Talking with plastic, or thoughts about inspiring trophies

Hello my fellow miniature addicts,
todays article will have a look on something most tournament gamers and competition painters desire on some point of their hobby career - trophies.

Who didn't ever want to win one?
But its not about winning them, instead I'll talk about creating them!

The trophies I created for our local hobby stores painting competition, the Golden Gobbo.

So first, why should you want to create one? The simple answer is, they add a nice feeling to many things, campaigns, tournaments, competitions or just as a gift to the special person who invests all his time and energy into your hobby club.
Even amongst friends who only play for fun, this little thing will have a special place on the shelve and bring back memories every time being looked at.

I think most of us like a trophy or two in their flat, and thats not a bad thing at all. We held a painting competition at our local hobby store last December, the Golden Gobbo painting competition.
Over the last years, I planned and held many events there, from gaming events to painting classes and my private hobby past also saw many of them in our gaming group.
Purity seals my RPG players got for their final victory in a years long campaign, the typical golden /silver / bronze sprayed marine for the early painting contests, certificates for scratchbuilding events...

This time I wanted to create something more personal, something the participants would know was specially designed for them. I think this can make a real difference between something they never take home from the store or something, they will enter next years contest to get hold of. (We still got a gold trophy two years old, simple marine sprayed gold, that was never taken home)

So for everyone out there who wants to organize a contest or honor their fellow gamers, games masters and organizers, I thought it could be interesting to write down my thoughts on this topic.

The first step is to consider, what deed shall be honored?
Whilst golden dice and rulers can be fitting for a gaming event, they would look awkward at a painting event.
Something very useful here is a name! Don't organize a painting competition, rather choose a theme based thing, like who paints the coolest dwarf or who wins the final battle at Skullfang Mountain (sorry, old warhammer chap here). If you want a more generic event, name it! We call our 40k tournaments the Eastern front massacres, as we are the most eastern GW in Germany. Here in Germany, things associated with the East could be anything from Vodka bottles to bananas, winter themed bases and snow and ice...and we have a big pool to choose from. Some things won't be serious enough, or depending on your taste, way to serious. But ideas begin to form in our mind!

My example will be our Golden Gobbo.
Now comes what i call talking with miniatures. It's strange and some would consider it crazy but who cares? I knew I wanted to use Goblins from the Night Goblin Troop box. Ok, but 9 Trophies with a simple metallic goblin? LAME!

We had 3 categories, Single Miniature, Unit and Big Miniature. So I imagined the bunch of crazy little greenskins in front of their boss, squabbling about how they want to look and why they should be the coolest greenskin in town!

Single Miniature
Ey Boss, you're serious?? Something on MY socket? Damn your ideas, I present the Single, so I won't share. Not even for a bottle of fungus beer, naaa it's mine and dare you other weeklings step on it.


I guess no proud Goblin would accept anything but him on a trophy for a Single entry. So all they got was a second, smaller socket and themselves. As these are the most proud, the Champion and Musician seemed just right for me. 

Unit
Unit hmm? Good, another idiot in front of me, catching all the fire and injuries! I mean, thats what units are good for, right? Other meat protecting my sweet green ass!

Very easy, they would need another chap on their socket, cause a real greenskin lives in a horde. Not because they are weak cowered  little gits...well ok, because they are exactly that! And because of that, they also would need some chests and things to hide behind, if needed.

Big Miniature
I am the biggest, NO I am, naaaah you couldnt be taller then me standing on each others shoulders! 
We shall see...a horde of little gobbos climbing to the highest piles of stuff they can find, to decide who's the golden trophy.

I really had fun with this ones! They represent tanks and monsters and want to be the biggest Gobbos in the mountains. 

The making didn't take too long, they were simply airbrushed with the awesome Vallejo Air metal colors and the socket labels were created using this helpful tutorial from Massive Voodoo

The winners were really happy with them and everyone knows, no other has the same in his shelve or cabinet. Thats a real motivating thing and first questions for the 2014 version arise. Personal trophies can add much to any competition and are worth the extra effort you put into them. Cause after investing time, energy and money into your contest, why not make the best you can out of it?

Talking of the Golden Gobbo, why not have a look on the entries?

So much for today, read you soon!