[Archive] WIP Golden Daemon entry, feedback needed

Grimstonefire:

As the title says.

I know the shots are not great in terms of angle or lighting, but seeing as there is a lot of work to be done until this is close to being finished I thought I’d ask for basic feedback at this point.

Later in the week I’ll take some much better shots so you can get really picky. :wink:

Overall I think it’s going very well so far, especially considering I still have a week to go.  Normally I finish early on games day morning… :~  If I have time this week I’m going to touch up the nurgle lord model I did and re-enter that as well.

[attachment=2738][attachment=2739][attachment=2740]

Abecedar:

I’ll just sit back and watch. Advising you on painting and/or modeling is way beyond my pay grade!

Bolg:

Stunning. but I too do not know what to say. its probably the photo but overall the demon is a bit dark and in this pictures hasn’t got much contrast to the (very cool) background.

I hop you share WIP pics once you’ve collected your golden demon. Good luck!

Bassman:

Stunning. but I too do not know what to say. its probably the photo but overall the demon is a bit dark and in this pictures hasn't got much contrast to the (very cool) background.

Bolg
Quote, I think the picture does not give justice to this awesome piece.

warh:

looks great,
what I can think of is that judges usually like strong contrast and smooth blending (very hard to do). so I would highlight the metal some more where the light reflects, maybe highlight the daemons sword a bit more. the skin is perfect as it is, the orange hair needs some lighter colour where the light reflects, some cracked lether on the book would be cool.

wishes best of luck

Grimstonefire:

As you all might of guessed (with it not being my first post when I got back ;)) I didn’t win anything.

I need some time to reflect on what went wrong this year as many of the finalists hardly had any blending at all…  I would have happily walked away today with a finalists certificate.

I’ll take some photos tomorrow.

To be honest I am really at a complete loss this year.  No offence to the others that entered, but looking at many of the finalists I thought mine demonstrated far greater technical painting skill.  Not having blending at all is just rediculous!?!?

The only thing that Imo could have been an issue is that most of them seemed to be on far bigger bases than mine.  So clearly that’s something I need to investigate.  Whether you can use scenic display bases.  Not that it’s something that should have lost it for me.  I really hope that wasn’t it.

I think if there was a popular vote I would have at least made it as a finalist.  I was watching the people looking at the minis for 6 or 7 mins, and most of the time the people pointing and taking photos were of my mini!  Saying it was awesome.  Ah well. :frowning:

All things considered for me the victory was simply having an entry at all this year.  I finished it in quite good time for me, around midnight last night.

Rather than start a new thread, I’ll also note here some of the other interesting things for me in the day.

Firstly, I had a decent chat to Alan and Michael Perry!  First time I’ve seen them at games day.  I asked about the dreadfleet ships, as they did some.  I then chatted about them sculpting the original chaos dwarfs.  Seems Rick Priestley said to them ‘make them taller’, so they did really tall hats on them.

I spoke to Seb Perbet by a strange stroke of luck (he was the one sculptor I really wanted to talk to and I happened to stop to put something in my bag right next to him).  Asked him about how he sculpted Ikit Claw.

I spoke to Brian Nelson for quite a while, also someone I really wanted to talk to but never remembered seeing before.  Showed him the sculpts I took along and he was impressed!  So was Alan Perry who happened to turn up (and said a quarter of the WH single minis entered were Brian’s plastic hero sculpts).  Brian helped me find the studio manager eventually and I spoke to him and Mark Harrison for quite a while.

It really was a great novelty for me, speaking to all these people who’ve been there sculpting for years.  I remember when they introduced Brian Nelson in WD many years ago.

Mark Harrison really liked the CD sculpt I took along (the latest one in my blog).  I was half tempted to say “you’ll be able to buy some soon from trollforged minis”, but I decided not to! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I entered the Quick Draw contest with a chaos dwarf.  I went there with a plan and just recreated it.  It would make a decent mini imo.  Didn’t win anything though.  You should have seen the 2nd and 3rd placed ones… :sick  The 1st place one was quite good.  Quite a challenge this to complete in 20mins start to finish.

The picture is a little warped from where the paper flexed.

maxxev:

Sorry you didn’t win anything, and I hope it wasn’t just because of the base, that would certainly grate on me if that were the case as well.

Nice sketch there, and very cool for 20 mins worth of time.

Better luck next year :slight_smile:

GRNDL:

I entered the Quick Draw contest with a chaos dwarf.  I went there with a plan and just recreated it.  It would make a decent mini imo.  Didn't win anything though.  You should have seen the 2nd and 3rd placed ones... :sick  The 1st place one was quite good.  Quite a challenge this to complete in 20mins start to finish.

Grimstonefire
Last time GD was held in Toronto, the entries for the "quick draw" contest apparently didn't have to be done at the show, nor quickly. The winner was a full colour, airbrushed painting. None of the ones done on the show floor even placed. The only win to be had was for my entry to be used in WoH. Were the winning entries done on the show floor, GSF?

Grimstonefire:

Yes.  They had 4 categories:

Quick Draw under 12s.

Quick Draw under 16s.  

Quick Draw over 16s.

Art competition (do before games day).

There was some seriously cool art in the art contest.  I forgot to take a photos, but someone had done a battle line of horrors that looked really impressive.

All the quick draw ones were 20mins.

Bolg:

Shame you didnt win anything. looking forward to more pictures and good luck/have fun planing your entry form next year (:

Hashut’s Blessing:

It’s awesome that you got to talk to so many of the sculptors, especially the ones that you wanted to and quite cool that it was by serendipity.

Sucks to hear that you didn’t even get a look in with the Golden Demon - chances are that it was to do with colour choice, subject matter and style. I’ve seen people disect what kinds of things the judges look at each year so that they can plan for the next year - oftentimes they look for particular techniques (phases of non-metallic metals, object source lighting, highlighting, shading etc). It seems that the particular level of skill isn’t as relevant as the choice of skill. It’s not right, but it’s what’s been told from many sources. At least you can be proud that you’d impressed many people over others int he competition!

What came first, second and third in the quick draw? What was so bad with second and third place? Yours looks pretty dang cool!

Ronshank:

Your not the only one to wonder these things about Golden Deamon. There are always a few that I don’t understand but I figure it’s because I don’t know how hard the techniques used are, some of the techniques that seem the easiest often end up being extremely difficult. How judges judge I just don’t know. Somethings I have noticed though is that certain themes tend to go in cycles, judged well one year then poorly the next.

Bright contrasts tend to be one of those areas that changes alot year to year sometimes it is highly favoured and well blended yet mostly uniform coloured models hardly get a look in (think space marines) and other times it goes completely the other way. I have noticed that watching what techniques the heavy metal teams are experimenting with can help explain at least some of the techniques that may be favoured that year. I have no idea what models won the categories but I would not be surprised if non-metalic metals were favoured (they have been going on for a while about these) And of course the judges always seem to reward super high quality freehand be they tattoos, writing in books details on ships (especially the ones that look airbrushed and probably are)

I did see a you-tube video about how the judges reach their decisions and how it gets to the point that they start looking for flaws on purpose to mark people down because the quality is so high. I’ve looked for the video and can’t find it.

I know they also judge based on accuracy to the race represented and whether they are in the right kind of setting etc. It comes down to perfection in the end though. There are so many entries from so many gifted painters that it becomes all about making sure it’s as flawless as possible and even then it’s up to luck that you have what they are looking for and they notice it in your entry.

None of this will probably mean much to you now. Personally I really liked your entry and thought it would be rated pretty highly.

Having said all that stuff your gifts as a sculptor are immense and as for turning the heads of such gifted sculptors yourself well I bet there are slayer sword winners who would love that and haven�?Tt achieved it. I know that GD finalists need amazing conversion skills but I really doubt that all of them can scratch build a whole unit like you can.

Okay so you didn�?Tt win the painting contest only a very few people can each year which puts you in the majority. You are a true all rounder GW would be lucky to have a guy like you working for them and I bet you�?Tll do better in the coming years anyway. You are a credit to the Chaos Dwarf cause. Shake it off you know how good you are.