My Unfunny Thoughts on Painting Competitions

I humbly present my not especially funny thoughts on miniature painting competitions. Obviously, Games Workshop’s Golden Demon competition looms pretty large in our end of the hobby, but there are plenty of other contests – past and present. I think my thoughts here will apply to all of them. 

Who Cares What I Think?

As it happens, I have competed in, won, lost and judged a number of the larger miniature painting competitions throughout the years. I say this not as any sort of brag, but just to give some perspective to my thoughts. I certainly don’t think of myself as a top tier painter – especially these days. I’m just a decent painter who has seen some shit. As I am but an anonymous internet crank, you are free to disbelieve my credentials.

The Good

I enjoy painting, as many of you do. After 35 years of painting, I have come to understand that the best reason to paint is to enjoy my time here on earth. In the past, painting competitions have provided me with a motivation to paint, and a date to finish a project by. Much like tournaments and campaigns, painting comps have been a way to get myself excited about painting. Competitions are also times and places where I have met up with long-time hobby friends and met new ones. The importance of live human contact cannot be overstated, especially for grumpy old men like myself. A great deal of what I know about painting has come from friends I’ve met at conventions and whatnot, and I am lucky to have many friends who are much better painters than I am. I have also learned a great deal from the mere act of entering painting competitions. Looking in the cases and sizing up the competition to see what I need to do next time has been invaluable. You will get to see some awesome stuff. If you play your cards right, you might even get to hold some awesome pieces and study them up close. For me anyway, learning and improving my painting over the years has been satisfying and validating in and of itself. 

Speaking of which – validation – a slippery and sometimes dangerous thing. I’m pretty sure anyone who ever entered some such competition was seeking some sort of validation, whether they care to admit it or not. Whether someone just wants to make a respectable showing at the Golden Yetis, get a nifty first cut pin. or win yet another Crystal Ding-Dong for their shelf – they are probably seeking some validation. I know I was once upon a time. It’s a natural human instinct. I wish we could all do things just for our own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others, but it doesn’t always work that way. So yeah, I think a little external validation can be healthy. I guess? Maybe? Anyway, we all need to be careful and keep it in perspective. This all applies to seeking validation on the internet as well, but that is a whole other boring ramble.

The Bad

If you want to make your hobby and your free time a lot more stressful, this is a great way to do it. I have watched many friends spend a year working on an entry while they slowly moved up the big hill of the emotional rollercoaster, finally cresting the day they dropped their model off for judging. I’ve watched highly successful, well-adjusted 40 and 50-something guys be not be able to sleep because of this shit. I’ve watched them stare into the case for hours and hours and hours. I’m not suggesting this should stop anyone from entering these things, but you should be prepared for a little extra stress in your life.

Also, losing. Losing feels shitty – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. You probably knew that.

& the Ugly

Most of the discussion around painting competitions falls into two categories: 

1. “Holy fucking shit, did you see Model X!? I melted like a Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark when I basked in its heavenly glory, but it was worth it.”
2. “Holy fucking shit, why the fuck did Model Y get gold? The judges are clearly on meth, that thing is a giant steaming turd-monster.”

As you may have guessed, I am going to focus here on category number 2. The judging at any competition will come down to the group of judges that happen to be working at a given event. Judging is always highly subjective and never easy. Some judges are good and some are not so good. A few are terrible, and if they are domineering enough they can can completely fuck up the results of a competition. Judges also judge on lots of different criteria that vary from judge to judge. Some are strictly technical, some are far more interested in narrative and emotion - things which are very hard to quantify. Having said all of that – I believe all the judges I’ve met over the years were honest and well intentioned. Well, there was one guy who was fucking batshit, but I think even he thought he was doing good, in his own very warped perception of things. 

I should also note, that in my experience and understanding, judges are not given a whole lot of guidance on how to judge – this very much includes Golden Demon judges. After every Golden Demon competition, there are rumblings about some sort of ever-shifting document or code about how Games Workshop staff are told to judge Golden Demon. It has been my experience that there is no such thing, and I have never seen or heard of any evidence of it. The reason the judging standards and criteria can seem random and chaotic, is there are no well-defined standards or criteria – well, none that are outside of the printed rules available to everyone. Again it just comes down to who is judging that particular day. This goes for every other contest I’ve been a part of as well.

Side Bar that isn’t a Side Bar – That Whole Screwy Crystal Brush Online Voting Thing

The only competition I can think of where it didn’t solely come down to judges judging based on their own thoughts and experience was the Cool Mini or Not Crystal Brush awards. They used a system where a small part of the scoring for each category was determined by an online voting system. This was of course done to promote the CMoN website, but it was an awful, unfair idea, and I have never heard anyone have anything good to say about it. I can only hope that no one ever bothered to rig it or better yet, that CMoN in reality did not actually use it as part of their scoring.

Also, understand that judging is a difficult and thankless task. It always feels like a great honor to be asked to do it, but it is always hard work, usually exhausting and sometimes fucking excruciating. You should also understand that unless you have carefully looked at all the models under good lighting and under magnification (if you are old like me), then you don’t really know what the judges saw. You saw them on the internet? Were the photos big enough for you to really see everything? Were there photos from every angle? Even underneath? Were the photos taken under the same light? Did the photographer know what they were doing? Did someone retouch the photos at all? Was that someone the artist? Was the artist able to restrain themself from doing more than just removing dust? You did not see what the judges saw. 

So yeah, judging is all over the map. Here’s the thing though: there is nothing you can do about it. I’m not sure there is a whole lot anyone can do about it. There could be better defined judging criteria and organizers could be more careful in their selection of judges. At the end of the day, there is still going to be a lot of variation from judge to judge and as a participant, you are going to just have to learn to roll with it.

Guess what though? Judging isn’t the ugly part. The ugly part is the inevitable public second-guessing of judges and particularly the public criticism of winning entries. I can’t think of a better way to ruin someone’s hobby for them. People are trash.

Side Bar that isn’t a Side Bar – Open-style Competitions

These are competitions where the judges are free to give out as may gold, silver and bronze awards as they like in any category. This type of judging is common in competitions for airplane, armor, ship and car scale modeling. I gather it has also gained momentum in Europe in the miniature painting scene. The only major contest I know of that uses this system in the US is the Capital Palette at the Nova Open. The upside to this system is obvious: more people go home happy. The downside is the judging takes a lot longer. Every model above a certain threshold has to be given serious consideration. As a judge, my instinct is to give out as many awards as possible, so less people hate me – so this all seems perfect to me. I have noticed though that this system can lead to a certain degree of expectation and entitlement among the participants. I can also see situations where certain participants will come to the same show every year and park themselves at the same level, just to keep raking in trophies, never really pushing themselves to improve. I guess that isn't a terrible thing, just something to think about. I do know that a lot of very good painters end up being really disappointed, even devastated in zero-sum contents like Golden Demon. Winner-takes-all systems create a lot of heartache, and it's good to know alternatives are taking root.

My Unsolicited Advice

Big Picture

1. Study the winners from past competitions and be honest with yourself about where your work is and what you should be aiming for. Don’t let this demoralize you, just be realistic, and…
2. Set goals you can actually achieve. Don’t aim for a slayer sword straight away. Start with smaller local painting competitions or aim for making the “First Cut” at a bigger competition.
3. Enter lots of things over the course of your hobby career. The more you do it, the less tumultuous it will get for you. If you are serious about painting you will eventually win something or other, whether a first cut pin at Golden Demon or a plaque for best painted at a tournament. This will give you confidence and some inner peace moving forward.
4. Have no expectations. I know you really want whatever you want, I’ve been there. Keep that shit in check.

Creating Your Entry

1. Read the damn rules. Do you want to spend months working on an entry only to have it disqualified on a technicality?
2. Regarding competitions held by a miniature manufacturer - The Golden Demons play a big part in my thoughts here, but this applies to any contest put on by a specific manufacturer. If a competition is put on by a company to promote their own models, then their Judges will likely be looking for paint jobs that fit into the narrative and aesthetic of the universe they are promoting. These kinds of competitions are marketing tools. If you don’t like that, I recommend you don’t enter them. If though, you are entering this type of competition and hoping to win, I would suggest staying within the lines as best you can perceive them. Be conservative. Don’t use any parts from another manufacturer, don’t allude to another intellectual property or fantasy universe and don’t enter a roller-skating space llama that you made out of a hundred Space Marines. Actually, please do that, just understand you won’t win. You can still be plenty creative within these kinds of limitations. How much these IP/universe considerations come into play still comes down to individual judges though, and as such, will vary wildly. You can certainly create a protest entry to show the world that your talent and creativity cannot be caged, but you probably won’t win. That seems like an awful lot of work to make a point that not many people will notice. That seems like an awful lot of work for a result that will make you feel bad. If I were, I would save my wackier models for more open-ended painting comps - or better yet, organize your own painting competition.
3. These kinds of unwritten, soft rules take some experience to figure out. I would suggest talking to other participants about them. While I recommend being conservative in some ways, I don’t think you need to go overboard. For example, I do not think Golden Demon judges give preference to recent releases, Space Marines, or the ‘Eavy Metal painting style. You might get an individual judge who leans one way or another, but I have never seen any evidence of those kinds of strict marketing-driven guidelines.
4. Consider the categories. First of all, choose categories and projects that excite you. You will need that excitement to carry you through to the completion of a long, intense project. If you are in it to win it, you may want to consider which categories you have the best shot in. Generally, single miniature categories are the hardest. Squads, vehicles and large models tend to be easier, as do oddball categories like duel, diorama, weird scales and less popular game systems. You never know what is going to be in any category until the day of though, so don’t drive yourself crazy trying to game the categories.
5. Enjoy painting, this is the best part – way more fun than awkwardly accepting a little statue from some weird guy with a microphone who clearly likes to hear himself talk. OK, that does feel pretty good though.
6. Keep having no expectations.

During

1. If possible, have a support network of friends with you at the event. Even better, if they are hobby/painting friends
2. Hand your model off to the people behind the desk and walk away. Do not walk over to your category and size up the competition. Do not spend your whole weekend coming back and repeating this over and over again. You will drive yourself fucking crazy. Go play some Necromunda, take some painting classes, have tacos with your friends. Tacos are great.
3. Yep, still no expectations.

After

1. If you win something, be humble and gracious. 
2. If you lose, be humble and gracious. It is ok to be bummed out. Have some ice cream.
3. Only talk to a judge afterwards if you are doing so to seek advice and encouragement. For the love of god, do not talk to a judge if you want to explain to them why you should have won, even if, well actually, it is obvious they were a fucking fool and you clearly should have won. Again, go get some ice cream instead.
4. Win or lose, maybe don’t delve too deep into the internet the next week. If you are feeling good, you don’t want the internet to fuck that up for you. If you are feeling bad, you don’t want the internet to make you feel worse.
5. If you weren’t happy with a judge’s decision regarding your model, do not broadcast that on the internet. Shut your stupid face. Tell your friends to please shut their stupid faces - You don’t need a sour grapes shill. You might be wrong; you might be right. Either way, now your time for you to shut the fuck up.
6. For the love of fucking fuck, do not publicly criticise another participant’s model on the internet – fucking ever. Not even a tiny fucking bit. Fuck.

Side Bar that isn’t a Side Bar – Winning Best Painted Army in a Tournament

Forget about it. The odds of you pulling a really good judge for this are slim. Most likely you will get some guy who is friends with the TO, who will do it all as quickly as possible, use a rubric, and grade everyone really gently. Beautifully painted armies will lose out to mediocre armies for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it will be because a mediocre army checked more boxes on a rubric – like a display base or conversions or fucking LED lights. Sometimes the judge won’t know a goddamn thing about painting. Sometimes the judge will just like Space Wolves better than whatever your army is. Sometimes the judge will literally be drunk. Sometimes you will get bumped out of best painted because you accidentally won best sportsmanship. Don’t worry about it. If you are a good painter, you will win these sorts of things periodically. Just don’t count on it. 

That’s it

I focused on a lot of the fussy bits here, because, well, those are the things that people fuss about – and you’ve probably heard a little of that. Hopefully I dispelled a few myths and gave you some idea what these things are actually like. Maybe it will help somebody. Have fun painting, and do it for its own sake. Tacos are great.

My Unfunny Thoughts on 3D Printing

I started to write this in response to some know-it-all dickhead’s comment on one of my posts. When you talk about 3D printing, know-it-all dickheads come out of the woodwork. Five paragraphs in, I decided to make it into its own post. Seemed like a great way to make everyone hate me.

I use 3D printers. I have purchased STLs, I have commissioned friends to design parts for me (I don’t have this skill-set yet) and I have printed the occasional free part from assorted skanky STL download sites. Filament always seemed like an inherently limited, dead end technology to me, though it does have occasional uses. Photo resin printers are finally at a point where I am happy with the quality of the final product. 4K and now 8k LCD printers have really made a big leap for me, personally. I can finally make parts that look pretty close to cast ones.

Cheaper/faster/better?

Printing is a decent amount of work, and it takes a lot of time and energy to get a printer dialed in and up and running. It almost becomes a hobby in and of itself. Personally, If I can avoid it by buying a model that already looks exactly how I want it to, I take that route. Printers and supplies have certainly come down in price, but they are still not free. Every guy I see bragging about how much money he is saving by 3D printing seems to have one working printer and five broken ones that are sitting idle. I am a painter and a modeler, that is what I enjoy doing. I get no particular joy from being a printer technician. I would rather spend more of my limited free time painting. To be fair, I am a 40-something (that does not make me a boomer, kids) with a good career and a family. In other words, I have more money than time. I’m not loaded, but I understand I have more disposable income than a 20-something. I understand if your calculations are different based on your own income and free time.

Stealing?

I use printing to enhance and supplement my plastic and resin models – to allow me to make things I wouldn’t otherwise able to make. I also use printing to make entire new models which otherwise would not exist. Some of the files I use sometimes border on IP infringement. I’m almost always combining them with GW/FW models that I purchased, so I don’t see any great harm here.

I don’t care if you buy recasts or print duplicates of GW models any more than I care if you walk into Walmart and shoplift. GW is doing fine (most people still find it a lot more fun and easy to buy plastic kits than 3D print) and I assume Walmart is doing fine too. Here’s the thing though, you don’t get to think you are better than a kid who steals shit from Walmart. You sure as fuck don’t get to strut around like you are fucking Robin Hood. You are a middle class person stealing luxury goods which you do not need, but feel entitled to. I find this attitude especially asinine among the “Law and Order” conservative types who think the aforementioned kid should go to prison for 20 years for shoplifting some Skittles from Walmart.

At this point, almost all of us have some parts of dubious origin. I do too. I also have a few totally unlicensed figures and busts from tiny 1-person companies. There is plenty of gray area. All in all though, at this point in my life, I do my best to support the designers who make the models I build and paint.

Are you cool?

I laughed out loud when I saw nerds grappling with this question in the comments. I guess it gets to the heart of what the average nerd is really worried about. Nobody asked me, but I’ll tell you what I think anyway. You are cool if your models look good and you are cool if you are not an asshole. Take a long hard look at those two things. I have creeped the profile of many a “goes Brrr” commenter, and their prints always look like shit. In the unlikely event they have any paint on their models, it is laughable. If you want to be cool, put in your 10,000 hours and get good at something – anything. Until then, shut the fuck up, kiddo.

And now that you probably hate me… All funds from my merch sales go to the International Rescue Committee these days. So buy a fanny pack or something – Or don’t I guess I should make this its own post.

https://tabletop-inquirer.creator-spring.com/

Well Actually - Epoxy

I’ve come to rely exclusively on J-B Weld Epoxy when I need serious bonding power. It is essential for large, heavy resin or metal kits but works great in any joint where superglue isn’t cutting it. Mix a little bit of parts A and B (White and Black) together on a pallet and then apply with a toothpick or paperclip. J-B Weld takes 4-6 hours to cure so you need a way to hold the parts together while it does. “Quick grip” clamps, rubber bands, and super glue (for quick short term bond) are your friends. Pro-tip: I sometimes also use a tiny little ball of greenstuff for temporary hold in troublesome superglue and J-B Weld joints. Mix it up a little more yellow so it is extra sticky. This stuff is on the messy side, but it wipes off pretty well with a q-tip or paper towel. The cure-time is the main downside but when you need it, nothing else will do.

In summary, If I’m gluing plastic to plastic (styrene, that is), I use plastic cement. For most other applications (resin, metal, etc.) I use super glue. When super glue isn’t cutting it, I turn to J-B Weld. 

Well Actually - Plastic Cement

Plastic cement (plastic glue) uses some sort of chemical (usually lacquer-based) to weld styrene plastics together. This is what you want to use for Games Workshop plastic kits as well as most other “plastic models.” It only works with polystyrene plastic and will not work with metal, resin or other plastics. It melts/welds the plastic together and creates a very strong bond – it is also quite easy to use once you get the hang of it. Unlike superglue, plastic cement gives you lots of working time where the parts are stuck together but you can still nudge them around into the right position. Over a couple minutes, the bond slowly gets firmer as the plastic welds itself together making it harder and harder to adjust. At this point, you can keep handling the parts without worrying too much about them moving or coming apart. After an hour you will have a very strong bond, much stronger than anything you can achieve with superglue. Sometimes on tricky joints I will use a little dab of super glue, to hold the parts while the slower acting plastic cement does it’s thing.

These days I mostly use Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. The in-cap applicator brush works perfectly. For
small bonds, be sure to wipe most of it off the brush on the rim of the bottle. I use Faller Super-Expert “gloopier” and with a bit more wiggle-time. If you can still find Testors cement with a steel applicator tip and the steel clean-out rods, that is pretty much the same thing. For this kind of cement, I squirt a little on a palette and apply with the end of a paper clip. Having a steel applicator tip is great for this kind of glue because it is easy to unclog. You can either clear it out with the included clean-out rod (or a stick pin) or you can heat the metal tip up with a lighter, which will melt all the dried glue. Just note that the liquid glue is also quite flammable!

There are lots or other good plastic cements out there. Some are more or less “hot,” meaning they melt the plastic more or less. Less powerful stuff is good to have on hand for tiny parts. There are a number of products on the more powerful side of the spectrum that many people swear by. In my experience, most of these smell terrible and can't possibly be good for you. Lacquer-based cement works great for everything I do, so I'm sticking with that.

I recently learned that some folks refuse to use plastic cement and exclusively use superglue. This strikes me as a bit banaynays, and I think you are doing yourself a considerable disservice if you refuse to give plastic cement a chance. It’s just easier and more consistent, but you do you.

Well Actually - Super Glue

There is a lot of super glue misinformation out there. I'm no expert, but here is what I have to offer.

Super Glue and Krazy Glue are brand names for cyanoacrylate glue. It is wonderful but can be infuriating. It works on just about any kind of surface and does create a very strong bond – well, strong depending on which way it has force applied. If you pull the two parts directly apart, super glue is incredibly strong. If you twist the joint or sheer it with sideways force, superglue bonds often fail. This is why it is important to pin many superglue joints. The tried and true method involves a pin vice and a paper clip. I’m sure there are Youtube videos. I use the smaller standard paper clips and a .8mm to 1mm drill bits. Superglue cures in a chemical reaction with moisture in the air, and indeed cures faster when it touches a moist surface such as your skin. It also works great under water. Because it reacts to moisture, ALL SUPER GLUE HAS A LIMITED SHELF LIFE and once you open a bottle it will steadily lose effectiveness. For this reason I buy the smallest bottles available, buy several at a time and toss old bottles when they stop working. People have strong opinions about super glue brands but I honestly don’t think it matters much. It all works great when you first open it and gets steadily worse over time. I think people tend to think the last brand they bought is the best because it is the one that still works. I’ve been using Bob Smith (BSI) brand lately, but drug store Krazy Glue does the same thing. It comes in various thicknesses/viscosities The thinner the glue, the stronger the bond will be – but the really thin stuff is harder to work with. I generally put some super glue on a palette of some sort and use the end of a paper clip to apply it. Super glue accelerator works, but every time I use it I feel weird and icky. I’m not particularly sensitive to solvents or other chemicals but this stuff really messes me up. Fun fact: Super glue was NOT invented for first aid use, but it certainly has been used for medical and veterinary applications - great for guitar players’ finger tips.