Monday, March 23, 2015

Crystal Brush 2015 winners

Crystal Brush (the $10,000 contest organized by CoolMiniOrNot) was celebrated this weekend in Chicago. I hope you had the chance to put in your votes on Sunday, as 50% of the judging is based on what the public is voting online!

Yesterday, in the afternoon time in Europe, we were receiving the first news about the results. Here you have, the three winners of Crystal Brush 2015!

1st place winner ($10,000) goes to Kirill Kanaev, with this 75mm scratch built Space Marine Terminator (or what I prefer to call him, "what if Daniel Craig were a Crimson Fist?").

I really like this model, the sculpture is very good (I wonder if that head is scratch built or taken from somewhere) but the paintjob as usual is Kirill Kanaev standard (which is like saying the highest there can be). I'm specially fond of this one because as you know I have painted some Crimson Fists, and I don't find their colour scheme to be very flashy. It's a challenge to find the right colours for it, and Kirill did exceptionally. And those freehands! What a winner!

2nd place winner ($2,000) goes to Ben Komets, with this incredibly detailed diorama using miniatures from Black Sailors (by Big Child Studio) called "High Noon".

Ben here did what he knows best, a crazy diorama! Tons and tons of details everywhere, from the teacups in the roof, to the signs in the wall, wherever you see you are going to find something new. One of those pieces where it's worth spending hours of your time just trying to find the next great thing. Oh, and there's smoke that comes from the chimney, check this presentation video that he made with the help of Matt Cexwish!

High Noon! - Steampunk Opium Den Diorama by Ben Komets for the Chrystal Brush 2015 from Matt Cexwish on Vimeo.

3rd place winner ($1,000) goes to Jessica Rich, with this miniature from Kingdom Death.

It somehow reminds me of "Gea" by Jose Palomares and Hugo Gómez, that won the Crystal a few years ago. I think this third place is very well deserved!

There you go, there's a lot of inspiration for your next projects here! Congrats to my good friends and personal idols Kirill and Ben for their first and second place and to Jessica for that third place trophy. What wonders will Crystal Brush bring for us next year? Can't wait to see!

1 comment:

greggles said...

That diorama was incredible. If it wasn't up against a space marine, it would have taken 1st I think!