March has come to a close and the Great Pirate Paint Off contest has some prizes to hand out and some winners to announce. In this update we will announce the People’s Choice Winner for the Blood & Plunder Unit category, draw a winner for another prize, and go over the categories for April, the final month of the contest.
People’s Choice Winner for Blood & Plunder Unit
We narrowed the 60+ unit entries to the top 5 from 5 different participants and you have voted over the last 3 days. Here are the results!
Honorable Mentions
In 5th and 5th places we have a unit of Spanish Hostigadores by Garrett Swader and a large unit of French Marins by Justin Rodriguez.
3rd Place – Spanish Corsarios by Jacob Zuvic
Coming in 3rd we have a nice set of Spanish Corsarios by Jacob Zuvic. Jacob has already placed in other categories in this contest and his work is always excellent!
2nd Place – Sea Dogs by Ryan Peterson
Coming in at second place is a unit of Sea Dogs with Lances by Ryan Peterson. Using a mix of original sculpts and plastic multipart minis, Ryan did a great job tying them all together.
1st Place – Dutch Kapers by Julian Nault
And taking the top spot with a decisive vote, we have a flawless set of Dutch Kapers painted by Julian Nault.
I can only say I am impressed and jealous of Julian’s skill and results! Several of Julian’s entries made the judges top 5, but this set of Kapers was the judges favorite, and it was justly voted the top entry by “the people” as well! Congratulations Julian and thanks for inspiring us all with your work!
You can check out Julian’s painting profile on Facebook here and it looks like he may be working up some tutorial videos of some sort, so check back for those and you’ll undoubtably learn something!
Here are some of Julian’s other entries in the Blood & Plunder category:
All amazing work! Congratulations Julian for the well deserved win!
March Random Drawing Prize – Everlasting Wet Palette
We have an excellent wet palette product to give away this month. We had 24 different painters participate in this category this year. Determined by random draw, Mike Anderson has won this wet palette prize!
Mike entered a full set of units from the English starter box this year, along with some great terrain, commander and character entries earlier in the contest.
The Plunder Den Terrain Flash Challenge
We have a winner for The Plunder Den Terrain Flash Challenge as well! Dexter Heide has hosted a special part of the Great Pirate Paint Off here for the past 3 years and he has generously donated some of his handbuilt terrain as a prize for this challenge. Participants used his tutorial video for this specific piece of winter terrain this year.
Our winner this year is Evan Botkin!
For a prize Dexter has donated another set of winter terrain pieces.
Thanks to Dexter for hosting this challenge again, and thanks to everyone who participated!
April Categories for the Great Pirate Paint Off
We have 2 final categories for Great Pirate Paint Off. Both of these categories require more effort and work so we’ve saved them for last! First, we have the Blood & Plunder Ship category. Ships are major projects, especially if you decide to make sails and rig them up as well.
Below are some of the entries we have for ships so far.
For our other final category we have the Army or “Force” category which can be either 25+ Blood & Plunder minis, or a fleet of 5+ Oak & Iron Ships.
Here are a couple of the Force entries that have already come in:
For these big categories we have some big prizes!
Again, at the mid point of April (now only a few days away since this update is late), we will be awarding two prizes drawn at random from participants who have submitted something in these categories. For the Ship mid-month prize we have an airbrush kit!
For the Force mid-month prize we have a 3×4 Caribbean Tropics game mat from TABLEWAR to give away!
At the end of April we will have people’s choice voting for these two categories, two more prizes going to participants during April, then some final awards, including prizes for Most Entries, best entry from New Paints, and a grand prize of a 6th Rate Frigate drawn from all participants.
Thanks for participating in the contest this year! One more month and this year’s contest will be over and we’ll be shifting focus to the Summer of Plunder campaign! Time to get those minis painted.