Did I lose because I spent 30% of my time painting my backdrop instead of the mini? Maybe. But I’m pretty confident in my technical skills now. I don’t want to talk bad about anyone else who entered, but the winner selection was by popular vote, which was influenced by a lot of things that weren’t technical skill. Comparing my piece to the other pieces, I think I was at least as technically good as some of the pieces that won (though definitely not all of them), which I’m happy with. This was for the monthly One Page Rules contest because I subbed to their Patreon “temporarily” and their HDF models have been just about perfect “SF army guys” for TTRPGs even though I have zero interest in playing Astra Militarum proxies.
This spring they’re done HDF and will be switching to another SF army, so my sub may finally lapse. I don’t give a toss about their elves. The models are fine but literally the only elves I’ve ever given a shit about were Drizzt, Elric and some indie comics like Elfquest and Poison Elves, which let’s be honest is more a marker of my *punk inclinations than horniness for TTRPG characters or armies. TL;DR I’ll probably pull from that stack if my players ever need one but the only time I’ll do a full plate is if I decide to inject some Melnibonean influence into a TTRPG game. IN THE MEANTIME I’ve finally caved and now have a sub to Unit9 for cyberpunk and PiperMakes’ Tau proxy reruns. I’ll probably buy some of Papsikel’s packs next sale, but their releases are a little scattershot for my goal aesthetic.
Anyway, on to the model itself.
I tried some new stuff with rust; a base layer of orange-red, then a overbrush and drybrush approach to NMM iron/steel. It gets rust in the low spots where water would run and it sells a pretty convincing metal. I’ve been trying more and more NMM, not because I dislike TMM but because I’ve always thought NMM was pretty and something I’d prefer to do on my models that aren’t 80% steel. I spent several years being okay with not knowing how to paint NMM because repeated efforts failed to produce worthwhile results, and “I’m not good enough to paint NMM yet, I have better things to spend my time on” wasn’t a moral failing. Now, apparently, I am good enough to learn NMM and I’ve been playing around mostly with dark grimy steel and brass and gold (which came out way better on the shoulder insignia and pouch piping than the helmet). I’ve been surprised by how well it works and I find I prefer it to the contrast I get from glossy mica flecks next to matte colours. Also, I started using “pigment powders” which is a fancy “justify the 1e10 cost increase” marketing term for acrylic pastels, which I now have a nice range of. Scrubbed a bunch all over the concrete and then on the model’s shoes to get that lived-in feel. It’s subtle, but if you compare the second-last to last picture you can see how the shoes are dusty and match the concrete.
I could have put another 10 or 20 hours into this model, but I spent a lot of time being careful and detailed with NMM gold, some OSL from the pistol coils, and getting a gradient and edge highlights on the armour. It wasn’t exactly Heavy Metal, but I think the influence was clear. Palette selection was off some OPR concept art for the HDF.
None of what follows is meant to blame anything or anyone for my not winning; it’s thoughts about popular vote and what I’d need to do if I wanted to place/win in such a competition. Obviously if I submitted something crazy good, golden demon level, I’d win. But a) I can’t and b) if I could it’d be a dickhead move. So, given that this was probably good enough on a technical level to place imnsho, why didn’t it? Mostly because it wasn’t a judged/technical competition. There were three other entries I expected to win purely for technical skill- only one of which actually did- so I wasn’t expecting to win the comp. Why did the entries that won, win? It’s a popularity contest, literally. HDF has been on the release schedule for 6+ months at this point, compared to the fantasy Wood Elves who are comparatively fresh and new. On top of that, almost all the HDF models for the month were released weeks late. I’d have preferred to paint the band of three beefy robot OGRE models (two of which I did print to paint for my own pleasure later) than this fleshy motherfucker. The chipping and rust stains I could have done… ah well. And, finally, the voters are patreon subscribers, which means they’re all wargaming fans, they’re OPR fans, and either they’re supporters of the game or they’re in it for the models. Picking and painting a model that tickles their fancy is a lot different than picking a model to showcase technical skill (which is what I did). Every single-hero submission that won was Wood Elves. Most of the multi-model submissions that won were wood elves. Because of the way models were delayed that month, most of the people who would have painted groups painted individual units instead, so instead of a solo/group/epic submission split of ~12/12/5, it was closer to 20/5/2.
What would I have changed to place in the comp? A primed epic model would have placed third. Entering the month before or after would have improved my chances for a solo unit. Entering a group would have made placing easier. Waiting a week, checking out the buzz in the Patreon chat about which models people were most excited about, and painting one of those would have caught some votes from the non-painter fans. Waiting a year or two, levelling up my skills, and brute-forcing a win with a model with 60 hours of higher-skilled painting would have helped. Would I want to do any of those? No, too much effort. I paint for fun, not ego. I entered the comp because entering comps helps improve your skills, and it did- a majority of my current comfort and skill with NMM, which I’ve been pining for for years, exists because of the successes (and failures) of this entry. I have zero regrets, I think everyone who won the comp deserved it and so did pretty much everyone else who entered, and I think luck plays enough of a part in these popular votes that there’s very little determinative action a painter can take to ensure placement- except for painting more.
I enjoyed painting the model, and entering, and while I was initially confused (not mad, just baffled) that some models demonstrating less technique placed and I didn’t, I’m almost happier about my “cool, I’m glad I did this” attitude about “losing” than I am with the quality of the paint job and model I submitted. If I’m still subbing in June, perhaps, I will try again? Maybe that’s too early. But maybe a big push at the edge of my skills every so often will do more for my painting than not? I don’t think hypothetically “losing” five comps in a row would frustrate me, winning would sort of be a side effect, but maybe it would sour my experience and I don’t want that. I guess we’ll play it by ear.
Anyway, I popped this model off the backdrop, glued him to a stand, and now he’s ready as TTRPG OPFOR.
