Hobby Hero Awards 2008 - Category 1 - Achievement in Painting

so the nomination are in and it's tim to start voting for who the Ogre Stronghold members want to award the coveted title of Hobby Hero to this year.

Category 1 - Achievement in Painting, celebrates the progress and success of a members skills with a paintbrush. Sometimes this can mean showing a consitently excellant standard of work, other times it means coming along leap and bounds in a single year, or even developing a technique which hasn't been seen before and can benefit the community as a whole. The following are this years nominees. Please rememeber when voting that the award is for the achievement in painting this year.

(thanks to Wildcard for providing the blurb text about my nomination!)

1: BigD
BigD has displayed a consistently high standard of painting throughout his tenure with the Ogre Stronghold, and has gone from tength to strength this year. His attention to detail and unique, bright (almost cartoony) stylr has made his work instantly recognisable. I'd wager many of us could identify a 'BigD model' without needing to be told who'd painted it! This is never more evident than in his continuous excellant standard of work produced in the Angry Fists Gnoblog: http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=4416.0

2: Corai

Corai has been an example to all of here at the stronghold - he's painted many of the best models we've seen here and is always ready to share his recipies with others.  Better painters are few and far between. This year has seen him work primarily on WFB models beginning with his 5 model, steampunk chaos army, moving into wood elves and returning full circle to chaos and ogres once again [example links below Ed.]

http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=6825.0
http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=9751.0

3: Wildcard
This year has seen Wildcard set himself an incredible goal in painting, not just to get better with each model, but to paint an entire army in black and white yet still kep it both interesting on the tabletop and usable as a fully functioning chess set! Anyone who kept up to date with his gnoblog knows what troubles this caused our intrepid moderator, and how many hours of work were spent going back over models making thenm as good as he possibly could (and trust me, having seen the models in real life they are truly spectacular). And somewhere in between all this he's managed to find time to work on a daemon army, a new ogre army, a Cryx warmachine force and now a wood elf army too! Noone takes constructive critisim better than Wildcard and this is evident in the fact that every model he posts is leaps and bounds ahead of the last.
http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=10622.0
http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=10438.0
http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=8490.0

4: Animerik
A relative newcomer to the Stronghold, Animerik has wowed many this year wth his truly outstanding Plaguewinter army. One glance at his nurgle giant, or the ranks of diseased warriors lets you know that he's truly mastered the down and dirty, grimey style of painting. His models ooze a grim reality (rare in an army made up of giant,s mutant animals and diseased northeners!) that's hard to find elsewhere!
http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=8511.0

So there you have the nominees. The links I have given are only a brief example of the wonderful painting that has been achieved by all the nominees this year and I urge you to look around for yourself to see the oustanding level of painting displayed by each nominee before making a vote.

The polls will stay open until 20th December at which point we will crown this year's Hobby Heroes!

Thanks
Corai

Wildcard all the way. Another case of the warhammergasm when I see his models.

Corai for me. The painitng demigod of the stronghold in my eyes.

Animerik for me It was a tough call between all four, with the final two being either BigD or animerik, but I have voted for BigD elsewhere, so I thought I'd give the much deserved vote to animerik

JJ

Animerik... though it was an insanely tough call

I'm voting for Wildcard here, not because of the technical skill or the asthetics of his painting, but because of the determination and progress made in the areas mentioned.
If that isn't an achievement in painting I don't know what is.



Well done and good luck to all nominees!

I say Wildcard; I would never be able to commit myself to making a chess styled Bret army. I am sure after all this, he wants to forget what 'black and white' means. And for that, I say Wildcard.

In this area I abstaned. I just couldn't decide. I'd like to have voted for you all and to vote for one would have been unjust to the rest of you. Painting like this is my Platonic ideal (meaning I hope to one day be able to do something like this and surely never will)

Corai got my vote. He is fast, efficient and makes beautiful models with relatively easy techniques.

All in all, he is a paragon of painting, the epitome of a perfect painter.