The 2024 Blood & Plunder (and Oak & Iron) painting contest has concluded! We had over 300 entries this year, covering a wide variety of categories. Here all the winners. Thanks to everyone who participated.
You can look over all the entries from the entire contest here in the 2024 Great Pirate Paint Off Gallery and see all the prizes and sponsors for the contest here.
You can mark your calendars for the 2025 Great Pirate Paint Off starting January 1st, 2025.
Best Commander
Voted best painted Commander by the community, we have William Kidd painted by Jerry Kegley.
You can look over all the Commander entries in this Gallery.
Best Character
Voted by Character through public voting, we have a Spiritual Leader model by painter Jerry Kegley.
You can see all the Character entries for this year’s contest in this Gallery.
Best Terrain
Competing with a wide variety of entries, this model of a Native American Longhouse by Brent DeVos won in this category.
You can see all the Terrain entries from this year’s contest in this Gallery.
Best Oak & Iron Ship
Voted best Oak & Iron ship by our panel of 5 judges we have Rob Berend’s Dutch 1st Rate Frigate.
You can see all the Oak & Iron entries from this year’s contest in this Gallery.
Best Blood & Plunder Unit
There were a lot of entries for Units, and the winner this year was Julian Nault with his unit of Spanish Lanceros. What a beautiful paint job!
You can see all the Blood & Plunder units from this year’s contest in this gallery.
Best Blood & Plunder Ship
Blood & Plunder ships are major projects requiring many different steps to complete. We had more than 30 ships entered this and this Brigantine by Ryan Peterson was voted the best of the lot. Beautiful work on everything: hull, rigging, sails, and flags!
You can see all the Blood & Plunder ship entries in this year’s contest in this Gallery.
Best Blood & Plunder Force or Oak & Iron Fleet
Selected from entries of 25 or more Blood & Plunder minis and fleets of 5+ Oak & Iron ships, Julian Nault won this category with this Spanish Militia Force entry.
You can see all the Force entries from this year’s contest in this Gallery.
Best New Painter
Selected from entries submitted by painters who were new to the hobby (started painting no earlier than sometime in 2023), our winner is Mike Anderson who submitted several of the Legendary Pirate Commanders and a great piece of terrain.
Most Entries
Winning by a significant margin and entering every single category, we have Patrick Tozer who submitted more than 60 entries! Amazing productivity!
Best Entries by Nation
For our last awards we had each commander from the Summer of Plunder event select their favorite submission from entries that matched their nation.
Best Pirate Entry
Chosen by Dan Carlson, commander of the unscrupulous Pirates, we have Blackbeard by Mike Anderson.
Best Spanish Entry
Master painter Julian Nault winning another prize here! This Spanish Commander model is so clean and smooth. Wonderful work.
Best English Entry
Chosen by English Commander Jayden King, we have Ryan Peterson’s Brigantine with English flags flying!
Best French Entry
Chosen by the French nobility (Andy Hodges and Tyler Stone), we have Laurens de Graff, painted by Julian Nault.
Best Dutch Entry
Chosen by Dutch Commander Matthew Doerr, we have this detailed Dutch Commander painted by Brett Yardley.
Best Native American Entry
Chosen by Native American Commander Bartosz Norwicki, we have an insanely detailed set of Braves models, painted by Jake Farris. Jake has won prizes in these contests before his painting has continued to get better and better!
Best Unaligned Entry
Not fitting into any specific major nation, we have the European Militia Cavalry painted by Kurtis Fraley and chosen by Liam Smith, our Unaligned Commander for the Summer of Plunder event.
In addition to all these winners, we randomly selected around 15 entries for other prizes over the course of the contest.
Contest Sponsors
We want to thank all the people and organizations that helped provide prizes for this year’s contest! We were able to give away more than $1000 worth of prizes over the course of the event!
- Firelock Games
- TABLEWAR Game Mats
- The Plunder Den YouTube Channel
- Seamons’ Quality Sails
- The Dead Man’s Chest Blog
- Feldherr
- Things from the Basement
- Timber & Sail
- Blood & Pigment
You can check out all the prizes we awarded and details on all the contest sponsors here.
Final Thoughts
Thanks to all the folks who participated in the 2024 Great Pirate Paint Off! Congratulations to the winners and well done to one and all and we hope to see your freshly painted minis hit the table during the Summer of Plunder event coming up in June-August. We have another shipload of prizes to give out!
