Lead Painters League 8, Round 9

"Wampum or womp them" -- my Round 9 entry featuring more 28mm Conquest Miniatures Indians. I won this round 380-112, bettering my record to 5-4. Incidentally, it guarantees I will end up at least with a .500 record, which was my goal for this third time entering the contest.

So, to me, this round would decided if I met my goal of a .500 record or not. I didn't have a lot of confidence in winning the next and final round, which was a WW I theme. In this round I was submitting more 28mm Conquest Miniatures Indians. I feel they are one of my strong points, and I tend to do fairly well with them.

This batch included a chief holding a belt of wampum, along with four warriors. So, I decided to call it "Wampum or womp them" -- meaning, will you accept our belt of peace or do we go to war? I really liked the look of the figure and wanted to make sure I did a good job on it. So, as always, I leafed through my Robert Griffing book, which contains dozens of painting by the specialist in depicting native Americans. I found a particularly striking blanket worn by a chieftain and adapted its gold on dark blue colors to the figure. I also used more washes to give a range of color rather than simply base coating and dry brushing. I tend to add more highlights to, a technique I've learned from Joe -- the artist behind the website An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields (http://www.hourofwolves.org/). He is ahead of me on so many levels in painting, but he tends to add in multiple lighter layers in a single color, and I've tried to replicate his work, even though I don't have his skill or talent. The rest of the warband were bare chested, so I put extra effort in on the tattoos.

I posed the group of five in front of some of my Acheson Creations longhouses. The Indian style palisade behind them is also from Acheson Creations. I highly recommend everything put out by Acheson. Their resin is deeply detailed which makes dry brushing these a snap. The scalp poles are scratch built, while the cookpot and hide stretcher are 1/72 scale plastic pieces from toy sets.

I was highly gratified by this win, as I was matched up against a painter of similar skill level. So far in this season, I had been beaten by all the painters of superior skills and lost to all those of what most would judge a tad below my skill level. I don't say that to sound arrogant, but I would say I am a better painter technique wise than I was, say, five years ago. It is not a judge of potential, but at where somebody is on their level of learning. Anytime someone tells *me* "I could never paint that...!", I respond it is simply practice. You get better with each figure you paint. So, it was nice to win one against a painter I judge to be mid-tier, like myself.

Next round is the finale, and a WW I theme, so we'll see how I finish the league...!