Monday 27 October 2014

Armies on Parade 2014 - Southport

So I managed to get to Armies on Parade and this time I would face some competition, albeit there were only 3 entries [not including the stores] so whatever happened we were all going to get a prize. First up was Chris Draper's Ogres. I think Chris was actually in the year below me at school, we hung out a bit, I remember him coming along to a LARP event on the Wirral once.


Anyway, he does a lot of commission painting now so we had a chat about what he does, but he's currently too busy to keep a blog going so I can't share more of his work.


However, the Ogres were full of character and with plenty of Basil on the board to give it a leafy feel. 



Some very interesting individuals


It was all the little details that made this.




I particularly liked the lurking spider and handily he made good use of the Hallowe'en cobwebs to decorate the board.



I may be wrong but think this was done by a guy called Tom, who went to Lost Boys Gaming Club. It's been so long since I last went I may have got it mixed up but the plague marines were fab.


Consistent throughout, lots of little details and all excellent quality.


He deserved a medal just for painting Cultists, you know how difficult I found painting mine!


Nice little blue glow effect too.


Gotta love the eyeball in the Hellbrute.



Some cool Greenstuff sculpting on the Vindicator and I love the little old skool familiar joining the squad.


Lovely, if you can call plague marines lovely.


The store's effort, an Iron Warrior's fortress.


Once again full of character [although the manager did admit the board was the work of a previous manager]


Still the Army was created for the parade and the board is still no longer a requirement and they weren't in the competition anyway.


Lets sacrifice the Fist!


Love the chaos glow.


And my effort. I sadly bottled it a bit. I was a little late getting there and hadn't been able to set up the night before so with 20 minutes I didn't fill every nook and cranny as I'd hoped but did put as much new stuff as I could down.


I would have liked to put more and the manager was prepared to let me do so but in the end if I did it would have taken longer to pack away and that would have made me late leaving and would have caused issues on returning home.


So the end result was that Chris's Ogres took the win, I came second and Tom came third. I'm happy with that because I didn't add a whole lot to my army. There's a small amount of regret but I am pleased to have a different looking medal than another gold.


It's also nice that the other guys efforts were recognised, Chris was up till 1am painting the night before so that alone deserves credit.


Overall I'm just glad I got to take part, although sad I never got to create my original board, which I may have been a little upset if I hadn't won and I'd actually made it. 




6 comments:

  1. Congrats on the 2nd place! It's not a win, but it's still an awesome and beautiful army.

    That spider is brilliant. Just absolutely lovely armies in general! Must of been a pleasure just chatting with everyone! (That's my favorite part).

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    1. It's good for the ego, gently humbling and when I can say to myself I'm 90% happy with the result I can live with that 10% disappointment because I still won a medal [though I have to go back and pick it up]. I did leave at 3pm as well, and voting went on until 6pm so you can't expect to take home the full prize.

      It was nice to have a chat with Chris, it's been 20+ years since we last spoke and it was interesting to hear about his commission business, just a shame I couldn't see more of his work. I actually spent most of my time talking nids to a young lad who'd just got into them. Totally enthused by making gribbly beasties with all the bits in a kit even if it didn't look like an actual model. He had a Tervigon with a Tyrannofex gun by the end of the day, although I di point out he could claim it was a Miasma Cannon...

      Bring on AoP next year.

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  2. Looking great, Mr. Weston. I wish I had a GW store in my neck of the woods. Congratulations on the medal.

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    1. Thanks Mad Mek, sorry you haven't anywhere to enter but you could still do a parade of your own, just to show the little fellas off.

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  3. Congratulations! Not to ignore your army, but... that painted background is epic: real Clint Eastwood riding off into the sunset stuff. I just went to my first AoP comp. and the atmosphere was very positive. I think I'll have a go at it myself next year...

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    1. I really can't take credit for the backdrop, I found it on the internet and thought it would be perfect, once I recoloured the sky from blue to Ferron Proxima's sulphur yellow. Good luck with entering I've seen so many more entries online this year, despite what I believe is a donscale in the event by GW - no national competition.

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