Game Summit Has Come and Gone

What a glorious weekend. Game Summit has greatly improved since their last event, and after talking with some of the organizers are still learning lessons to be applied for the next year. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good and people had fun. I’m really looking forward to next year.

For those that aren’t local, or who haven’t heard of Game Summit, it is a new convention which tonight is celebrating the success of its third event. Originally intended to occur twice a year I heard some rumours that the next event will be a full year away. There were wargaming, boardgaming, painting and roleplaying events to appeal to all. Wargaming is still mostly Games Workshop, but Flames of War, Warmachine/Hordes and even Heavy Gear made an appearance. I enjoyed seeing Heavy Gear, it has a special place in my heart and I’m looking forward to an improvement next year. It seems like some of the Game Summit guys were a bit interested in it.

Me waiting for the start of the speed painting competition. That photographer sure loves tilting his camera.

I’ll spare you the many paragraphs of play-by-play which even bored me when I re-read them and cut to my highlights and lowlights. To be thorough, here’s the short version condensed from a thousand words: Arrived 9am Saturday, signed up for Golden Brush, only entry until 10-11am. Played D&D 4th from 10am-3pm. Sign up sheets better but basic, room for improvement. Canteen in hall awesome, cash bar even better. After D&D wandered around checking things out, lots of deals on board games. Hung out in Painting Clinic, no-one asked me for a token, oops. Talked with Alex who gave Master Class. Good guy, learnt from him. Tried two-brush blending on Space Marine, bleck. Won Golden Brush, I think first prize. Nice prize, Battle of Macragge, terrain good for Necromunda, appropriate prize for the crowd. Suggest Inquisitor model, 54mm, 120mm historical. Something top-painter appropriate. Also, not even a piece of paper saying I won. Strongly suggest for next year. Hung out and home.

Sunday, arrived 9am for Speed Painting competition scheduled from 9am to 12pm. Doesn’t start until 10am, only an hour. Grrr, sort out scheduling issues and errors. Also, schedule says winner announced 1pm, not announced until 6pm. Not a problem for me, maybe a problem for others. Walked around, buddy Ca$h playing 40k again, first time in long time. Beer. Joined Master Class, skipped D&D. Learnt more from Alex. Hung about, wandered aimlessly, time dragged to Speed Painting results. Not enough people for pickup games of boardgames to start regularly. Heavy Gear tourney nice to see, scenery in sorry state, sorry Gambit. Buy Battlestar Galactica Boardgame cheap, win painting competition, prize is a GW water-pot. Seems small at first, but I only spent an hour on the miniature, so very appropriate. On further though the pot allows easy suspension of bristles in Winsor & Newton brush cleaner or correct upside-down drying.

Even that took longer than I was expecting. I wanted to have and experienced long bouts of sitting around chatting with other gamers and painters I met for the first time at Game Summit, but I still crammed a lot into those two days. I applaud Game Summit for starting what they started. I applaud them for improving it. I’ll complain about a few things in a moment but consider them the occasional interruptions to a consistently good time.

Let’s get the complaining out of the way. I liked the introduction of the white boards showing what is happening in each area and at which table. Events showed the total number of spots, plus spots remaining so if you hadn’t pre-planned you could walk around and find something. I’ve been unfairly saying that it wasn’t good enough, but honestly it was fine in the evening but bad in the morning. I don’t know if the venue only let Game Summit in a little before 9am, or if Game Summit underestimated the time needed for setup. I signed up for a D&D game without knowing what it was and what level it was. I had fun and needn’t have worried, but this should be ready when people get in the door. Also, I pre-registered for roleplaying, but couldn’t pick which game I was interested in.

There were prizes available for the winners of the various events, but nothing to say they had won. At least provide a certificate made from free clip art saying what event was won with the winner’s name messily scrawled in black sharpie at the bottom. Anything. This goes for the painting competition as well as the tournaments. Really, there should be a small plaque with the Game Summit logo, year, event, and rank. There should also be pictures taken of the winners, as well as clear pictures taken of the entries in the painting competitions and best-painted army winners for promotion on the Game Summit website. Maybe there isn’t room in the budget for plaques, but a paper certificate at the very minimum.

Flames of War and Heavy Gear were represented, but wargaming wise it was a GW event. I’m glad that Game Summit is making the attempt to diversify, but I wish there was more variety. The only solution is for Game Summit to keep improving, remain open to other games and as the event grows people will run more demo games.

Looking back at what I wrote I’d say the issues were important but not critical. Certificates only effect the winners, and the late setup only effects the early-birds. I hope if anyone from Game Summit catches this blog they’ll think about my criticisms and see if there is room for changes. This is my second event, so I can only say they got better. Next event if they improve again I can start saying consistently better.

Meanwhile, everything else was great. The venue was the venue and will either be returned to or not. I enjoyed it, plenty of easy parking, the canteen in the hall plus cash bar was good. The ambassadors running the events were enthusiastic and engaged.

Enough about the convention itself. I want to zoom in on the painting competitions. I won’t say much about the Golden Brush. I don’t want to sound like a poor winner but it could use more competitors. Not for bragging rights, but because that’s what I like to see. I also cannot share my winning model because it’s supposed to be for an article on The Miniatures Page and it has to appear there in all its glory first. Finishing that article for TMP will be a priority, I promise.

This was painted in an hour and won the speed painting competition. Notice the light colour and focus on highlight and shading of the head and shoulders. Mouse-over to see reverse.

Speed Painting. While I wasn’t confident of winning the Golden Brush for a variety of reasons I was confident of winning the Speed Painting competition. While going from planning my strategy for three hours of painting to planning for one hour was an unexpected complication I felt my chances were excellent. Last year I painted a miniature to a good table-top quality in only 20 minutes with a natty-old brush¹. While there is always the chance that someone with my same skill sets would participate I guessed correctly that the majority of the competitors will worry about completing a miniature in an hour while I knew I could and still have time to blend highlights and shadows.

When all was said and done the blending I was able to achieve, rough as it was, distracted the eye from the other imperfections that are bound to happen from speed painting. As I guess, the rest of the competitors were more worried about how to achieve clean lines on the shoulder pad trim. I also was the only person to bring my own brushes and paints. Perhaps next year there could be two categories of speed-painting. One would be a longer event where competitors can bring anything they want to help them except airbrushes, and not because I think airbrushes are cheating, but because of overspray issues. The only thing the same is the miniature, although each competitor can specify which colour it is primed. The second event would be an hour long with no extra tools. You get a couple of brushes and a communal group of paints (in which they need more black and white than this year) and go at it. This gives an accessible painting competition and a challenging competition for more advanced painters.

Finally, here’s the techniques I used when painting this miniature for those that either face their own speed painting competition or those who want to paint armies to a higher standard. Time is saved by painting five figures at once, I spent a bunch of time blowing on the miniature and holding it under the halogen lamp to dry to get the paint to dry.

Lighter colours work better on smaller miniatures. Even if you want something dark and gritty make it a lighter dark and gritty colour than you would otherwise use. With proper contrast the miniature will not look bright, but will show detail better. 1000 Glazes² is a technique that can easily be applied to rank and file miniatures. I didn’t thin my paints as much as I would for a display piece, but by applying a translucent layer to the miniature to slowly build highlights and shade may seem like it takes a long time, but this was done in an hour. Time would be saved by painting five miniatures because there was drying time involved. Accuracy isn’t as important here as you do want the layers to not perfectly match and thus create the transition.

I apologize for the lack of polish on this post. It needs a second re-write but if I do it won’t get posted at all. I hope anyone who has the opportunity will consider attending the next Game Summit, even if it means an hour drive or more.

Tyler

1) Corey will kill me if I don’t mention that the natty-old brushes were replaced with fresh white taklon brushes. They should clean up easier and give beginners a better experience.

2) 1000 Glazes is my name for the technique of juicing, repeated glazes, translucent glazes, etc. Essentially paint is thinned to the point where it is difficult to see a change in colour from a single stroke. Repeated layers build colour. This is a technique that actually goes back to Da Vinci, though modified for painting miniatures with acrylics. Once the concept is understood creating smooth transitions is possible for painters of all levels. I think my name sounds vague oriental and mysterious.