBox)

This is the link to his Coolminmiornot entry

http://www.coolminiornot.com/239633

6) 40k Squad- 3rd place. (Yurii Chinenov)

7) Several other 40K squads that made 1st cut. Personally, I really liked these scorpions

8) 40K Vehicle 1st place, FW Best of Show  (Nicolas Rouanet)

9) 40K Vehicle 2nd place. (Marc Raley) I even talked to the author of this one. This is my personal favorite vehicle.

10) 40K Vehicle - 3rd place, Mathieu Fontaine. Picture was taken before the placement. In the placing cabinet it was way up there and poorly lit.

11) Additional vehicles that made the first cut

This is my second favorite vehicle. I am still puzzled by what was it missig to be placed. May be it needs a more interesting base (often it seems to be the answer for skeemers ))

 

This is Dave Taylor's Chaos flier. Recognizible essentially from the other side of the room

"Red" DK Baneblade (variant). I liked this model however, personally, red was a bit overpowering. Also, basing was a bit off for heavy tanks usually do not fly.

Sean Riva's Eldar Grav tank. While conversion is very ellaborate. painting needed more"complexity". There is a certain unfinished feeling about this model. Base is pretty interesting too.

Jordan Berman's grav tank. Jordan... where the .... is your base . I saw the begining of this tank. Pretty impressive job.

Really long and elaborate orky vehicle

12) 40K Large, 1st place, Slayer sword (Todd Swanson) During the Games day I was sure that my pictures of this mini will not work out at all. All the time it was in a rather poorly lit and not very visible until the very end when it was moved to a winning cabinet

13) 40k Large model. 2nd place It is confirmed, ignore question mark on the picture.

14) 40K large 3rd place (horrible picture; this miniature was all the way to the back of the case on the topmost shelf with rather poor light)

14) Fantasy Single - 1st place Zach Lanier. This is simply immence. Taking good pictures of this miniature was very difficult. I hope Zach will do a better job. Soon....

15. Fantasy single, 2nd Place. Natalya Melnik.

16. Fantasy single, 3rd place. (Nicolas Ruanet),  Well, I think this mini deserves an award for best composition Really cute miniature

 

17. Fantasy Monster - 1st place. (Jeff Lybett) Another Lunchbox miniature available with much better pictures on coolmini.

This is a coolmini link

http://www.coolminiornot.com/253206

17a Fantasy Monster , 3rd place. (Joy Schoenberger) Oh! just found this one. This one should get an award for the cuttest model of the day

 

18 Fantasy regiment 3rd place. I should have pictures for the 1st and second place but neither came out well. The Minotaur regiment by Dave Taylor that took first place came out way too dark. Sorry

19. some fantasy regiments that didn't place

19a Diorama 1st place.  This is a piece with a lot of character. I think it was painted  along with several other minies above by Nicolas Rouanet from France

20. Diorama 2nd place. (Dave Taylor)

21. Diorama 3rd Place. (Andrew Ralph) This is again from one of our Australian Guests

22) Large Miniatures. There were a lot of entries but none of my pictures are presentable. THis category was really funny: 3 people entered the same FW greater demon of Nurgle . Ansel Elgort got silver in this category with his large scale FW space wolf. I hope he has some pictures.

23. Open - 1st place. (Jeff Bowden) Fellowship of the ring

24) Open 3rd place (Kyle Morgan)

25 Youngblood 1-st place

26 Youngblood 2nd

27. Youngblood 3rd

28. Miscellaneous minies from different categories that didn't place