Games Day 2012 Spain

Well I'm just back from the Games Day 2012 in Barcelona. What a day! I'm as thrilled and motivated to continue with my projects as I could possibly be. After all, it's difficult not to be inspired by so many great creations. Big dioramas or individual minis, the quality of Golden Demon participants was breath taking. I have to confess this is my very first Games Day after some ~20 years in the hobby, and will certainly not be the last one.

Huge battles with Flyers... yay

I'm also glad to have in my hands the GD'12 mini; this year is a very special one for me: the Blood Angels captain that was featured in the 2nd edition box. That was the box I began with so this sort of closes the circle. The mini is plainly awesome, and it was good to have the sculpter, Juan Diaz, around. He looked happy to be at home (well, 200 kms to the north but ya know) and was seemed content to give sculping tips to just everyone who swung by his table.

Golden Demon

It's difficult to convey my feelings after seeing so many great pieces of art. I consider myself a (relatively) good painter, and I've even won best painted army at a couple of tournaments, but the stuff at Golden Demon is well above my current capabilities. Some years ago I would have felt abashed but this time I'm just motivated to try and replicate this painting style. Things like creating shades, like line highlighting with different tones to reach almost a white, to paint faces in layers and not with washes... the list goes on and I made sure to take a pic on some minis that struck me the most. Below you can see some pictures.

Now, Anja from the 'Eavy metal team was there, and some of her creations too. The NMM Sanguinor, Astorath, Arjac Rockfist, Njal Stormacaller... these stood head and shoulders above anything else. I own the WD with the painting guide of the Sanguinor, you know full of high quality pics, but seeing the actual mini live makes you think she's sold her soul to Slaanesh (I'm kidding of course). I can only say, there were some incredible minis for the Golden Demon, whose owners probably spent weeks if not months with them. Well I don't know how long it took her to paint those minis, but with GW's release schedule, I suspect only a few days. I *believe* with practice and effort I could one day get closer to a Golden Demon level, but I *know* I will never be able to paint like Anja. That said, GD level is good enough to me so I'll be satisfied if I ever reach that level.

Beautiful subtle NMM touches

An epic battle worth 100 quid

Forge World

People were buying FW stuff like if there was no tomorrow. I had planned to buy the Space Marine Captain and Banner holder, and the new apothecaries, and began a small collection of a pre-heresy Legion. Instead I've decided to hold myself until I can paint those awesome minis to the level they deserve, and thus set upon myself to try to improve and maybe next year I'll be ready for that.

Black Library

Graham McNeill was the BL's VIP and was kind enough to have a Q&A session with the audience. But what caught my attention was some of the new books. Priests of Mars from McNeill himself looks tasty, especially after the monumental Mechanicum, and Fear to Tread's cover with Sanguinius fighting/falling to a demon gave many people a heart attack. Unfortunately the Black Library won't speed up things for a while and the final battle of Sanguinius vs. Horus in the Vengeful Spirit won't come anytime soon, but the reminiscence of the cover is evident.

Conclusion

Any 40k hobbyist worth his salt will greatly enjoy these events, and I love how you have so many different aspects of it available in just one event. You can play, paint, create stuff, talk to other fans and folks from GW, and also spend too much in FW goodies. I had a blast and I'm definetely looking forward to next year's edition.