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Hey Dakka,
A while back their was some controversy about 2011's slayer sword winner. Some people thought that he did not really deserve it.
Well, here is a video from GW that may perhaps solve some of the questions raised or perhaps just confirm that its a bit dodgy: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=2400002-gws

It does look a bit better now that there are different angles, and the spellbook is a rather nice addition. But something of it.. I don't know.

Something like how 80% of the WFB single mini finalists just happened to be the new just released fantasy plastic characters? Or something like he was apparently using the new GW paints as part of the test team before they were available to the public? Nah definately nothing fishy ;-)

I think its a awesome model, but I feel there was better painted minis that should have taken the Slayer Sword.

ruff wrote:I think its a awesome model, but I feel there was better painted minis that should have taken the Slayer Sword.

I haven't seen the rest of the award winners, but I'm not particularly impressed with that one. Granted, the skeleton holding the spellbook is a nice touch, but it just doesn't say "Slayer sword winner" to me.

I can pretty categorically say that that model is possibly the single most surprising SS winner...well ever.

It is solid work, but I have to be honest and say that it is nowhere near the level I would expect of an overall winner. England is not up to the standard of the rest of Europe generally speaking, but they most certainly have their fair share of world class painters.

I feel very guilty saying that, as certainly the painter does not deserve scorn or abuse for his win. At the same time if we are talking honestly and comparitively compared to the standards set in the last 5 years the world over, it certainly sticks out...

MajorTom11 wrote:I can pretty categorically say that that model is possibly the single most surprising SS winner...well ever.

It is solid work, but I have to be honest and say that it is nowhere near the level I would expect of an overall winner. England is not up to the standard of the rest of Europe generally speaking, but they most certainly have their fair share of world class painters.

I feel very guilty saying that, as certainly the painter does not deserve scorn or abuse for his win. At the same time if we are talking honestly and comparitively compared to the standards set in the last 5 years the world over, it certainly sticks out...

Oh no doubt, Congrats to him for sure. But you are right about the standards they have set.

Meh, I saw much better at adepticon. There was so much more you could do with it conversion wise, And no free hand work on the cloak seems like a missed opportunity. The spittle coming out of the mouth is nice though

I quite like the model, it's nice and subtle, with a muted palette and free of all the celtic knot freehands, OSL, gratuitous NMM-plastering, and crazy conversions* that have come to represent talent in recent years. It's possible that picking such a model for the Slayer Sword this year is a statement from the judges that they want painters to think more about the soft side of things and less about trying to shoehorn every technical trick in their book onto a single model.

Often a model is painted well, but without any care for the overall atmosphere of the model. This is roughly the same situation as that big freehand-covered bloodthirster on CMON from about 8 years ago where people couldn't believe it didn't win, but I could understand exactly why it didn't.. medieval christian freehands were unsuitable for the theme of a warhammer-universe model. In a similar fashion I can see why this did win... it fits and is atmospheric, dank and dusty.

The blends could be better, but otherwise it's an exact match for what is being looked for in a Golden Demon contest.

*It's a painting contest, not a conversion contest. Too often the foreign GD's put far too much weight on something that has been scratchbuilt over a stock model that has been painted to a better standard.

I thought it looked pretty awesome. Now I haven't seen any of the other entries but that looks like an awesome paint job to me. Whats the problem?

'Pick your favourite model and paint it using techniques you're comfortable with" - that's advice? That's even vaguer than the criteria you're given in the competition categories. Just because a model is your favourite, doesn't mean the judges will like it; way too subjective a comment to have any real weight.

I've only been to two Gamesdays, but each time I was expecting to be literally blown away by the Golden Demon stuff, and all I felt was slight disappointment. Yes, the stuff is good, but I can see better on here and on other sites too. The Slayer model is good, no doubt about that, but it's not stand-out good.
Last year was also a lesson learned in how to win even one Golden Demon: enter as many categories as humanly possible!

MajorTom11 wrote: England is not up to the standard of the rest of Europe generally speaking

Is that so?

I always figured that there was a higher percentage of people who painted here, so I figured England would have good painters. Which European nations are so far ahead of us? And why?

mattyrm wrote:

MajorTom11 wrote: England is not up to the standard of the rest of Europe generally speaking

Is that so?

I always figured that there was a higher percentage of people who painted here, so I figured England would have good painters. Which European nations are so far ahead of us? And why?

France, they are crazy painters. I looked at their last Games Day and I was shocked.

mattyrm wrote:

MajorTom11 wrote: England is not up to the standard of the rest of Europe generally speaking

Is that so?

I always figured that there was a higher percentage of people who painted here, so I figured England would have good painters. Which European nations are so far ahead of us? And why?

France likely holds the highest per capita of insanely good painters. The stuff I have seen come out of that place makes the best north american and british SS winners green with envy. Insane is the only appropriate way to describe their skills as one would have to be insane to dedicate that amount of energy to have that much talent.

It's more understated than most (Since most are insane conversions) but i think it's painted to the same degree...
Though i'm not particularly good at painting so go figure...

The miniature is alright. Probably the best at that show, but it doesn't strike me as any better than the typical miniature on Infinity product box art.

Best countries, France and Spain. Not particularly for Golden Demon, but if you have seen other Figure shows in Spain, they make the US Shows like IPMS Nationals or even Crystal Brush look silly.

Well, no doubt it's a beautifully painted model, but as others have pointed out there are better about.

I think as ScarletSquig points out, the considerations go beyond just the painting of the mini, so that it almost becomes something like the 'Oscars' in terms of what wins - in that case, not necessarily the best film as viewed by critics, but rather a good example of the right type of film to come along at the right time. So, perhaps that was the case here.

As well as that, I've heard from people in the professional painting community that there is a lot of back-slapping between mates of the judges, so if that's true then it's not a vote based on merit alone.

I'd like to see some better pics, but I'm really happy to see subtlety get rewarded. I like to see a model that can tell a story without losing the original model in loud accessories.

And yeah, I think France and Spain trump the rest of the world for creativity in their miniatures and painting. I think it's reflected in their miniature lines like Confrontation, HellDorado and Infinity, where there's a real love of aesthetics and individual personality first, rather than building technical playing pieces that fit a mass combat role and are defined by their gear.

France is crazy good. The aesthetic that is popular in Italy, however, just always feels sloppy to me.

That necromancer is good, for sure. Very good. It's not the fist time I've seen "simple and understated" win a slayer sword. Should it have? Dunno... I didn't see the other award winners.

http://demonwinner.free.fr/uk/2011/

I guess the pirate captain is more crowd pleasing. But meh. It's a painting competition used to promote GW and it's products so I guess its an awesome "See what you can do with just one of our single figures without any crazy converting!"

^ Thats the standard comming out of france.
Which i think proves major Toms point about the standards being set higher from country to country.



OT: I really dont know why it won.
Dont get me wrong, its an amazing paint job and the attention to detail is brilliant, it just doesent stand out like a SS winning model should.
You usually expect to see a painter showing off as many different styles of painting as they possibly can.
All i can see here though is a mix of feathering and blending.

While its a bit of a gimmick, NMM and OSL go far to show a painters abilities to not only paint, but to visualize a model as it would be if it were real.
Which that to me shows a much higher ability to paint if you can make something seem real.

Thats just my thinking though

mattyrm wrote:

MajorTom11 wrote: England is not up to the standard of the rest of Europe generally speaking

Is that so?

I always figured that there was a higher percentage of people who painted here, so I figured England would have good painters. Which European nations are so far ahead of us? And why?

The Russians produce some excellent work at some of the high level shows but a few years ago there was a problem with people entering figures under one name that were actually painted by several people just to win prizes. When several people cooperate to paint a model and all do their speciality area on it, of course the result will be good, and there seemed to be a lot of distrust for a while towards entries from certain countries because of a few incidents/suspicions. Sad.

The model is well painted. Honestly you can't "judge" a model as deserving of best in show from pictures. The judges saw things on it that put it ahead of the others that the no judges don't see. More than likely it was an extremely tough call though. I say grats to him and hope to be in your shoes one day!

France, Spain and Germany are in a league of their won IMO, with Poland, Italy and the Russians rapidly approaching them. This is not disrespect to England, which also has more than its fair share of amazing talents. We are talking top level nitpicking here. England has a national style leaning towards 'Eavy metal and military. France however is renaissance painter style, with masterful control of contraband hue, to the point where the best way to describe the national style there is 'lifelike'.

Of course it is all subjective, but in general consensus among master painters is that France in particular, and mainland Europe in general is the mini 'capital' of te world in terms of artistry.