Today's blog post is something a little bit different.
The Crystal Brush
Last year, CoolMiniOrNot.com announced that it would be organising a special painting competition, the Crystal Brush Awards, to take place at AdeptiCon 2011. With a $10,000 top prize and $2,000 and $1,000 respectively for 2nd and 3rd place, this is certainly the most valuable prize of any miniature painting competition I know of.
The competition is also a little special because of the way in which judging is handled. In addition to judging, which will take place at Adepticon in Chicago by a panel of experts including the legendary Mike McVey, the other 50% of the final scores will be determined by internet voting on the CoolMiniOrNot website.
Without getting in to discussion about the judging system (of which, personally, I am not a fan), it certainly makes things interesting in the run up. For a change, entrants are actively promoting their work in progress on entries in order to generate public interest which could pay dividends come the online voting.
Jakob Rune Nielsen
One entrant in particular, who's work I have long admired, is Jakob Rune Nielsen. I have been fortunate enough to be privy to the entire development process of Jakobs entry and I have to say, it is quite simply one of the most captivatingly unusual miniatures I have seen - embodying a great blend of John Blanche-esque "Gothic Sci-Fi", with Jakobs own creative abilities.
In the interest of helping a friend out therefore, I thought I would share with you a couple of pics of Jakob's progress and point you in the direction of his wonderful website (which, if you haven't already seen, you really should!):
Jakob has begun to share his WIP progress photo's on his website on a regular basis now, so if you want to follow the development progress, check it out. Having seen the final piece and painting begin, I can promise you, it is well worth following!
Honestly I think this maybe a poor choice for a judging system. That being said if this results in getting blogs about a specific works and techniques with wip shots from some very talented people I'll take it.
ReplyDeleteAgreed about the judging system, and this entry DOES look quite a bit like a Blanche drawing.
ReplyDeleteNot sure it works for me though, because I can not imagine using it for anything, so it is less gripping.