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Kimera Models – Minerva IX

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It hasn’t been smooth sailing on this project as of late, but I have made enough progress that it is time for another update. I’ve been working on Minerva’s weapon which has taken longer than expected. The weapon is thankfully larger scale so that made it a little easier to paint than if it was 32mm. I also got to do some subtle highlights on it as well which was interesting and something new for me.

Unfortunately, the highlight on the lance’s blade is a bit inconsistent and the one on the front is too high up on the blade which makes it look a little too asymmetrical for my liking. So that means I’ll have to go back and try to fix that. It took a long time to get the metal parts looking smooth so I’m not thrilled about it but the unevenness is too annoying to me not to fix. I realized at some point in the last week or so that I’m a little burnt out on this project and am losing focus a little bit so I’ll probably take a little break and paint something lower stakes for a few days before I get back to Minerva. We are down to the last piece so that’s good anyway. One thing I need to decide is her hair color. The box art is black hair which I’m not crazy about. What do you think Minerva’s hair color would be? I may just go with the popular option as I could be talked into blonde or brunette at this point.

Next week is Adepticon which is always a fun shopping opportunity for me. This year I’m going to be looking for larger scale miniatures that are hard to get here in the States. I also need a display plinth from Big Child Creatives so I can paint a bust that I bought months ago. I was going to order one from them but shipping was a modest $70 on something that costs less than $20 so that will be great to pick up too. Of course, I’m open to getting some Fallout or other gaming stuff if I see something that is not easy to find but we’ll see. I have plenty in my backlog so I’m not exactly needing more stuff to paint there.

Of course, you may recall that Adepticon is the US home for the Golden Demon which I entered last year and received a green sticker for making the first cut. Does that mean I’ll be entering again this year? The short answer is no. But of course, I’ll give you a longer answer too.

The first reason I’m not entering is that the only thing I’ve painted recently that is eligible for Golden Demon, the Wrathmonger, pictured above, was broken when I transported it to MMSI in the fall. I don’t have the acumen to cover up the damage completely and so its not going to be a good GD entry, unfortunately.

I’ve done a lot of reflecting on this as you can probably imagine and I have some opinions after entering once. Maybe I was a bit unlucky to not have a better experience and maybe I picked the wrong year (there seemed to be a lot of bad blood between painters and the judges last year). A GW staffer was a bit rude to me when I asked what was apparently a dumb question which is further evidence of the bad blood, for example. Setting that aside, I have no axe to grind with Games Workshop even if my experience was less than desirable last year.

Ultimately, the limited awards (Gold, Silver, Bronze) make Golden Demon hyper-competitive. There are already a lot of professional painters (meaning they make their living painting) who enter and win in most of the categories so your average hobbyist has a really slim chance of winning a trophy. To me anyway, the competitive atmosphere is not healthy because it pits artists against artists. The judges look for mistakes on miniatures to whittle down the large field of entries which furthers this mentality. It is Games Workshop’s competition to run as they see fit, of course, but you have to ask yourself, how is this competition benefitting the hobby? How does this system make aspiring artists want to get better? I don’t think it does and I’ve recognized that it isn’t mentally healthy for me to participate because I sweat making mistakes even more than I already do. It doesn’t lead to my best work and I don’t like looking in the Golden Demon display cases and trying to figure out if my entries are better than everyone else’s or not. I’ve heard other people who are disillusioned with Golden Demon say the same thing so I know I’m not alone in this regard.

Games Workshop needs to update their competition to truly celebrate the hobby and recognize the hard work that people put into display entries. These are labors of love using their miniatures and often their paints. Reducing the competition to a top 3, as if all of the other entries are not worthy of recognition sells everyone short. I know GW is trying to rectify this by adding more categories to Golden Demon and showing the work of Commended entries but until they change the nature of the competition, I don’t think its rewarding enough for many people who choose to enter. For these reasons, I’m not going to participate in Golden Demon anytime soon.

In an unexpected way, entering in Golden Demon last year and having a negative experience set me up to go to MMSI and start getting interested in larger scale minis. While you might think that these companies don’t compete with Games Workshop, in some ways they do because there are somewhat limited options for display quality miniatures. You can either paint GW or go larger scale, essentially. Having worked on Minerva, I can safely say that I like the larger scale minis just as much as 32mm and the increased size makes them much more satisfying to display than 32mm miniatures. I haven’t really thought about display painting anything GW since MMSI and I don’t anticipate that feeling changing anytime soon.

I will keep pushing my skills and trying to improve but also I’m going to enjoy this hobby in the best way I can. I may never get the recognition I’d like by winning a GD trophy but I’m totally fine with that as the hobby is meant to be fun and rewarding and I encourage everyone to do whatever it is they love within it. I know I will.

49 thoughts on “Kimera Models – Minerva IX”

  1. Transit damage is a constant risk for miniatures, whether for display or for gaming. Shame about the Wrathmonger, but I think taking a break from Golden Demon after last year will ultimately work out well.

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    1. It is unfortunately. I need to figure out a better system for transporting minis to competitions as well. The Wrathmongers are fragile miniatures but even with that, I know I can do better. I certainly will never rule out entering GD for good and could get back into painting GW minis again in the future. It might be that an extended break is all that I need.

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  2. It was a spear! Nice to see the model fully assembled.
    I’m no NMM expert, but the hard stop in the reflection on the spear looks wrong to me, I think that needs to be a smooth gradient on both sides (like what you did on the shield) not a gradient with a hard stop midway. I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear.

    I know what you mean about GD and I think games workshop do too hence the focus on showing off commended entries in more recent times. That feels a bit more like an open style results showcase, while keeping the historical top 3 and slayer swords. I do have to say the level is so high these days it feels like placing at GD is basically right out unless you’re fully committed to that as a goal. Back when I was entering I felt like I had an outside chance to make it, and I managed a Bronze in all those attempts which I’m really pleased with, but I’m under no illusions that I could place these days.

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    1. Hopefully the spear met your expectations in that regard! 🙂 I appreciate your concern around the reflection on the spear as well. It technically has two highlights that is supposed to split the blade in two. The problem is that the top highlight is hard to see. I think I need to go back and brighten the tip so its more obvious. Its funny because this is a 75mm scale miniature but the blade still is pretty small and finicky to work with (like they often feel at 28 and 32mm). Once I work on the blade a bit more, we’ll see if you like it any better. I’m even more convinced that the blade needs more attention or else it is going to stick out as a weak spot on the miniature which I don’t want.

      I do think GW knows they have a bit of a problem with GD after the last one. A lot of of my complaints about their system are not unique to me. I didn’t say this in the article but I think GW needs to stop thinking about the competition as a way of promoting themselves and let the competition foster growth in the hobby. My theory is that they like the Top 3 and Slayer Sword because its easier for them to publish an article that says here’s the Top 3 AoS minis and the Top 3 40k miniatures and so on. To a casual fan, that is easier to process. Even highlighting the Commended entries starts to reveal how convoluted and unintuitive their system is. It probably also discourages people from entering in a way because you look at the Commended entries and there is hardly a drop off in them compared to the Top 3. I’ve heard people say that Golden Demon is like the lottery once you paint up to a certain standard and I totally understand that perspective.

      I would love to see GW change their system and say that everyone who paints up to a certain standard gets a pin or a certificate. And then from there they can cut to a top 3 or something like that. It would encourage people to enter again and keep improving if they get some kind of recognition for their entry. Even people getting Commended entries now are professionals or making Golden Demon their main hobby focus. I don’t think it is good to have a single competition be the sole focus of your hobbying and so that is something that I would not be comfortable doing. If you don’t win something and you spend a year on your entries, that would be so deflating.
      Unfortunately, in GW’s current system, that is probably your best bet of getting Commended and receiving any kind of attention for your entry. Everybody else’s, even people who get a finalist pin are not given any attention in the current system. I think that does a disservice to people who work hard on their minis and deserve something after all that effort. It also makes it hard for me to recommend to anyone that they try and enter GD which is a shame. You and I shouldn’t feel the way we do about the competition!

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      1. Interesting to hear about the spear head size, I suppose at this scale things are a lot less heroically scaled so it makes sense it would be a rough match for 32mm spear size. I see what you mean about the highlight in retrospect, keen to see what you end up doing with it.

        For GD, At the end of the day it’s purely academic for me how the competition is run seeing as the kind of painting I’m into at the moment is more army based (the fact there is no GD in Australia anymore also makes it easy not to worry about it!). Agree with you however, the open format seems so much better from an inclusivity point of view. There’s an open format comp being run in Australia which looks quite good actually, and there’s a smaller one being run in my town on a yearly basis which is good as it means there’s a fairly vibrant display scene in town. It’ll be there for me if I get excited about display painting again!

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      2. The spearhead is pretty long but thin enough that it is not easy to work on. I’ll see what I can do and hopefully can improve it a bit further for the next update.

        I would definitely recommend checking out those shows, if nothing else, for some inspiration. I’m looking forward to MMSI for that reason though Minerva will definitely be exhibited too. I would be tempted to suggest you go for Armies on Parade but I looked at 2023’s winners and the terrain/board component has become just as important as the army painting it seems like. I’m not sure if you’re passionate about doing both of those things for a competition or not. The one upside is none of the usual GD winners seem to participate in Armies on Parade. I don’t think they have the time and are too used to painting at most a small squad of miniatures for a competition. I know I’m that way and you’d have the advantage if we were in some kind army painting competition 😀

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      4. It is probably the competition that requires the most planning for so I totally understand. I’d love to see you enter a classic Warhammer fantasy force in it (not that my opinion should be the primary consideration here!). Assuming they’re accepting them with The Old World finally launched too!

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      5. I have to assume the old world is fair game now! I do have a sizeable tomb king force from the new starter set and have been wanting to make some tomb king terrain so that might be a good option!

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      6. It sounds like a great idea to me! If I were judging I’d be biased and want to give you an award just for picking one of the coolest factions in Warhammer! 😀

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  3. Great progress Jeff, if you feel you need to change the highlight line on the spear that is your choice, but don’t forget that depending on the angle of the spear, and the angle of where the light is coming from, could make it different on both sides.
    I think you make a lot of valid points concerning competitions, and you need to be happy with your work, and the possibility of the results. I know they are supposed to be anonymous but there are certain artists that I could spot their work in a sea of a thousand models every time, and they also happen to be big winners at competitions, so are they truly anonymous ! The biggest thing with painting models, is why do you paint them ? for some they just want a dab of colour and to game with them, (nothing wrong with that) some want every turn to look like a scene in a movie, (takes longer to do, but still nothing wrong with that), some people paint just for the sheer enjoyment they get from it( still nothing wrong with that), and others want to paint to enter competitions (still nothing wrong with that), it all depends on where you want to be on that scale, and at any time you can move up and down it, depending on how you feel at the time, just remember your happiness is what’s important to you.

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    1. I think there is an opportunity to improve the blade a bit further. To my eyes anyway, it is a bit of a weak point on the miniature currently which is never a good thing!

      You’re absolutely right about being able to spot certain artists. If you know KAHA’s work at all, it is impossible to miss her painting and she is someone who always gets in the Top 3 at Golden Demon and deservedly so. She is an amazing painter.

      You’re spot on about deciding why you want to paint and what you enjoy. That’s exactly what I’m doing with Golden Demon for the foreseeable future. I think the point I’m trying to make is that GW’s painting competition is not only hyper competitive but its essentially for “hardcore”, professional display painters. There is absolutely nothing wrong with catering to a particular audience with a competition BUT the cost of GW’s focus is that “less serious” painters get burned along the way. There are a lot of people who walk away with no recognition and I would guess, very little desire to return the next year. Games Workshop does not advertise Golden Demon as being what it is either. They want lots of entries and so they try to make it sound like everyone can enter and have a good time with it but I personally would disagree with that and not encourage casual painters to enter. Personally, I think it doesn’t need to be this way and there are better painting competitions out there. Games Workshop needs to rethink the whole thing and come up with a competition that works better with the insane skill level of painters these days. There are so many talented painters that their system just don’t really work well or fairly any longer. Not that they’re going to read this and take my two cents seriously or anything! 🙂

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      1. Indeed, they almost need a category that is just for previous winners, so if you’ve ever placed in one of their competitions that’s the only category you can enter, that would mean that every year the other categories would have new winners and new people would have recognition, but I’m sure the competitive painters wouldn’t like that, so would never happen ! LOL

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      2. Hmm, or different levels? Maybe based on years of entries? Then the professionals would be at the top and the new people would be at a different tier? I don’t know, just a thought based off your comment.

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      3. That could work well too, Brian. I think it would encourage people to enter and GW can give them a smaller reward to motivate them to keep improving. It would be a much healthier competition and celebrate the hobby more, I think.

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      9. They could certainly lump past winners in a category or they could introduce a more casual category that maybe you can only win once before you have to be in the “regular” categories. I would recommend they not even give out the same trophy for the casual category or else there will be people sandbagging to get a prestigious Golden Demon trophy. Either way, I think you’ve got a pretty good idea for the solution here, Dave!

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  4. I see no-one’s answered the critical question yet, so let me! Brunette! There’s a lot of dark shading and gold on the figure so I can’t see black or blonde hair working as well, that’s all! All coming along very nicely, Jeff! 🙂

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    1. It is a critical question and great minds think alike! I was leaning that way for the same reason. Blonde hair will probably get lost amongst the gold. I’ll see if I can’t find a nice brown tone for her in the coming days!

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  5. Looking really good. I agree with Nicolas about the hard stop shadow/highlight. It was the first thing I noticed, well also the really nice NMM colors, but after that. The other thing I was wondering about is wear the light source(s) are? The tine closest to her face is shaded the same way as the opposite one, and seems like it should be a bit darker. As I’m not an NMM person, I have no idea how hard those are to correct, but hopefully not a ton of work.
    Hair color, that’s really hard. I’ve been having the same debate on a couple of mine recently. I think I’d need to see the shape of the hair, where it’s covering, what colors it will be adjacent too, etc. Black would probably be too dark for the model, so maybe blonde?
    Competitions are more your thing, but I’d say do what is going to make you the happiest. If you didn’t enjoy GD, then I’d definitely take a break. There are enough things to make us unhappy in life without the painting hobby adding to it! 😃

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    1. Thank you for the kind words. Making these changes takes some careful glazing mostly. It is always hard to predict how long that will take. Sometimes its fast and sometimes not so much. I do feel motivated to improve the blade after the feedback everyone has given so that is good.

      In regards to your question about the NMM lighting, most people cheat a little bit on the weapons. I looked at the lighting before I painted and it was basically light to dark from the tip of the spear to the base. That isn’t all that interesting so you usually see bounce lighting like I’m trying to do with mine. I need to try and improve the effect because it should scan visually better than it is currently.

      The hair isn’t too large or noticeable on the miniature if that helps. I think black wouldn’t be noticeable enough either. I don’t see Athena typically depicted with that dark of hair. I think blonde is more common. I’m leaning towards brunette but I’ll do some photo referencing and see what I settle on. Thank you for the suggestion!

      That is the crux of why I’m not going to GD. It didn’t bring me joy last year and kind of sent me in a different direction so I’m going to keep moving in that new direction because I’m having fun with it. GW makes great minis but there’s tons of other amazing options out there too, thankfully!

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      1. I’m glad to hear that those little fixes shouldn’t be too bad. Also nice that you got lots of helpful suggestions.
        You might be better off to go with John’s suggestion for a brunette, he’s better at color matching than I am! 😃

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      2. I might need to borrow your color swatch idea for hair though. There are a lot of different options out there and picking the right one will be key here!

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      3. Mine is mainly the color as it looks over a couple primers.
        I’ve seen some people swatch 10 shades of a color from light to dark. That’s pretty awesome, but would probably take years with all the colors I have!

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      5. Totally forgot to put in my comment about the hair colour, for the time period and where she comes from, black to brunette would be the ideal colour, as Italians and Greeks tend to have darker hair colours for that time period.

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      6. I appreciate you bringing a historical perspective into this, Dave! I can’t argue you with either. I’ll see if I can’t cook up a nice brunette color scheme for Minerva.

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  6. Looking really good to my eyes mate, I can not even see what you mean regarding the spear head looks great to me!
    on the hair I think brunette would be best, I agree black is not going to work, and I think blond will be too close to the feathers in the head dress.

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    1. Cheers, mate! We’ll see if you think the spear head looks even better when I’m done with it. I think your logic is spot-on with the hair color too. It seems like brunette is the way to go!

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  7. Great work as always. I would suggest auburn for her hair.

    As for the Golden Demon awards… I dislike artistic or hobby competitions in general. Despite my past beliefs, I no longer think competition brings out the best in people. I do like showcases that display talent however.

    And you clearly have talent mate.

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    1. Auburn could be a great choice. I’ll give that some thought. I think brunette or auburn is the way I will go.

      I wanted to believe that Golden Demon would be fun and rewarding myself so I can relate. I think we need to lift each other up and find a better way to show off our hard work than GD so I am in agreement with you. If I ran my own painting competition (which will never happen!) that is what I would try to do. People should walk away feeling good about themselves and inspired as much as possible! Thank you for the kind words too 🙂

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  8. Blue hair?
    She’s an anime girl yeah? 😝😀

    Why do professional painters enter the GD? Is there a cash prize? How much?
    I once won a painting competition. It was in a LOTR tournament for best painted army. Mine was the only one fully painted therefore the only entry. Prize was $20 store credit. If the GD prize is less than 20 then I feel I’m more awarded than all of them.

    I hope you’ll have fun at Adepticon anyway. If the contest doesn’t suit you by all means skip it. Painting is such a chore anyway that any fun squeezed out of it has to be cherished. 😀

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    1. Haha, now there’s a hair color I didn’t consider 😉

      You just get a trophy, a lot of prestige, and probably a lot of commission work as a result of winning if you want it. Games Workshop has hired overall winners to join their painting team as well. I doubt they can afford you or I, truthfully! 🙂 I should add that the demon statues probably would have value if someone wanted to sell theirs. I have no idea how much they’d get certainly something.

      Adepticon will be a shopping trip for me mostly, which is fun. I may even try to fog up GD’s display case for a minute or two, we’ll see 🙂

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  9. Minerva continues to look amazing.

    I think that there is no point worrying yourself about Golden Daemon. If it’s not doing what you want then just focus on the bits of the hobby that you do like. Your painting continues to be amazing whether you enter it in competitions or not.

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    1. Thanks, mate! We’re edging closer towards the finish, thankfully. I agree with you on GD too. It isn’t fun for me so I won’t be participating is probably the most concise way I can put it 🙂

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  10. And now hopefully a few comments in backwards order as I catch up on a few of your posts!

    Minverva is looking great so far – hard to judge her best hair colour (is it a separate piece?) as you already have a lot of black in the deep shadows, yellow/tans in the gold and of course, lots of red already, so if anything perhaps a brown (I know you have the pteruges) to add a different tone to the model and highlight/frame her head a little more?

    I feel like form over function has been increasing over the years in all kinds of models – and consideration of storage, use and transport has almost entirely fallen by the wayside with many sculptors and producers. I’m not advocating for inch-thick lightsabers and spear shafts, but when your toy soldiers for playing tabletop wargames are more fragile than a glass sculpture and display models can barely survive being moved from display to display, then there’s something screwy happening. Ah! for the days when you could kill someone by hurling a metal dreadnought at them, then put it back on the table and keep on playing with just a small dent on the corner and a bit of paint and blood to clean up later!

    Good (IMO) to see you come to this conclusion on the GDs after how much it annoyed you last year. You’re totally right that it comes down to what people who literally paint for a living and paint very few models in each year can do in most cases, and while that’s fine for what it is, it’s not really something I think is realistically aspirational for most people, especially with the competitive nature of the thing.

    As opposed to, say, running a marathon/other physical competition or participating in a gaming tournament where – sure, there’s a “winner”, but the reward for normal folk is in the experience itself – sometimes just challenging yourself to see if you can complete it – as opposed to a model painting comp where anyone can enter anything but it’s really just down to the top three etc rather than a showcase and celebration as in some other events.

    Anyway – hope you have a great time at Adepticon and spend slightly too much money so you don’t have to wait another year to come around for a couple more bits and bobs!

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    1. The hair is a separate piece and it is a small one overall on this mini. Your logic on color makes sense to me and is the way I’m leaning as well.

      I completely agree on transportation being an issue. The Wrathmongers sculpt is a great example. The weapons are so flimsy, it is like they were designed to be broken. Things have certainly changed since the old metal days…

      You described GD extremely well. I wish Games Workshop promoted it to casual painters less or in a different way. They make it seem as if its fun and a great learning experience. I would describe it more as humbling in both good and bad ways.

      Well said on the nature of the competition and the reward. I understand (in some ways) why GW likes having a top 3. Its easy for them to promote the competition and the winners that way. It simplifies the whole thing and makes it easy to “consume”, particularly for people who don’t really care or understand the competition. At the same time, the top 3 doesn’t allow celebration for the overall incredible quality of the work being done and I think people are going to burn out on the competition sooner or later. It only took one time for that to happen to me and I know there are others out there who feel the same way,

      Fortunately, I did find some cool things at Adepticon and enjoyed my brief visit there on Friday!

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      1. Yeah, I have both a set of Wrathmongers as well as the Fyreslayers who are similarly waving around weapons on chains designed to break if you look at them funny. Somehow both sets keep getting overlooked in favour of assembling and paionting other kits. I can’t imagine why…

        I think you concentrating more on the other smaller con with the more relaxed painting competition is a much more healthy thing compared to the GD. At least until you give up your job to be a full time painting instructor/youtuber/commission artist! 😉

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      2. I can believe it! I’ll be curious to see when you do end up painting them 🙂

        That is well said, mate, and in fact, please follow, like, subscribe, become a Patreon, and donate money to me at Paypal! 😉

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  11. Gotta say, your painting work is fantastic, and you don’t need a Golden Demon award to certify that.

    While I have nothing against hobbyists who wish to compete in a contest, I’ve never felt that the miniatures painting and wargaming hobbies should be competitive. People compete in the daily rat race and strive to perform well at work as a means to put food on the table. That’s enough stress; do we really want that in our hobbies — something that WE CHOOSE to do for enjoyment and relaxation?

    I thought of these song lyrics to PEACE OF MIND by Boston, when I thought about responding to your post. Climbing to the top really doesn’t matter in the end. When it comes to my hobby, all I want is “peace of mind”. I think your decision to focus on the joy of painting rather than the validation of it by some committee is 100% the correct one.

    Now if you’re feelin’ kinda low ’bout the dues you’ve been paying
    Future’s coming much too slow
    And you wanna run, but somehow you just keep on stayin’
    Can’t decide on which way to go
    Yeah, yeah, yeah

    I understand about indecision
    But I don’t care if I get behind
    People livin’ in competition
    All I want is to have my peace of mind

    Now you’re climbin’ to the top of the company ladder
    Hope it doesn’t take too long
    Can’t cha see there’ll come a day when it won’t matter
    Come a day when you’ll be gone
    Ohh, ohh

    -SEVY-

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    1. Thank you for the kind words, Sevy, and I know what you mean about the hobby and being competitive. I’m not an overly competitive person myself. I think with creative endeavors, people want to show that they’re good (I’m not focused on being recognized as the best, I don’t care about that personally) and earn the respect of their peers and painting competitions can be a way to do that. That is mostly what I want from the experience but I’ve realized that there are better venues for that than others. I’m going to go my own way and enjoy the hobby as much as I can because being involved in Golden Demon just simply isn’t fun for me.

      I like the Boston lyrics quite a bit as well. They are perfectly applied to this situation! 🙂

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