The votes are in and we have some final winners to announce! The Blood & Plunder Ship and Force categories have concluded and the public has weighed in. Behold, the winners!
This is the penultimate post for this year’s painting contest. There will be one final post with big batch of prizes in the next couple days.
Blood & Plunder Ship Finalists
The Ship category was very difficult to judge this year. So many solid entries, and hard to judge between huge ships that are a lot of work, and smaller ships that are less work, but have been done to a really high level. The judges painfully narrowed to 8 and the people decided! Here are the top 4 finalists for the Blood & Plunder Ship category.
3rd Place Blood & Plunder Ship
Greg P took 3rd place with this fine sloop. There’s some fine detail work here, along with some extras like ratlines, flags, lanterns, tiller and custom sails.
You should check out Gred’s eye-catching 6th Rate Frigate as well. Very impressive. Congratulations on a 3rd place win!
2nd Place Blood & Plunder Ship
In second place we have this beautiful Tartana painted by Jeff W. The sails really set this ship apart. Rigging the Tartana is difficult to do well and Jeff nailed it.
1st Place Blood & Plunder Ship
Now we’re down to a medal! The 1st place prize in the Blood & Plunder Ship category goes to Kara R with this Bermuda Sloop in Her Majesty’s service. This was chosen by a decisive majority!
The freehand on the sides and stern of this ship are excellent!
Congratulations to Kara for a job well done! There’s a 2026 Great Pirate Paint Off medal on the way!
A hearty congratulations to our three winners!
You can see the full Ship gallery here.
Force Finalists
Here you can see the culmination of the last 5 months for some great painters. Hours of work went into these armies below. There’s some truly impressive submissions in all three game systems: Blood & Plunder, Oak & Iron and Port Royal. The votes were pretty tight in this category.
3rd Place Force(s)
There was a tie for 3rd place!
Two fantastic painters, two great armies for 2 great games! In 3rd place with have Kurtis F and Dylan D with a Maroon force for Port Royal and a French Buccaneer force for Blood & Plunder. There is some real “Golden Demon style” care and skill on display in these entries.
Maroons by Kurtis F.
African skin tone is notoriously tricky to paint vividly and Kurtis nailed it. The 7th mini pushes the envelope a little, but it is very much in flavor with the Port Royal aesthetic.
French Blood & Plunder Army by Dylan D.
Elements of this beautiful force beat up many a player at Adepticon 2026 (including the writer).
Congrats to Kurtis and Dylan!
2nd Place Force
In second place we have a powerful French Oak & Iron Fleet by Dave B.
These little ships are big jobs when it comes to painting. With the huge Men of War ships all present, all rigged with lines and ratlines, these are awesome pieces.
Well done Dave!
1st Place Force
Oak & Iron painters took the top two spots this year! Our grand prize for the Force category goes to Michael P with this remarkable Oak & Iron fleet.
The OSL on these ships is so vivid! Incredible work. Not to even mention the rigging, ratlines, and multiple flags on each ship. This is high level hobbying right here!
Congratulations and well done to Michael!
You can see the full Force gallery here.
Final Thoughts
Impressive work all around! And there were so many great entries that were worthy as well! Thank to everyone who participated in the contest this year. These are the last two categories of the contest.
There will be one final post giving away a last big batch of prizes so stay tuned!