Painting Contest from Sons of Chaos!!!

 

Recently I have been lucky enough to be approached by a great new forum dedicated to all things chaos. They wanted to know if I would judge their painting competition - which, after a look around at their membership and seeing their genuine love for the topic, I was only too happy to agree to! As a part of judging I also said that I would be happy to post the winners here on LITW for all my readers to enjoy. Hopefully this will inspire some of you to become involved with the Sons of Chaos and perhaps we will see many of you in the next contest!

Anyhoo, here is the results post along with some pictures of the winners :

Well I have been giving this some thought across the past week and have made my decisions.

Since I was given no real direction or limitations in my judging I have chosen the following:

1st Dark Captain Strafe 'Eetion the Unknown'
2nd Dark Captain Strafe 'Eetion the Unknown'
3rd Dark Captain Strafe 'Eetion the Unknown'

LONG LIVE THE LEGION!!!! Power to Alphar......EEEEEEK!

Sorry everyone - it seems some blue and green imposter had hijacked my computer.... very suspicious..... ANYWAY

After much deliberation I have chosen the winners for this competition. I would like to thank everyone who entered as I think these are great for the community and for building a shared spirit of growth.

The first place was fairly easy for me to be honest. It is an amazing piece. The rest, however, that took some real thought and I would like the opportunity to respond to them all. So here goes:

Krakenfiend! Chaplain

This is a really slick model. Im not sure what it is about his particular Chaplain piece but it is one of those rare sculpts that seems to draw great paintjobs to it. Krakenfiend has not dissapointed. This is a Very smooth detail oriented paintjob with great attention given to contrast and colour transition. The base is a little over the top big, but still is finished in such a way as it does not detract from the model. I particularily liked the inclusion of chapter specific detailing on the right shoulder pad. A very impressive job that was, for me, a clear winner in this competition. Second Place: Thrawn - Nightlord Ship

Purely from a creative standpoint this piece was a real standout for me - I really liked the additions. From a visual standpoint I think It really represents the nightlords very well - it is immediately recognisable and elicits a definite "Hey thats just cool" reaction from me. While simple, the paintjob itself is very clean and suits the model and the base is appropriately finished. All around well done.

Third Place: BillyBob - Sould Drinkers Chapter Master

A really interesting conversion. While I am not familiar with the books, this has prompted me to want to read them! The model is well painted though I find the some areas a bit flat and lacking in contrast (particularly the metals). I do very much like the face though and it makes a great focal point.The base is appropriately finished and overall this piece does have some pretty bad@$$ attitude. Certainly one of the nicest of the competition.

To the rest (in no particular order):

Zorag - great pose, work on keeping paint surfaces cleaner and smoother.

Lord Damocles - GREAT choice of model - very nice colour transition in the fire, metals look good, the down side is that the base looks unfinished or at least does not compliment the figure well IMO.

Desert Rat - great model, nice pose, interesting base, I like the weathering you have done - not much in the way of criticism here (I would have probably GS'ed the seam out of the barrel top) but overall really nice - this made judging really tough with the second and third place pieces. I ended up choosing them ahead of you based on the interesting character of the models rather than being specifically better painted.

Mortal - This piece is frikkin cool. Again - making judging 2nd and 3rd very difficult
This may be my favorite piece in the batch as it is just really cool in concept and execution. Unfortunately I had to choose the other ones because I do think they are painted better. Your metals and chassis tend to be a bit flat though the bone and blues look real nice.

Strafe - Great backpack - I am likely to steal that (a very AL thing to do dont you agree?!) Anywhoo The model is good, the hand painted AL symbol is nice and the metals look good. There are,however, still mold lines showing. In a competition I have never awarded anything to a model that still has mold lines.........

Mr Gask - Very characterful - love the beret. I think guys like this would look really cool in a unit. The photos were a little dark and so I cant comment too much on the paintjob because I find the details hard to see. I do like the colour sceme though and the base is nicely finished.

To see pictures of all the runner up pieces please check out the Art of Chaos section of the forums at the Sons of Chaos web community (there is even a link on the left side of this page in the "Miniature Related" section!)