Our Winter/Spring painting contest for Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron is finished for the year. Thanks everyone who participated by entering minis or voting for people’s choice winners. We had more than 300 entries this year including Commanders, Characters, Terrain, Oak & Iron Ships, Blood & Plunder Units and Ships and entire battle Forces. Now we have some final winners to announce and prizes to award.
Prize for Random B&P Ship Entry – Set of Seamons’ Quality Sails
First we have a couple prizes from the end of April to hand out. Going to a random entry from the Ship category, we’re giving away one of the last sets of Seamons’ Quality Sails we have left. This is a set of Black Sails for the plastic sloop, laid out for the Balandra rig.
We had 20 entries from 19 participants in this category this year. Using a random draw from the 20 entries, this prize goes to Brad Meloy and his Galleon entry. The Galleon is a massive hobby project, so this is a well deserved award.
Prize for Random Force Entry – Feldherr Case
We had 14 entries from 13 participants this year in the Force category. The end of month prize for the Force category is a Feldherr miniature carrying box that holds up to 200 Blood & Plunder minis. This is a great workhorse case that can store and transport your entire collection (unless you’re a little crazy like some of us are…). A big thanks to Feldherr for donating this prize this year.
And this prize goes out to Ret Talbot for his New Model Army entry! Congratulations and nice work to Ret!
Best Entry by a New Painter – Painter’s Accessory Pack
This prize is going out to a new painter. We had 87 entries from 10 people who had just started painting within the last year. Great to see people jumping into the painting hobby and getting good and improving results right away! This was a hard prize to award since there were so many to judge between! The prize is a set of painting tools and accessories.
The winner of this prize is Matthias Van Dyck for his entry of a full starter set with 2 Sloops and 2 crews all painted up.
And a big shoutout to the other new painters who did so much this year: Brendan Kampwerth, Dan Poff, Elijah Huff, Tim Falkenberg, Greg Flynn, Joseph Kananowicz, Lliam Baird, Ret Talbot, and Sven Wolk.
Most Entries – Spanish House from Things from the Basement
Some painters put in a ton of work this year and got a lot of minis done! We have a Spanish House terrain kit from Things from the Basement for the person who submitted the most entries this year. This prize goes out to Brendan Kampewerth with a total of 36 entries this year! Brendan should be ready with painted armies for Summer of Plunder this year.
Here’s some of Brendan’s work.
Runner up for this prize was Lliam Baird with 25 entries.
Grand Prize – 6th Rate Frigate
And finally, our “grand prize” goes out to a random entry among all 305 entries submitted over the first 4 months of 2025. We want to encourage participating at all levels, so you had had to enter anything at all to get in the running for this. The prize here is a 6th rate Frigate model from Firelock Games. This is a beautifl amd massive ship, great as a pirate flagship, an English Pirate Hunter, or a Guarda Costas vessel that isn’t messing around. This is one of the prettiest ships Firelock makes and we would like to thank Firelock Games for donating this ship for the contest.
And the prize goes to…. Sven Wolk! The randomly selected winning entry was his Surgeon Character entry.
Congratulations to Sven and have fun with the Frigate!
Nationality Prizes – Summer of Plunder Commander Choices
In this last section we are awarding a small prize to a top entry from each nation. As a link between our Great Pirate Paint Off and the Summer of Plunder campaign, the commanders from each nationality for the campaign are choosing their favorite entry from their nation. The winner of these selection will be awarded a set of Activation Tokens for their nation from our Blood & Pigment Shop.
Best Pirate Entry
Pirate Commanders Daniel Wray and Gregory Padilla selected this Blackbeard painted by Tom Gilder as the best Pirate entry this year. Well done and congrats to Tom!
Read the Pirate Call to Arms post here if you’re considering joining the Pirate team for the Summer of Plunder Campaign.
Best Spanish Entry
Spanish Commanders Josh Shivak and Daniel Broaddus selected Greg Padilla’s Spanish Corsair force as the best Spanish entry. Well done and congrats to Greg!
We got some bright colors, two officers, some mini modifications, some exclusive minis, and a priest mixed in there for one really cool looking Spanish force!
Read the Spanish Call to Arms post here if you’re considering joining the Spanish team for the Summer of Plunder Campaign.
Best English Entry
English Commanders Erich Goebel and Riley Faulk chose Ret Talbot’s New Model Army as the top English Entry.
Read the English Call to Arms post here if you’re considering joining the English team for the Summer of Plunder Campaign.
Best French Entry
French Commanders Kyle Arpke and Gareth Worthy selected this set of French Marins by Michael Christensen as the top French entry this year.
Read the French Call to Arms post here if you’re considering joining the French team for the Summer of Plunder Campaign.
Best dutch Entry
Dutch campaign commanders Matthew Doerr and Zac Small selected Julian Nault’s award winning Dutch force as the top Dutch entry this year.
Read the Dutch Call to Arms post here if you’re considering joining the Dutch team for the Summer of Plunder Campaign.
Best Native American Entry
Native American Campaign Commander Derek Taylor and Brent Devos selected Julian Nault’s Young Braves entry as the top Native Entry from the contest.
Read the Native Call to Arms post here if you’re considering joining the Native team for the Summer of Plunder Campaign.
Final Thoughts
That concludes the 2025 Great Pirate Paint Off! Thanks for everyone who put brush to models and participated in this year’s event. And thanks to everyone who followed along with the contest and voted for winners over the past several months. And thanks for all our sponsors who helped with prize support. Thanks to our panel of 5 judges: Lily, Liam, Dexter, Niguel and Nate. Thanks to Dexter again for hosting the Terrain Flash Challenge.
And thanks to Firelock Games for making some pretty awesome games and miniatures for us to paint and enjoy.
The painting contest should be back in a similar form next year. But in a little more than two weeks we jump into the massive Summer of Plunder campaign for Blood & Plunder, Oak & Iron, and Port Royal! We hope you’ll join the community in this event, and get your freshly painted minis on the table, and have some good wargming fun with friends this summer.
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