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For the past few months I've been working on a series of articles and videos of advice for people working on entries for the MSP Open. (Or anyone looking to improve their painting a little.) I've reviewed the most common issues that we see with entries and tried to provide both good explanations and before and after photo examples. My plan was to put this up before ReaperCon so you have the opportunity to go over your entries and see if you want to change anything before the contest. (And I'm sure many of us are still frantically painting anyway!) Common contest entry feedback and solutions.

40mm to 99mm Single Figure Reaper entries only. No more than 4 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

100mm+ Single Figure Reaper entries only. No more than 4 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

Large Reaper based diorama entries only. No more than 6 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

Non Reaper 40mm+, Bust, and Diorama entries only. No more than 4 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

I put two entries into the recent Reaper Facebook Convert and Paint contest. This first one didn't get many votes, which doesn't surprise me as I think not too many people knew what it was and it was on the weirder side. Plus the paint job itself was kind of bland. But I like the idea of it because of what it is. It is a tikbalang - a malevolent, mythical Filipino creature that leads travelers astray or plays tricks on them. It has a horse's head, a bony body, and long, disproportioned limbs. I used these minis to make it. The wendigo's head was chopped off. Then I took the head of the Silverhorn, removed the horn and did some filing and sculpting to get it to join properly to the body of the wendigo. Very minimal green stuff use outside of filling seams; I filled in the wendigo's hooves, which were cloven, and rebuilt a bit of the mane so it joined smoothly with the rest of the body. And I saved the body of the unicorn. At some point I'll have to convert it into a centaur!

I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment, so have managed to talk myself into another rainbow dragon... Since I have ol' Pathfinder Red sitting in the Drawer of Doom and no real plans for him, I thought I'd randomize him (not that I don't have enough other projects that haven't been finished (or even started)).. So, here goes: 3 Star challenge on Pathfinder Red (#89001) Primary : Blush Pink (although I might substitute in Breast Cancer Pink since I have 3 bottles of that from last month!) Secondary: Brilliant Green (needs to be ordered or fetched from the FLGS - I have Forest Green but that's too dark to match, i think) Tertiary: Heather Blue (do not have this, but do have a Sample bottle from a past order that is very close and will be used in its place.. I smidged some paint on a sheet of paper for comparison and have decided that Blush Pink is much brighter than BCPink, so I'll probably use the Blush (unless I decide to go thematic again and donate this fellow to a survivor since I know a few). Also, Forest Green is indeed way too dark to substitute in for Brilliant Green.. Here he is in all his boxed plasticky glory!

Categories: 40-99mm wide/tall (Reaper only) 100mm+ wide/tall (Reaper only) Diorama (Reaper Only) Non Reaper models and Busts over 40mm wide/tall Reaper contest: -- entries must be Reaper figures. Any 40mm or larger figure, metal or Bones, in production or OOP can be entered -- any figure which was painted and finished in 2018 is eligible -- figures that have won a statue level award as a ReaperCon entry are ineligible. This includes a Sophie, Golden Maelee, etc. -- the deadline for entries is Dec 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm CST -- a diorama is defined as two or more figures on a scenic base that helps to tell a story. The diorama may have smaller figures, as long as there is one large sized Reaper figure in the entry -- you may enter as many times as you like, but only one prize per person will be awarded -- each entry needs to be uploaded to the appropriate thread. Please attach your entries using the forum uploading feature or hotlink from the Inspiration Gallery. We want to make sure they're visible at all times. -- you may submit between one and four images of each Single Figure entry and up to six images for Diorama. They do not need to be stitched into a single image file. -- you are allowed to enter miniatures that will also be entered into other contests that might overlap ours. -- the judges or Reaper reserves the right to remove entries if deemed inappropriate, but we're pretty laid back here and this is just to cover our butts. -- the judges and Reaper can clarify and amend rules at will. Prizes: Reaper has approved prizes in each category: 1st prize $50 2nd prize $30 random drawing prize $20 If there are fewer than 8 entries in any category, only 1st prize and the random prize will be awarded. Image Enhancement: -- digital enhancement ("Photoshopping") of your entry is strictly prohibited. -- no clone brush, healing brush, airbrush, or other brush work. Fix your paint with paint, not with Photoshop. -- no adding or removing background elements from the image -- if you add a logo or a watermark Reaper cannot use your image in their gallery. Note that if your image is selected for the Reaper gallery, you will be credited by name under the image. -- cropping, global color balance, and global level adjustments are allowed ("global" means "the entire image." You may not "pop" colors by only selecting some areas for level adjustment. Non-Reaper contest: -- entries which fit the above requirements (40mm+) or busts that were not made by Reaper can be entered here. -- there is no Reaper prize support for this category -- 3rd party prize support will be determined by donations near the end of the contest.

So depending on how much you pay attention to memes, you may be aware of one very popular one called "Somebody toucha my spaghet!" I couldn't tell you why that's what popped into my head back in October when @ladystorm first posted about her contest, but I tend to just accept that my brain comes up with really dumb ideas and just have fun with it. So, I present to you: Somebody toucha my spaghyeti! I had a TON of fun painting this guy! The kid (who toucha his spaghyeti) came from 03233: Townsfolk X: Children, sculpted by Bobby Jackson. I modified the stick in his hand into a fork with greenstuff. The yeti, of course, is 77434: Yeti Chieftan, sculpted by Jason Wiebe. I sculpted the bowl of spaghetti with Sculpey. I hope y'all like him!

It got late, so change of plans and here he is: Painted in 1 evening, using only 4 colors. I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. Colors: Splintered bone, Turkey Brown, Nightsky Blue and Blackened Brown. I was just going to use the first 3, but decided I needed something darker to finish it up.

I decided to paint this fella for Ladystorm's contest a couple months ago, and then promptly forgot about him until this past Saturday. So here's my semi-rushed, totally tabletop but still fun to paint Yeti chief. I was hoping to achieve that polar bear not-quite-white-but-sorta-yellowish-white look for him. I think it worked out alright, but I have an idea to try to improve upon it in the future.

What the Dickens! After a long trek through snow and ice, Cornelius was disappointed to learn that the library only had a book of Christmas Carols, and not A Christmas Carol, which he was hoping to finally read this year

This was my entry for the Reaper Fan Facebook Page Paint Your Giants Contest. This is the biggest thing I ever painted not on a canvas. The last time I entered one of these, I felt like it would have done better if the base told more of a story, so that is what I tried to achieve with this one. I wanted it to portray REVENGE! The Jarl had his left eye gouged out by a young upstart white dragon. He healed, regrouped, and hunted down the dragon to enact his revenge. I hope you like it. The final results have now been posted. He placed 4th behind some mind-blowing work. I wanted some orange on the model to play against the blue skin, for color theory. Originally, it was going to be glowing runes on the rock and skulls, but I abandoned that for the sake of time/completion. I settled with orange tones in the leather. I wasn't really sure how to get the TMM of the crown to look like a gouge, or how to make his blue skin look like a scar. I'm not entirely sold on the result, but I'm sure I'll try again some day on a different model. The Monster Manual suggests blue skin with white/gray/dirty blonde hair is the usual coloration. I tried to go to full white for the highlights of the face to make it the focal point. I wanted him to look like he was wearing a polar bear pelt, and that all the fur trim was also polar bear. I tried to make it look a little muddy on the bottom, and on his shoes. This was how I wanted to weather the inside of the bear skin, to make it look like it had that dried cracked appearance. Not sure how well it shows up in the picture. These were some WIP shots. The black and white was to figure out how to highlight the sword. I wanted the sword and stone items to look like shiny flint. I hit the sword and most of the other stone items with high gloss varnish to help sell the effect. The front and back of the sword. Finally, some more details of the base and the white dragon victim. I wanted to base the dragon as a purple in the recesses, similar to the effect going on on the cover of Hoard of the Dragon Queen module. This was the BONES Temple Dragon I sacrificed. He is smaller, but his tongue sticks out perfectly to sell the dead dragon effect. And he's not as expensive to replace as Deathsleet! I pained his eyes half-rolled into his head to complete the idea. I tried to freehand some anatomy on there: vertebral body, muscle groups, esophagus, carotid arteries/jugular veins. I also tried to be accurate with the blood spray coming from both arteries, and didn't want to go too crazy with the gore. Finally, I wanted it to look like his hot blood had melted some of the snow. Overall, this was a wild ride. The early part of the contest saw him at #2. Then he gave up some ground and sat at #3 for a long time. Then another Frost Giant (Queen) made a great surge at the end to unseat me out of #3 into 4th place. To be honest, there were so many awesome paint jobs, I'm just humbled and honored to be in the top 20. Thanks for looking. C&C Welcome.

Maledrakh's (to date) lone entry into Ladystorm's Winter Contest seemed, well, lonely, so here's my version of the Yeti Chieftain.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/40821538884/permalink/10157006662588885/ Here is the next Facebook contest. Voting starts now until Friday. Good luck everyone.

Categories: 40-99mm wide/tall (Reaper only) 100mm+ wide/tall (Reaper only) Diorama (Reaper Only) Non Reaper models and Busts over 40mm wide/tall Reaper contest: -- entries must be Reaper figures. Any 40mm or larger figure, metal or Bones, in production or OOP can be entered -- any figure which was painted and finished in 2017 is eligible -- figures that have won a statue level award as a ReaperCon entry are ineligible. This includes a Sophie, Golden Maelee, etc. -- the deadline for entries is Dec 31, 2017 at 11:59 pm CST -- a diorama is defined as two or more figures on a scenic base that helps to tell a story. The diorama may have smaller figures, as long as there is one large sized Reaper figure in the entry -- you may enter as many times as you like, but only one prize per person will be awarded -- each entry needs to be uploaded to the appropriate thread. Please attach your entries using the forum uploading feature or hotlink from the Inspiration Gallery. We want to make sure they're visible at all times. -- you may submit between one and four images of each Single Figure entry and up to six images for Diorama. They do not need to be stitched into a single image file. -- you are allowed to enter miniatures that will also be entered into other contests that might overlap ours. -- the judges or Reaper reserves the right to remove entries if deemed inappropriate, but we're pretty laid back here and this is just to cover our butts. -- the judges and Reaper can clarify and amend rules at will. Prizes: Reaper has approved prizes in each category: 1st prize $50 2nd prize $30 random drawing prize $20 If there are fewer than 8 entries in any category, only 1st prize and the random prize will be awarded. Image Enhancement: -- digital enhancement ("Photoshopping") of your entry is strictly prohibited. -- no clone brush, healing brush, airbrush, or other brush work. Fix your paint with paint, not with Photoshop. -- no adding or removing background elements from the image -- if you add a logo or a watermark Reaper cannot use your image in their gallery. Note that if your image is selected for the Reaper gallery, you will be credited by name under the image. -- cropping, global color balance, and global level adjustments are allowed ("global" means "the entire image." You may not "pop" colors by only selecting some areas for level adjustment. Non-Reaper contest: -- entries which fit the above requirements (40mm+) or busts that were not made by Reaper can be entered here. -- there is no Reaper prize support for this category -- 3rd party prize support will be determined by donations near the end of the contest.

Non Reaper 40mm+ and Bust entries only. No more than 4 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

100mm+ Single Figure Reaper entries only. No more than 4 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

40mm to 99mm Single Figure Reaper entries only. No more than 4 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

Large Reaper based diorama entries only. No more than 6 images per entry please. No chatter or questions, please. Use the Rules and Questions thread.

So I've finally joined. Ebonwrath was the first dragon I managed to grab from my pile of Bones. Now assembled and brown line primed. Here are the results, based on my modified list. 15: Alien Goo, main 3: HD Fireball Orange, secondary 17: Solid Blue, accent So this is YOUR doing Pezler! Guess I'll try for the 3* challenge. It'll feel like my early days of painting when I owned a very limited palette.

OK folks, I need some help... As most of you know, I am going to enter this guy in the Infamy painting contest, and I would like to make the best showing I can, so here are a bunch of pics, please choose the ones you think show him off the best! (I can send 8 pics total....) So please choose your favorite 8 pics and help me decide! Thanks! George

Hi everyone, First of, if this is in the wrong section please feel free to move the topic to the right section, but my guess is this is the right spot. I received an email today from E2046 about the annual contest for figurines, dioramas and robots. I thought to post it here since a lot of real talent is roaming this forum and maybe some of you are interested in joining this competition. Contest http://www.e2046.com/contest/2016/ Rules and regulations http://www.e2046.com/contest/2016/rule/&lang_id=1 I wish everyone who decides to join a lot of fun creating something awesome and good luck!!

Hi! One of my buddies sent me this link. I want to enter but I have only played home campaigns of pathfinder, so sadly, I may not be able to... unless anyone has a character they want me to try to paint.. Pathfinder Society Contest Link *** The theme this time is a hand-painted Pathfinder Society mini. Whether a favorite player character or a beloved NPC, as long as it is from the Pathfinder Society and your creation it counts. The prize? Gift certificates to paizo.com! First place will win $25 and three runners up will get $15 each. The crunchy bits for entering: You may only enter once Entries must be submitted to [email protected] Include a photo of your mini and a name for the character portrayed (NOTE: Photos may be resized or cropped to better show off the mini for voting. We suggest trying to send the biggest possible resolution to retain details for resizing. Any image format is acceptable!) Include your paizo.com username Entries will be accepted until 12:00 PM Pacific time on January 11, 2016. Voting will open on January 18, 2016 and continue until February 1. *** Have fun and paint away. PS... someone tell Derek...