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taebeck you are making my point. Besides standing next to the check in table the judges can only guess on who made something based on the painting style, and that can be simulated to some degree based on last years work.

Your comment makes it sound as if the judges religiously look through online painting communities and then have some checklist and put a little x next to names with complete disregard to the quality of whatever has been entered.

Like I mentioned above, one of the main criteria is if your work fits in one of the GW game universes. Some judges might think that a goofy conversion fits with the old school ork goofiness, while another one might think these times are over and everything has to be corroding, dark, and grungy.

While I think that keeping a theme is a good idea, it should have some standard so that it could be a bit more transparent (and kept consistent with different judges for each event). They already did this to some degree with the "no reference to real events" (semi-official?) rule but their own work has references some historic event all over the place. So you may reference them referencing stuff but referencing something on your own is a bit too much?


And the preference for more gritty metallics could be the result of the judging. I think Jes Goodwin was a judge in Los Angeles and that might have influenced the judging (this time) in a more gritty and real metal (instead of shiny NMM) direction. Some daemon report of a few years ago mentioned that he is not a fan of NMM and prefers real metals.
Another possibility would be that American painters have adopted some metallic painting technique that got traction in Europe after NMM wasn't trendy enough anymore . So the resulting shift in metallic paint job winners could simply be the result of a proportional bigger amount of high quality metallic work and no judging magic.


NAVARRO: It was one of these online "contest" for last year's slayer sword winner. Chris Borer did win something with his entry in Chicago too, if I remember correctly.

I thought i had seen it before thanks for clarifying.

As for the NMM losing for gritty metal this year, I had the oposite feeling, personally even he didnt win slayer, Tierry ( well famous for his clean and irreprochable NMM) won so many demons he is probably the man of the event.

I just wish they'd come back to Atlanta.

AMEN!!!! I have to stick with winning Best Paint at tournies now!!! Although I have to admit the quality of this stuff is way beyond what GD was years ago. I would have to spend a year to paint a model just to compete heheh.

And for those that are razzing about the judges remember one thing: There is a basic list rules to adhere to (must maintain the GW theme and fit in the gw rules, be gw models etc...) but when it comes down to actually judging the paint itself it is very opinionated. Everyones eyes see it differently and some people are able to pick out detail others are not. Some judges have an affinity for certain model types and others just look for a clean or busy paint job. The problem with any paint contest is it is objective and you will score differently every where you go.

@Hokkaido, Yes Chris Bell was there judging and yes his Crimson Fist army is beautiful. I talked to him about judging this Games Day and he was amazed at the improved level of quality. He said judging was not easy.

I think possibly the best US GD (as in a painting competition about warhammer gothic) of all time.

The Squad and Regiment categories were a little uninspiring, and open seemed like a nother route to win an individual demon, rather than something really "open", but the rest are fantastic - tons of really superb pieces technically and in terms of moods. Now I want to paint a single piece aswell as I can...

I really liked the duel winner, all of LOTR, WH big winner, templar - I love the Salamander and if it wasn't for slight "offness" on the 4k feel, it'd been my slayer candidate.

Thanks for sharing!

I personally love the Slayer winner. The "Just a tick, I'll be there to slobber all over you in a moment." pose is great.

I also loved the Sallie, but didn't want to heap any more praise on the Chapter that gets all the luck.

Since when are Tallarn Mukaali monstrous creatures and Tau Crisis Suits vehicles?

Love the sentinel in the Honorable Mentions, great pose. Makes it look much less static.

NAVARRO wrote:

taebeck wrote:3rd didnt slayer termi participated on a GW site competition not long ago? slayer contest or something...

Yes he did. The site is such a mess, but Google came to the rescue. The Slayer sword challenge is here.

Thanks for the link mate, I searched for it in the GW site and couldnt find it also so i gave up.
These pics do show slayer in much more detail than the actual GD coverage.

wow oh wow, that avatar is amazing.

I find no merit in the judging of the Golden Demon...at least here in LA. I went to last year's and this year's GDLA and found glaring errors in both the judges' voting and their complete lack of consistency in choices (honestly the models look completely different from their pictures on the GW site). The Vindicator that won Silver this year didn't even get into honorable mentions the year before (less quality last year too), and my buddy's amazing Mordheim pirate warband didn't even place. Clearly there is something awry in their criteria for judging.