I actually finished this model a week ago, but I’ve held off from showing the finished piece until today which is competition deadline day. The competition is public vote on Facebook so I didn’t want the impact of the finished piece to wear thin. Lots more thoughts and angles after the jump.
The first picture in this entry is the “money shot”. When I come up with a conversion I compose it as if it was a photograph. I did the same for my Abaddon conversion (first picture in this link) recently. As you can see when viewed from a certain angle you get more impact. Because you’re converting the piece you have complete control of the “money shot”.
This piece took just under a week to convert and sculpt and exactly a week to paint. Which is a reasonable amount of time. If you missed the conversion pictures you can see them here. If you want full tutorials on how I sculpted the model you can see that here.
Colour choice for the model is very deliberate. Everything was carefully chosen and planned out to work together. The colour of the leaves and the spiders. The colour of the wolf was chosen to work with all the bones and skulls. It’s quite a natural palette with woods, rusts, furs. It really makes the unnatural greens pop out more such as the foot on the banner, the skin of the goblin and snotling which are all key area focus points.
I think competition pieces do better if they tell a story. My story is subtle and simple. This is goblin battle standard going to war against the undead. The base is littered with skulls of the enemy, the banner pole is made up from parts of the enemy and the banner depicts a scary image of the enemy about to be flattened by the foot of Gork. Little visual cues are there to add interest such as the giant piece of warpstone at the top of the banner hints it is a magical banner. The little snotling holding on to the tail of the wolf adds speed and movement. The spiders on the base and the banner pole explain the web used to tie to the banner to the frame.
Whilst I don’t consider myself a Golden Demon painter, I do wonder if I could paint the base edge black, mount it on a plinth and enter it. I think it ticks the boxes. Story, well painted, freehand, technical skill, realistic effects. So it might be good for a finalist pin maybe? What do you think?
News just in… I won my Store leg of the competition and went through to the tri-store competition and won that too. It was a public vote, so I'm really pleased the public liked it. I'm the November North London painting champion 🙂
Who's james supposed to be?
It was James' fault if you don't win 😉
Stunning work Garfy! Let us know the outcome of the competition when you do.
I'm a bit unsure what's happening with the competition. It seems there was only one other entrant. Both mine and his entries were posted to the store's Facebook page for votes yesterday. No cut off time to vote has been announced. No winner has been announced. I'm not sure what the next step is. I was under the impression the winner goes up against two other stores' winners.
Modest indeed! Not sure why a "plinth" is required to showcase an outstanding mini, which (by definition), should be able to stand out without one! Well done James! Superb work!
I don't know about being modest. I just don't ooze confidence when it comes to painting.
P.S. Who's James? Lol.
You are being modest, but can you give a link to the Facebook vote. I can't find it and it would be good to see the opposition too!
They're not up yet. The three stores participating are GW Muswell Hill, GW Barnet and GW Enfield.
I don't normally remember GD entries being on plinths.