"Battle of the Brush"

The sick joke that masquerades as Games Workshop Manchester has surpassed itself, yet again.
In their last Battle of the Brush competition my friend's Dark Angels squad came third.
The winner was a Dark Eldar Haemonculus.
Here's a couple of pictures taken from their Facebook page showing both entries.


Now I know that in the scheme of things, this result doesn't mean a thing, it's just a bit of fun, so I don't need that pointing out.
But what fun is there to be had when you put together a pretty good looking squad only to be beaten by that piece of crap?
I hasten to add that I personally refuse to go in this store.
The staff's attitude stinks and has done for some time.

Judge for yourselves...




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Your friend did a fantastic job.. especially the banner. If that was free hand work, I would have given him first place without thinking about it.

The haemie is interesting to me though. He definitely looks like he's been on an ash world for several days. Is he as monotone in person as in the picture?

Banner is plastic molded like that. But still looks sharp!

Personally I do prefer the Haemonculus, more mood and I like the muted palette.
His Angels of Redemption Terminators are very clean, but lack (judging just by this photo) nice highlights and shadows. The purple tunic could have a lot more contrast, and the armor would benefit from edging highlights.
The Haemonculus may not seem very technical, but the overall mood is certainly there. He belongs in the dark would scare the hell out of me! The green in the syringe is especially nice.

I don't mean to be a downer, but just wanted to offer my opinion and perhaps a different point of view.

The Dark Angels are superb, you can see the time and effort your friend put in. It's a great paint scheme.

I'm not wanting to sound like a knobhead, but I really like the muted palette of the model that won. There's just something about it and maybe your pics are giving it more justice than it deserves but I do like what he's done. It's very dark and moody and although subtle there are some nice techniques painted here. The syringe is pretty awesome.

'Sick joke' is a trifle over-egging the pudding. Just because you weren't happy with the results of an entirely subjective painting competition. I hope 'your friend' was considerably less butt hurt than you.

Games Workshop Manchester is my local store at the moment, and it's hardly a 'sick joke' - as stores go, it's actually a pretty good one. I actually entered that competition myself (image of entry on my [URL="http://nelsonminiatures.weebly.com/cyber-altered-task-unit.html"]blog[/URL]), and even if I didn't think that the Haemonculus should have won, it certainly wouldn't have been your friend's squad either I'm afraid, there was nothing special that made them stand out from the crowd (though I'll admit that the banner's not too bad).

What reason do you have to be so annoyed anyway, the terminators still got bronze!