Just over a week ago at BOYL I was honoured to have my painting submission selected for the top of the 'Judges' Choice' category (which became the diorama category due to the number of diorama entries this year). I put something in the case every year just to show willing, but it's been 10 years since I last placed with anything so it was a nice treat to have this selected.
The vignette is my homage to the late great Bryan Ansell who we lost last year and whose commemorative BOYL miniature takes centre stage in the composition. I wanted the piece to be about the continuing legacy that Bryan put in place so he stands in the mid-ground and the road down from the citadel continues beyond him where others have taken up his banner and helm to carry forwards.
The background of the scene is, of course, a tribute to the John Blanche Hrothyogg's Tower painting which is shown on the banner. I know this isn't actually the Blanche painting which inspired the Citadel castle logo (as featured on the banner top, originally the staff from Bryan's left hand) but the similarities are there and I think it's a better picture. The model castle actually came from a Christmas cracker many years ago, I modified it a bit to better match the painting. The adventurer on his way up is a 15mm figure I got in a bulk lot sometime ago.
Having removed the staff from Bryan's hand I replaced it with a sculpted version of the 3rd edition Warhammer logo. Having made a full-size one for Diane a couple of years ago it seemed fitting to make a miniature one too. His right hand holds a small six-sided die, a nod to Bryan's insistence that GW's wargames should use the kind of dice that people would already have in their homes from Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders etc. The judge apparently remarked that it was a sign of a good sculptor to be able to pull off a perfectly square, tiny dice with evenly spaced holes. I did admit to Garth when he told me that it's a stock 5mm die! I also added wings to tie in with the 'Dark-Winged' title from the Warhammer Armies book and resculpted parts of the cloak. The colour scheme of the three chaos warriors is taken from the Chaos section of the Armies book. The small shield should really be on the middle level, it's a bit too small to scale well with the foreground figures.
The chaos warriors in the front work well to force the perspective as they're chunkier than the Bryan tribute sculpt. The sculpted heads were my attempt to honour Diane and Marcus as the bearers of the legacy, but how well the likeness comes across (and how flattering it isn't) I am not sure, so maybe we just say it's a pair of gamers bringing the helm and banner to the next generation.
Fantastic & thoughtful work. A well-deserved winner, IMO. What are you going to do with it?
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