by Peter Atkinson

Ah, that “magical aroma that combines sugar, horseshit and capitalism”.  Aussie Agricultural shows have their own unique culture, but they’re essentially our carnivals – thrill rides and sausage onna stick, the Pavilion where you have art, crafts and baking contests, and either the opportunity to spraff hundreds of dollars on ridiculous showbags (1) or literally the most wholesome family activities imaginable. 

You’ve got small-town Shows like ours, Mega-Shows in the capital cities and everything in-between. Check out the highlighted sections below and you’ll get a feel for what we’re dealing with here:

Behold the power of the Aussie Show. These things come with their own Public Holidays and weather systems.

So we did the obvious thing, and had a Wargaming Miniatures painting competition added to the Kyneton Show this year.  Why should Edith and Margaret’s annual cheese scone battle steal the show?  Our rivalries can be just as petty, and we’re here to prove it. 

Click on the Craft Work Schedule button at the link below, and you’ll find us right after the “Decorated Wooden Spoon” and “Decorated Shoe/Boot” classes:

https://www.kynetonshow.org.au/craftwork

Whut

Yup. 

Why Bother?

When I teed it up with the Show Committee, they were all for it.  Then they came round my house to discuss how it would all work, saw how many orcs I own and duly shat themselves.  They instantly went into blind panic that dozens of people would dump their entire collections into the competition and fill up the whole Pavilion, so our early ideas of categories for units and dioramas quickly got scaled back to just three (Small, Medium and Large models). We also promised to keep it local for the first year by not actively promoting it outside our immediate circle, until the committee had a feel for what they were dealing with. (2)

Being a small town comp, it’s obviously not going to be Golden Daemon standard (although a couple of us have won painting awards previously), but there were still some good reasons to push ahead:

• To give us a fun goal to work towards.  Lots of wargamers need an upcoming tourney to light a fire under their painting, so it’s nice to have a painting-specific goal to work towards and push us to crack out the brush every night.
• To motivate us to push our painting and learn new techniques.
• To raise the profile of the hobby locally and put it under the gaze of some people who either don’t know that there are active gaming groups in the area, or don’t even know that the hobby is a thing.
• To prove real, ultimate power by dominating your mates and lording it over them for the next 12 months.

The Entries

Age of Sigmar was always going to be massively represented at this event because it was promoted around our gaming group, and we’re Sigmarites to the bone. But the category was not a Warhammer painting comp – it’s a Wargaming Miniatures comp – so I was keen to represent something from outside of AOS too. 

I’ve enjoyed painting a lot of MCP minis over the last couple of years, so I wanted to enter at least one of those. I also didn’t just want to dump a bunch of old models in there because that would be pretty lame, so the hierarchy of ambitions was:

• Something newly painted for this competition
• Touch up / improve an existing model to lift it for the comp
• Dump an old model in there, so at least you’re supporting the competition

So in the end my own entries were:

LARGE: Gobsprakk, a new project for the Show

MEDIUM: Big Grikk, a recent scratch build with some touch ups

SMALL: Iron Fist, a Marvel Crisis Protocol model that I painted a while back

The wet blend on the wings was the central feature for my Gobsprakk, but I did run out of time to give the vulture’s head the attention I had planned.

Green and purple really is a classic combo.

Blending fire always starts with a really good yellow.

The Results

There was a 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd in each of the categories, plus a Best Exhibit for the overall winner.  Congratulations to Jayden Andrea for picking up Best Exhibit at the Show, with his Dankhold Troggboss which also won the Medium category:

Winner of the Large category was Rohit Thomas and his Archaon:

Winner of the Small category was Daniel White and what looks like Gandalf from LotR on horseback:

As you can probably tell, I’ve struggled to get good photos because of the mirrored cabinet – but if it stops some dickhead toddler grabbing the Troggboss by his dangling spider, then it’s a price worth paying.

And my own entries?  Crushing defeat.  I did pick up a Highly Commended for my scratch-built Big Grikk:

Certainly the most prestigious award at the event, other than the winners of each category.  And the second places in each category.  And the third places in each category.  OK it’s basically “Gork loves a trier”, but it’s all I’ve got.

The Denouement

Sincere thanks to “Spooky” Luke Ingram, who gave up his own time and petrol to drive to Kyneton and judge this thing.

Brilliantly, some of the entries (and winners) came from outside of our own gaming group – just local people who were already out there painting minis and doing their thing, who came across the Wargaming Miniatures category in the Craft section and had a crack.  One of whom has already asked the Show Committee to put us in touch, because he’s keen to roll dice with us – I’d call that a win.

The best thing though was seeing normies loitering around the cabinet, pointing out details on the minis and appreciating the art for what it is.  We’ve brought the joy of the hobby to people who in a lot of cases wouldn’t even know that the hobby exists until we put it on display.

It was like this all day. There honestly aren’t many painting comps that would get any kind of cut-through to Gen Pop, so I’d say that’s a pretty good result.

We didn’t promote this thing at all, so it can be expected to grow organically from here.  There will no doubt be more people painting and gaming locally whose first knowledge of the new painting comp was seeing it out there on display, so even without pushing it around the wider AOS community I expect to see a lot more minis entered next year. 

It’s already proven to grow the hobby in its own small way so if GW’s marketing department has a brain between their ears, they should be flinging resources at getting this into the Pavilion at the Royal Melbourne Show with its 500,000 annual visitors (plus similar numbers at the big shows in other states, like the Ekka in Brisbane).  Or they could just stick to what they know, and keep preaching to the converted by chucking free plastic at YouTube shills.  Place your bets.

The Other Nerds

Finally, I just wanted to shout out my Lego nerds representing at the Show.  There’s a whole bunch of categories for kids as you would expect, but the adults get involved too, and one of the centrepiece moments of Kyneton Show every year is local legend John Hardy unveiling his creation.  Over the years he’s produced some breathtaking Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones dioramas – seriously, the things he puts together are massive and defy belief.  It’s a 12-month labour of love every year.

Well this year somebody stepped up to take him on, and spent most of the past 12 months on this magnificent beast:

The photo really does not do it justice

Over to you, John! 

Notes

(1) If you don’t know what a Showbag is, they’re an Aussie thing.  I could write a whole article about them – plenty have – but it’s essentially a plastic shopping bag filled with either (a) irresponsible volumes of sugar or (b) plastic tat themed around a given topic; so you might get your kid a Bluey showbag or a Batman showbag for example.  They’re kind of big business here.

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/280-buys-most-expensive-show-bag-in-oz-20130911-2tk75.html

https://www.9news.com.au/national/royal-melbourne-show-2018-showbags-revealed/99a4b211-87fa-483c-b9e8-3cd630ce06b8

(2)   Lid’s off now though, hey.

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