Friday, October 7, 2011

Today we talk about contest controversy (GD UK 2011)

As I said the other day, Golden Demon UK 2011 was celebrated during my spiritual retirement. But even though I was away, news came to my ears that there were some important judge decisions that are now heavily questioned, and have generated a lot of chatter in forums. So let's talk today about contest controversy.

First of all, let's present facts. This is GD UK 2011 Slayersword winner:


And now let's see other European Slayerword winners this year (click on the names to see more and better photos of them):


This is Remy's diorama, winner in France.


This is Ruben's duel, winner in Spain.


This is Matt's diorama, winner in Germany.

I would never judge or question a decision. But this one just seems odd. We all know that GD UK is the contest with the greatest number of participants and entries by far. And there are a lot of great painters there, even many awesome non-UK european painters travel to the contest. I didn't go to the contest, but... was this sorcerer really the best miniature they found in all the contest? Really?

See more photos of GD UK entries here.

I know some great spanish painters (to mention just an example that I know of, not that I want to brag about spanish painting quality!) that entered competition with really great miniatures and dioramas. I believe that this sorcerer is a great miniature, that's for sure. But the best of the whole GD UK contest? Really?

Is this another example of GW commercial criterion being used to judge? Would this decision benefit GW commercially at all? Is there some other dark criterion we do not know of? Should painters start fleeing out of GW Golden Demons to protest GW policies as many people are proposing a long time ago?

I want to hear your opinions!

7 comments:

Atreides said...

"was this sorcerer really the best miniature they found in all the contest? Really?"

this was exactly what i thought when i saw the results popping up on the day. i simply could not believe that a single model like that could be judged the winner of the largest painting contest in the world (yadda yadda, it probably isn't the biggest, but allow me the melodrama).

in fact, i was very, very underwhelmed by the entire event this year. they seem to have chosen a huge number of very small and fairly basic figures with minimal conversion, or at lest where it is obvious what the pieces are. now i am not one for conspiracy theories, but even to me this seems decidedly odd!

KyleM said...

I was quite surprised when I saw the result....

Obvioulsy I cant really talk, as I just won a sword with a plastic mini also! hahahaha.

But I think this was a interesting commercial decision. From what I understand this fellow, Angelo, won 4 or 5 demons. and I think 4 of them were gold. I read somewhere that they gave him the Slayer Sword because of the amount of gold winning entries he had. I had seen some other entries that look like they were his, and I feel even those are all better then this one, so maybe it was an easy way for GW to promote a new product, and award the person that should have got the sword?

Hmm... I dont know... obviously from an outsider that was not there. It is hard to really know what should of won lust looking at the pictures... but I had seen some amazing entries that seem to have not even placed, which is odd to me... but that is GD right? :P

Black Dagger said...

i know what your saying, i wouldnt give that mini a slayer sword but like kyleM said they gave him the sword because he won 4 golds. Is this the right thing to do though? There were 6 other gold winners that could have taken the sword. i won gold vehicle with my dreadnought. its sad to think he got the sword in that way.

Dave Garbe said...

It looks nice, but sword-worthy compared to the other entries? Not a chance.

The only thing I noticed which hasn't been pointed out was in this pic:
http://www.fullrepent.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L580xH736_P1060713-062d5.jpg

Look at the detail on the book. It's possible there's stuff we can't see in the photos.


That said, I've seen a lot of talk in the past about preferential treatment going to current models. a) from a sales perspective and b) you have a better judge at how long it took to paint something.

However, I care less about Games Day now that Games Workshop decided the entirety of North America gets 1 GD a year, while every country in Europe and their brother still gets one.

Corvus said...

I think last year's GD UK has already proven that the judges are on the lookout for REGULAR models painted in HEAVY METAL STYLE.

On the other hand I think it's difficult to decide whether it was deserved or not without being there in person. The painting could have been absolutely mind-blowing good, but a picture like this could ruin everything.

One last thing I'd like to add is that some judges on painting competitions give penalty points for every mistake. A big diorama is more likely to have small mistakes here and there, as opposed to a single mini, which could as well be perfect.

A lot has already been said about the GD UK, but I think the prizes are well deserved and there's nothing that should be changed afterwards.

Lycanthropica said...

As this is the first year of GD I have really followed I find this post and the comments interesting.
Pictures are hard to judge from, even looking really closly at the GD entries IRL in Australia it was hard to tell without being able to spend a lot of time looking closly at models from all angles.

Black Dagger said...

It seams that differnt countrys have very differnt styles of painting. in uk most people love the eavy metal style. The USA more cartoon style, france, europe painting with light from above. of course not every one in uk paints eavy metal style and the same goes for the respective countrys, I am generalising very much of course. The Majority of miniatures at ukgd were painted in this style so you would expect these to win. majority rule i guess.

I cant speak of the slayer. it wouldnt be my choice, but the rest of the winners were fine in my opinion. Remember painting is subjective not everyone is going to like the same things.