skeeve

This entry turned out to be rather long so if you want to skip verbiage just go in side.

The Official coverage is up on GW site.  
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?community=true&catId=&categoryId=30000 4&pIndex=0&aId=9000001&start=1

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the poor quality of images. The lesson learned never use strange cameras J. I also had my daughter in tow and that really limited my mobility. People who attend these events know that it takes some dancing around waiting for people to leave and so on to catch a spot that doesn’t reflect all these stupid lamps from the ceiling – rather difficult when you have 7 years old kid with you who easily gets bored and tired

So… My general impression is that categories this year were extremely uneven, more so than the last year. 40K single was very strong and I really feel sorry for the judges. On the other hand First place and the slayer sword in this category become sealed the moment Bennett Blalock-Doane entered his FW Inquisitor. This mini is beyond belief and actually transcends to the real art. I am sure we all saw freehand on cloaks but in this case this freehand imitated dense metal work on cloth. Imagine this http://www.needlenthread.com/Images/Miscellaneous/Goldwork/Cloth_of_Gold/Cloth_of_Gold_03.jpg but done on a 28 mm mini and fully in scale. The model itself has a long scroll. Instead of painting some squiggly lines he actually painted meaningful text in scale, that is to say about 1.5mm per letter – 10 or so lines of this perfectly lined up and … in Gothic script too. Anyway. Wait for an official image, I spend some time trying to pull it off but without tripod and good light it was doomed.

There is a picture on "The stuff of legends" but I don't like it and I am reluctant to link it directly, I am sure you can find it.

UPDATE:

This miniature received a lot of hostile treatment on several forums based on the image posted on the Stuff of Legends. While the matter of taste and preferences will always remains just that I would like to point out that the criticism is based on the only picture available.

This mini has one serious problem - it is impossible to take a good quality picture of it without sacrificing something. In real life it is rather dark with lots of subtle color transitions and this freehand that irritates people so really doesn't interfere because
in a real life it is really perceived as metal embroidery on cloth.

Now imagine you want to take a picture of this; what do you want to show? If you want to focus on the mood and colors you will loose this embroidery because it is partly in shadows. If however you want to show the brushwork then you have to flood this mini with light, kill all colors and pop the freehand to the forefront.
The photographer have chosen the second and that really killed this mini. As a result, instead of having cloth with embroidery, you now have embroidery etched out on the surface. Ideally you have to show two pictures - with normal light to show how this mini actually look and the "harsh light" picture to show the embroidery.

Several people pointed out the lack of blending on the armor. Again, it is the effect of unnaturally high contrast of the image. Take any mini as well blended as you want and start increasing the contrast. Very soon you will have two colors – white and the base.

Look at this image and see how many completely white saturated pixels you have there. It is rather off the scale. end of update.

Jessica Rich (The brushmistress) got silver in this category with Forgeworld commissar painted pale green with a nice insignia painted in the corner of his greatcoat (I think it was her and I am not crazy). UPDATE: Link to Jessica's pictures of the commissar http://brushmistress.com/gallery/commissardone.jpg

I don’t remember who took the bronze. My rendition of the same Forge world commissar got honorable mention.

40K squad, personally I remember only Mike Lugo’s bikers, either those he had in White dwarf a year ago and couldn’t enter last year, or something similar.

40k Vehicle was rather weaker then usually. Part of the problem, I think, was changing category boundaries and splitting Large Models into Vehicles and Large models.Habitually red blood angel dreadnought got the gold.  The bronze in this category went to the Blue eldar viper with omnipresent skull on the hull. The silver was awarded to, I think, Some small Korp of Krieg transport vehicle.
UPDATE: I found this link that actually have pictures of Demon-winning miniatures in Vehicle category http://the-warforge.com/index.pl?Blog&target=Gamesday%20Baltimore%202008 End of update:

40K Large.. this is where it all started for me. I am still in mild shock. After last year GD I went to Baltimore with very low expectations. I had little doubt that I will make first cut with all my entries and I hoped that I might get something with my High elf, and possibly honorable mention with my Big Mek.

Well, My Big Mek got Gold. This mini went through several cycles of comments/suggestions over at Relic forum and I think it all helped in the end. The category itself was very interesting but… by changing the categories they put in the same category my Mek and Death Korp of Krieg (40mm base) on the one end and FW GARGANTUAN SQUIGGOTH completed with a crew. I am not sure how you can possibly compare a mini and the thing about 20 times bigger then this mini.

I wonder how they define categories in UK. I think that all these FW models on 60mm bases and above should be either in the vehicles or in the Open.

Warhammer fantasy single. Here is the second category I got gold with my High Elf “Dragon” Mage

UPDATE: Open category. Frankly, I was disappointed by this category (despite or may be because of taking silver). Along with vehicles it was the weakest category this year. This year for the first time in US all GW staff categories were abolished and Open remains the only category stuff can now enter. I expected that his alone would result in fierce competition.
Well, it didn’t happen. Sufficient to say my silver spawn was painted as a demo model around the time of chaos codex release and along with his blue companion was intended just for this – to demonstrate what you can do with the kit. I was rather reluctant to enter it, and eventually did just because I have it.

Something has to be done about the Open.. I think single minies on 25 mm base should be banned unless they are a part of a larger diorama. I think vehicles should be banned as well, again unless they are a part of a diorama. As funny as it sounds, I want staff categories back. Don’t know, may be a single “Open Staff”. I suspect that several entries were in open (as opposed to 40k single or vehicle) because they were painted by GW stuff..end of update

Fantasy Gold

Fantasy Silver

Fantasy Bronze

UPDATE: Also a link to a much better image by the author herself http://www.coolminiornot.com/193670
and more here: http://brushmistress.com/gallery/masqueofslaanesh.jpg

Duel - Silver

Duel Bronze (one of my personla favorite)

Open Gold

Open Silver (this is me again, and I have to say this one was a really BIG surprize). this is an old picture taken for coolmini

Open Bronze

Open honorable mention (another my personal favorite)

Just open

More open

More Open

Young Blood Gold

Young Blood

Young blood Bronze painted by our own Ansel Elgort from NYC 8th street GW

Young Blood ---- I am red... so?

Warhammer 40k LArge. Gold (again me)