Seeing Red

 If Santa Claus was an angry chaos lord,  this would be him.  Oh wait... he is an angry chaos lord! :P
(photo courtesy of Neutral Grounds)

Whew!  What!?!  My very first award.  Nice trophy to boot.
(photo courtesy of Neutral Grounds)

It's always nice to be rewarded for hard work.  To be recognized by your peers, even more so.  To stand in the company of the best painters in the community and snag victory was quite an experience.  

My entry for this year's GT, single miniature category actually began several years ago but never finished.  It's a relic from my old chaos days.  As soon as the GT was announced I contemplated joining and realized I didn't have a good figure to work with.  I didn't want to cut up the precious farseer or the librarian I had in my stash as they were gifts from friends.  It was serendipitous that I discovered the chaos lord while rummaging thru my uncompleted miniatures box (you can tell there's a lot since i had to rummage thru it).  With only less than a month to prepare I thought it would fit the time frame perfectly.  The base figure was done but there were plenty of things to do and modify.  I was new at putty sculpting when I started working on the figure a few years back and I could easily see my mistakes this time around.  I also decided to change a few elements like the weapon which was formerly a sword made out of plasticard.  The sculpting took about a week and a half.  For the painting, Red was definitely the way to go.  Not by design choice.  It was the only complete set of paint left in my box that hasn't dried out from disuse (for those who aren't aware I've been on hiatus from gaming and painting for nearly a year).  As this was Chaos I decided to refrain from NMM(non metal metal. google it if you aren't familiar).  I went metallic+inks to give it that dark gritty mood.  

Ultimately everyone who joins contests hope to win but my advice is work to the best that you can and don't stop halfhearted.  That way you'll always feel like a winner when you look at your work as long as you're pleased with what you made.  Also as a hobbyist and painter, don't be afraid to challenge your skills. Stretch it "just a little more" each time.  In ten long years I've seen people come in with no painting knowledge or experience grow to become the painters that they are now.  So much so that you often hear people say to them "baliin na natin mga daliri nito" in an endearing way(:P).  The key is to challenge yourself and stretch your own boundaries.