By Seanzor

The guys at Mortally Wounded have been going from strength to strength over the last few years with the progression of growth Sydney Slaughter has had. This year they really took the step to make it even more community oriented by adding Mortal Blade, a painting competition that ran alongside the tournament in the same hall. In starting a new painting competition, especially as part of a tournament, an organiser is mostly just hoping there is enough entries so there wasn’t just one person automatically winning categories. Mortal Blade definitely met and exceeded those expectations. There were painters from all sides of the Sydney area (and beyond) heading into the Padstow RSL to enter some amazing pieces into the competition.

Every year I have the best intentions of making my way to Padstow for Slaughter, but somehow family obligations always seem to strike that weekend and I can’t commit for two full days of the tournament. But I made it a mission to get out there and enter some stuff in the painting competition. I had some of my nighthaunt that I had been working on so I figured I’d just bring a hero and a unit and call it good. About 3 weeks out from the weekend I ended up starting a large scale viking bust, so as the date crept closer I pushed to get the bust in a quality state I was happy to enter.

The Painting Competition was a relatively standard breakdown of categories:
Hero of Legend – Foot hero sized model
Regiment of Renown – Unit of Smaller based models
Burly Bruisers – Unit of Larger based models
Monstrous Marvel – Large Single Model
The Duel – Two or More models in a cinematic conflict
The Masterpiece – Larger Scale Display models

Every category had a winner along with a selection of entries that would also receive commendations for quality pieces that didn’t quite pip the win. There were heaps of great entries on display. The winners of every category were excellent and along with them were beautiful pieces filling out the commendations.

Hero of Legend was won by Ash McEwan with his stunning Kharadron Arkanaut Admiral

This piece strikes a nice balance between subtlety and flair especially in regards to the NMM on the piece. Technically excuted wonderfully and just a great composition of colour, tone and light.

Regiment of Renown was won by Thomas Oliver and his fleshily abundant Blightkings

One of the biggest pieces of praise I can heap on Tom is consistency. There is nearly an entire faction of Maggotkin that looks as good as these Blightkings. Vibrant fleshtones, deep colours, bright highlights, details aplently. Great unit and part of a great army, there’s a reason we see Tom’s name attached to painting awards regularly.

Burly Bruisers was won by Nick James with his ravenous Flesh Eater Courts Crypt Horrors

These are just absolutely ruthless aren’t they? Nick combined quality paintwork with an extra depth of special effects gore that uses the contrast of light and dark to really make the blood and viscera jump right off the claws and bones and into your eyeballs.

Monstrous Marvel was won by Thomas Oliver’s epic Belakor

Like I said previously on Tom’s Blightkings, there’s a level of quality and consistency that speaks volumes. This piece brings in some quality NMM armor work and the blue flame of the sword and creates a moody and menacing dark lord.

The Duel won by Daniel Dong’s epic Dragons

What a dynamic and exciting piece! Daniel really pushed the visual intrigue of this piece using a lot of freehand on the wings to create texture and interest. Great use of contrasts between light and dark, cool and warm colour and textures.

The Masterpiece was won by Daniel Dong’s very slick Cyberpunk bust

Very solid execution on this piece from the light management, texture variation, freehand to the vibe and emotion. Technically executed very well and a beautiful piece of art.

Amazing body of work put on by these winners and again, many great commended entries as well.

Personally, I walked away with 3 commended entries for my Bjørn bust, Spirit Torment and Banshees

I reflected a bit on my pieces and understand completely why I didn’t win any of the categories I entered. Competition was fierce and I lacked a bit of the finish and depth of other entries. Bjørn especially I look at and see about 70% completion, knowing there’s more I can do to make that a truly masterclass piece. Painting competition is good for the ability to visualise other people’s “best” and see where you stack up. Also a good opportunity to get some external motivation for the next project. I highly recommend, if you’re interested in progressing paint-wise, to throw your hat in the painting competition ring.

It’s great to see the hobby community in Australia growing stronger with every event and look forward to everything that is next for the Mortally Wounded crew and Sydney Slaughter. Massive thanks to Mortally Wounded for taking pictures of all the models (a huge job!) and working with the Craic team for coverage.
Find Mortal Blade on Instagram Facebook and Mortally Wounded Podcast

If you’d like to help us continue our work, we’d love to have your support. All Patreon Tiers include Discord access, exclusive articles and regular contests. Our Tiers are priced to be within everyone’s reach, so please click here to join us today!