This post was originally published on the HMGS site on April 7, 2019.

I am currently planning out my entries for the Wargames Illustrated Painting Competition being held at Historicon this year. I’d like to take a minute to talk to you about why you, YES YOU, should be entering as well! During either Fall In! 2016 or Cold Wars 2017 I was talking to my friend Greg of Wicked Elf Miniatures about painting contests. Greg is an excellent miniature painter and has been entering and winning painting competitions on a variety of stages while I consider myself a high tabletop standard painter at best. I made a comment that I’d never win a painting competition and he replied “you can’t win with any figure not in the contest.” While that is pretty obvious advice it resonated with me and I decided to enter the 2017 Historicon painting completion with figures from my army. I entered a Flames of War Armored Rifle Platoon with transports and a Flames of War objective marker. After dropping them off I didn’t really have time to check back on the entries and it wasn’t until the pick-up time was almost over that I remembered I needed to get my figures back! I sprinted through the convention hall and managed to get to the case just in time. I was very surprised to be presented with a 3rd place medal for the Flames of War objective category. With Greg’s advice resonating in my head I said “Cool! Third of Three?” I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was actually three out of six. The really interesting thing was when I was told that the vehicle in my platoon were really good and could possibly be category winners but that they infantry wasn’t as good as others. This surprised me because I thought the infantry was pretty cool as I even had painted armored division patches on their tiny, 15mm scale arms. That said they gave me some good examples of how the other infantry stands really popped and I walked away wondering if I could do better next year. Once again I decided to enter the 2018 painting competition with figures I already had painted. I selected five Sherman tanks that had no gaming battle damage and another objective and entered them in to the competition. Once again I didn’t have much time to look at the other entries but I did see a really nice Hungarian infantry platoon that I really liked in the platoon category. When I went to pick up my figures (not quite as late as the year before!) I was handed my objective and was proud to realize that I achieved this year what I thought I achieved this year: third place out of three entries! Huzzah! The REAL surprise was when I was handed first place platoon category AND the Iron Cross Award for best Flames of War entry in the show! I was so shocked that I could hardly say thank you and I couldn’t even ask for feedback. I was speechless and for those who know me that means something! Even better was that Michael and Alan Perry were judges! Not only did I won but I was judged by two legends of the Hobby! Wow. That’s pretty much all there is to say about that! With these successes I entered another painting completion at a smaller event. I’m not naming this one as it can be a cautionary tale! There were four categories and I entered them all. I won one of the categories but I was the only entry. All the entries were rated with a 5 being the highest score. All of my entries were in the 3.5 range and the winners and other entries were 4-5. Now this particular convention I did manage to pay attention to and the scoring shocked me. Whether or not I feel my entries should have placed or not is inconsequential but I can tell you that if the other entries were 4-5 my 3.5’s were a joke. My entries all had at least three layers per color. The winners were often large impressive looking figures but with at most one dry brush or highlight. There would be plenty of competitions where my entries deserved a 3.5 and many more where a 3.5 would be 3.4 points to high. That said it was also a smaller club convention where a number of the entries were posted in the group page. While I won’t waste my time entering this painting competition again it did teach me a valuable lesson. Never enter a competition thinking you’ll win or place or other. Enter to have fun and see if you can figure out where you need to improve. Sometimes you won’t get feedback or the all too human judges will go a way you didn’t expect. If you’re happy with your entry and you know you did your best, then be happy with that and keep on creating! Speaking of creating this year will be the first year where I paint an entry for the purpose of entering the competition. I have delusions of grandeur that I may enter all nine categories, some with entries specifically for the competition and other things I painted in the past. I guess we will find out in my July how many categories I’ve managed to enter! With that in mind I suggest everyone take a shot and enter the competition. I can guarantee that if you had entered the Flames of War objective category last year you would have pushed me out of the top three! To quote Greg “you can’t win with any figure not in the competition!”

-Wachtmeister