The Blood & Plunder painting contest has been running for two weeks now and we’ve got about 50 entries so far. In this Great Pirate Paint Off update, we’re going to take a look at some of these great entries, see which nations have been well represented so far, and give away random prize! The Great Pirate Paint Off is underway!

If you’re just hearing about this contest, this is a friendly painting event focusing on Firelock Games‘ Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron. The big community Summer of Plunder event is kicking off in June and in the weeks leading up to that campaign, we’re building and painting miniatures! You can find the rules, categories, prizes and schedule on The Great Pirate Paint Off page.

Participation

In the first two weeks of this contest, we’ve had 48 entries from 16 different people. We have 10 weeks to go so you have plenty of time to to start painting and get your entries in! If we stay on track at the current rate, we’ll end up with about 250 entries which is enough for a good contest!

Entry Types

So far most entries have been either Commanders or Units, with a small set of Force entries (25+ models), one single Oak & Iron entry and no ship entries yet.

• 22 Commander/Character
• 22 Unit
• 3 Force
• 1 Oak & Iron

Ships are a big project so it’s not surprizing we haven’t seen any ship entries yet. But as an encouragement to get going on those ships/boats, we’ll be giving away a double-sided laser cut sea movement template to a random person who enters a ship before next update (1-2 weeks).

Nations Represented

So far Spain has been dominant in this painting contest! Of the 48 entries so far, 23 of them have been Spanish!

• 11 Pirate
• 23 Spanish
• 3 English
• 4 French
• 2 Dutch
• 0 Native American
• 5 Unaligned

random Prize winner

In every update for the Great Pirate Paint Off, we’ll be giving away (at least) one little prize to one of the entrants that has participated since the previous update. Our random number generator selected Kurtis Fraley and his Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts entry.

This week we’re giving away a fancy Fortune Coin. This is a beautiful restrike of a 1731 Spanish 8 Reale coin. It’s an amazing coin with fine detail, real silver coating, and some real heft. This is a massive coin and you won’t want to spend that last Fortune Point without cause when you have this in your hand!

And the reverse of the coin:

Final Thoughts

Thanks everyone who has entered The Great Pirate Paint Off so far! It’s great to see people’s work and see minis come to life with a little care and pigment. We’ll plan on getting another update out when we hit 75 entries or two weeks (whichever comes sooner). We’ll be giving away these little prizes to random entries that have been submitted since the previous update, so there’s an incentive to keep a steady flow of entries to increase your chances.

You can check out the full details on the contest on The Great Pirate Paint Off launch page. You can find the entry form on that page or right here.

Great Pirate Paint Off Gallery

You can check the ever growing gallery of contest images here.