Throwback Thursday – Iron Paintbrush 2019!

This post was originally published on the HMGS site on July 26, 2019.

At Historicon 2019 the Hobby University Staff put on another Iron Paintbrush on Saturday night. We had two teams signed up and one intrepid soul showed up looking for a team. One of the other teams made some calls and a two more volunteers were drummed up to form a third team! With that Teams “The Last of the Romanoffs”, “Ad Hoc” and “Beauty and the Beasts” were gathered up and the theme was announced: Battle Rumble in the Jungle!

Teams were given two hours and a pile of random stuff to make the best diorama they could make. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! These teams of fearless competitors had to battle each other, their paltry selection of modeling material, the moderators (Dennis “Wachtmeister” Jensen and Todd “Grognard on the March” Pressley”), random events, Hobby University Staff, and even a pair of seven year old boys for victory!

Each team was given a box of paints with the black and white removed. Every twenty minutes a wheel was spun to see if those paints would be added back in, or taken out. There was even a chance that a color would be removed from the rest of the competition! Players had to put up with the seven year old inscecent questioning, request for jokes and song and other things. When it was finally bed time for the boys the judges took over! Teams were given opportunities to bid for things like foliage, and use of a hairdryer to speed things up at the cost of time being removed from the clock!

Guest Hobby University Instructors, sculpting masters and all around great guys Bobby Jackson and Tom Mason helped the judges by closely inspecting the work in progress and reporting back to the moderators!

In the end The Last of the Romanoff’s came in first, followed by Beauty and the Beasts in second and Ad Hoc in third. All teams walked away with excellent prizes and everyone reported that they had a great time! Last of the Romanoff’s won free entry to Historicon 2021 to defend their title!