Thanks to everyone who participated in the photo contest hosted here on Blood & Pigment over May and June. I got a lot of great entries and it was very difficult narrowing it down to just a few winners! 25 people participated by sending a total of 131 entries!

I selected a first, second and third place winner along with a random draw from all the participants and I added an honorable mention because it was so hard to cut to 3 winners.

My criteria for selecting winners was fairly subjective as these things tend to be. I really appreciated good lighting, well painted minis and good composition but ultimately I was drawn to the pictures that had some sort of story or narrative built into them.

The winners will all receive historic coins from the 17th and 18th century which can be used for truly authentic Fortune Points in the game.

Third place wins 3 Spanish copper coins, second place wins a trio of Spanish, French and Dutch copper coins, first place wins a Spanish 1 Reale silver coin, a clipped silver Spanish coin and a Spanish copper coin and a random entry will receive a large 8 Reale Spanish coin, the true “piece of eight.”

Without further ado here are the top pictures from the contest!

Honorable Mention

Jonathan Au Young submitted an amazing set of pictures of a set of commision work done for him by the indefatigable Rick Casler. Beautiful work and excellent photography!

3rd Place

The composition, use of perspective and creative use of the Oak & Iron miniatures was brilliant here. Fine work by Guy Rheuark, a friend of mine and contributor to this blog!

2nd Place

This dramatic scene really drew me in. This entry by Kyle McGrath looks like its straight out of a movie. Extra points for nice trees there!

1st Place

Bryan Longoria submitted a full set of 10 amazing photos of ships, minis and a beautiful custom board he created from scratch. The colors and composition of this photo are remarkable and I really like the focus on the that captain, the man who calls the shots during combat. Truly excellent work.

Randomly Drawn Winner

Using a random number generator and gave each person who entered anything one chance to win and the lucky winner is James Greaney! He submitted a very nice set of 10 pictures focusing on a Dutch crew.

Congratulations to all you winners and thank you all for participating. I wish I could have picked more winners because there was a lot of great pictures! I fully intend on doing another contest next year so start saving those nice pictures for next year!

Photo Gallery

Here are some of the other great entries:

Photo by Adam Horton

Photo by Alex Dez

Photo by Adrian Gonzalez

Photo by Alexy Anikin

Photo by Bryan Longoria

Photo by Bryan Longoria.

Photo by Brian McGonigle

Photo by Daniel Imbesi

Photo by Derek Taylor

Photo by Fernando Palenzuela

Photo by Guy Rheuark

Photo by James Greaney

A top contender fro James Talbert

Photo by Josh Shivak

Another nice photo by Kyle McGrath

Photo by Larry McIver

Photo by Oliver Kahler

Photo by Raphael Kamphius

Photo by Paul Pickles

Photo by Sean Martin

Photo by Steven Foulk

Photo by Tawnya Eldredge

Photo by Taylor Holbrook

Photo by Tim Parker

Photo by Jonathan Au Young and Rick Casler.

I have to give a special shout out to Matt Sawyer who sent me great animated photo which I would have posted here as well except I lack the skill to manipulate the file type he sent me. But you can see his cool pictures on the Blood and Plunder Facebook page.

There were many, many more great pictures submitted and you will be seeing them come up (with credits) in future articles on this blog. Thank you so much to everyone who gave me permission to use these photos in the future.

I hope you enjoyed the contest and the photos! Prizes will be going out this week to the winners. I plan to start another contest next May so start thinking about participating next year!

You can find the original 2020 Photo Contest announcement and details here and the June 22nd Update to the contest here.