GeOrcs Golden Demon Gallery

Me and my Demons in 2014

In my Preview for 2021 I had already announced that I am playing with the idea to make a throwback series about my Golden Demon winning entries. Time to start working on this article series with the goal to create here an overview of my Golden Demon projects of the past and an ultimate gallery showing these miniatures in a new light. That´s the plan. The good news is, that I still own all my Golden Demon winning entries. The bad one is, some are damged from showing them on multiple shows and events or from moving 6 times to different cities in the last 20 years. Therefore some need some love and repair. Additionaly, some have undergone modifications or repainting. Why? One one hand because most of my projects had their origin as part of painting my armies. Army projects which developed further over the years and which required to adaption of some miniatures in terms of basing or colour sheme. On the other hand, some of my Golden Demon projects were finished in a rush shortly before the competition. Some of them I have finished in the night before in the hotels or at the event site itself. This had the consequence that some miniatures were not finished in the quality or the look I had in mind when starting the project or I get better ideas for a finish after the rush. Therefore, I had modified some of them to fit my taste or finish them like I had them initially planed. Some are still work in progress. This means that I had altered a piece of art or of its time which has won a trophy. Some will say this is heresy. I will tell you that many artists suffer when looking back at their work from the past. that´s why many great artists sell their miniatures after a couple of years. I proudly kept them but sometimes it´s hard to look at the errors and faults they have and their links to critic and failure. It´s like a itching scar and one day you find yourself taking that damn miniature out of the cabinet scratch its paint off. Be sure that my changes made these figures better. And, stay tuned! I have a lot of crazy stories to tell.

 

An Introduction

I started the Warhammer with my 19th Birthday in January 1998 with a 4th/5th Edition Dark Elves Army which was a gift from my family and my girl friend at that time. I quickly started painting using the box arts, White Dwarf and Armybooks as reference. I was a painter my whole life and I had some experince with Hero Quest a couple of years earlier so I quickly made some progress and my learning curve was steep. Coming from the country side, finishing school at that time point and doing my military service shortly after reduced my possibilies for playing the game. That changed then starting my studies in chemistry in October 2000. It turned out that one of my fellow students, Alex was addicted to Warhammer, part of an active community in Freiburg and a good tournament player. He coached me some games and I joined him on a local 2 days tournament in Freiburg in 2001. 

My Dark Elves Army from the Freiburg Ufo tournament 2001

However, I was an inexperienced player and failed terribly. After Day 1 I was that frustrated that I decided to leave also dropping the idea of winning the best painted army trophy which I had in mind. That was the point Alex talked to the judges to look at my army before I will leave. I agreed and put out my miniautre from my boxes on an empty tabletop. That was the moment these guys totally freaked out. They begged me to stay and to take part in their painting competition. The latter I had totally missed while being focused on the tournament. I stayed and in the end of the day I won the Trophy for the best painted Army and a first price for my Dark Elves Sorceress. That was a game changer!

 

Early Succsesses and Failures

Alex always wanted to visit a Games Day and so our next stop was the Games Day Germany in cologne in summer 2001. All I was interested was the Golden Demon competition. I participated with my unreleased Sorcerer Lord riding Warhydra in the monster category. Humbly I learned that there are other good painters out there when the whole nation and also some international guests come together to fight the battle for the best painted miniature. However, I was very inspired by all these beautiful painted miniatures and the miniatures shown were something completly different than the box arts and the studio paintings. I learned a lot on this day. When being back home I moved on with painting but also with gaming. The same year I played the second Ufo tournament and again I was able to win their local painitng competition. I also played the Duzi tournament and my Unreleased Sorcerer Lord riding Warhydra won gold in the monster category in their local painting competition. 

My Dark Elves Army from the DUZI 2001 Tournament

I was still a bad player but my hobby skills got better and better, especially my scultping skills. My painting was still not enough for the Golden Demon competition and I failed again in 2002. It was a time I stuck in a very dark painting style which I name myself my Dark Era. It was inspired by a studio miniature painted from Neil Green showing an alternative Dark Elves colour schemes shown in the 6th Edition Armybook. I painted a whole battle force in Black and White which is hard to look at today but teached me to perform very fine blendings. The latter should become something I would get famous for.

 

Golden Demon Competition

Me and my Demons in 2006

It was the year 2003 and meanwhile I was rather known for scultping than being a very good painter. The 6. Edition Armybook was 2 years old and still the outstanding Artworks from Dave Gallagher inspired me to transfer these into miniatures. I learned a lot in these 2 years and thanks to many advices from Chris Fitzpatrick who has sculptured the 6.Edition Dark Elves range I improved that much thinking the first time about becoming a professional sculpturer. My studies were less successful at that time point but the hobby was the opposit and offered amazing options. My grand father finanaced me a small spin casting machine and I started my first range of miniatures while still working on my 6. Edition Dark Elves. The latter were domiated by Cold One Knights and I had spent all my sculting skills into an extensive conversion of a female Character riding a heavily armoured Cold One. While the miniature get more and more into shaped it turned out that this miniature had the potential to be competitve for the next Golden Demon. But I knew that my dark painting style would not be able to make this beautiful design an eyecatcher. I looked for advice by Sascha Buczek aka Goatman who won already 2002 his first Golden Demon trophy and to whom I had a good contact. I discussed my problems with him and in consequence he directed the colour scheme into a more coloured direction and convinced me to paint the metals in NMM. It turned out that my blending skills were perfect for that NMM stuff and everything came together in this style. The rest is history... I won the first place in Warhammer Single at the 2003 Golden Demon in Germany. It was the initial spark for winning Golden Demon Trophies for 10 years in a row until Games Workshop interrupted the Games Day event in 2014. 10 Years of Golden Demon competitions and in the end 19 successful entries and their trophies. It was an exciting time with a lot of ups and downs and with always a workbench full of miniatures. Are you ready to read their stories? 

 

The Hall of Fame  

Subsequently, you will find a summery of all my successful Golden Demon winning entries. Miniatures with finished articles have bigger thumbnails. The ongoing list contains smaller ones which I stole from the inofficial Golden Demon Winner site for having placeholders until I can replace them by my own pictures. I will write for each of these miniatures a detailed article showing how they were created and the story behind them. Each article will then be linked to this overview here.

 

Dark Elves Princess / Druchii Anointed on Cold One
Games Day Germany 2003, 1st place Warhammer Fantasy Single Miniature

 

6th Edition Dark Elves Corsairs
Games Day Germany 2004, 2nd place Warhammer Fantasy Regiment

Beast and Master
Games Day Germany 2004, 2nd place Diorama

Dark Elves Sorceress riding Steed of Slaanesh
Games Day Germany 2004, 1st place Warhammer Fantasy Monster

Dark Elves Sorceres
Games Day Germany 2005, 2nd place Warhammer Single Miniature

Giant with Mark of Slaanesh
Games Day France 2006, 2nd place Monster

Chaos Dwarfs Sorcerer
Games Day Germany 2006, 2nd place Warhammer Single Miniature

Dark Elves Witch Elves
Games Day Germany 2006, 1st place Warhammer Fantasy Regiment

Slaangor
Games Day France 2007, 1st place Warhammer Single Miniature

Hellebron
Games Day Germany 2007, 1st place Warhammer Monster

Female Vampire
Games Day Germany 2008, 2nd place Warhammer Single Miniature

Beastmen of Slaanesh
Games Day Germany 2008, 1st place Warhammer Fantasy Regiment

White Lion Prince
Games Day France 2009, 3rd place Warhammer Single Miniature

Dark Elves Disciples of Khaine
Games Day France 2009, 2nd place Warhammer Regiment

Slaanesh Siren Songe
Games Day Germany 2010, 1st place Warhammer Fantasy Miniature

Fiend of Slaanesh
Games Day Germany 2011, 3rd place Warhammer Monster

Dark Elves Executioners
Games Day Germany 2011, 3rd place Warhammer Regiment

Dark Elves Menghils Menhide
Games Day Germany 2012, 1st place Warhammer Regiment

Herald of Tzeentch
Games Day Germany 2013, 3rd place Warhammer Single Miniature

That is it, my list of successful competition miniatures. There were much more enties through these years. All of them made the final cut even if they failed to win a trophy. If there is a greater interest I can offer these a seperate Gallery. Let me know what you think in the comments. Thats it for now. Check here frequently for changes und stay tuned for the upcoming articles of these series.

Kins Regards,
GeOrc