Who's doing Armies on Parade?

[Melcavuk]

So give we're about 3 months out from when GW usually host their armies on parade contest and I managed to find an entirely untouched Realm of Battle tile (Shattered Dominion) under the sofa in my studio room I figured its a good time to get started planning and painting a tile for my Suneaters to enter the armies on parade competition!

So I'm looking for ideas as to what would be a cool theme for the board (its already fire and aqshy but I'm looking for story concepts)

 

And also wanted to see who else is working on/will be working on an entry, any ideas or cool concepts going forward!

 

Share your ideas and WIP, always cool to see.

Cheers

Ricki

[RuneBrush]

Probably going to try and put my Death army in this year though not even considered a board/scenery yet!

Not sure if you've entered any in the past, but my own thought is that something tall on your board helps to draw the attention from the boards around it.  It could be scenery or a model, but the eye is always drawn to a big feature - from 3+ feet away, your regular 28mm model is tiny and insignificant

[syph0n]

I'd love to do something like this one day. My painting isn't yet up to scratch, but I'd love to do a tower with one of my dragons mounted on it, or maybe something akin to the old Ulthuan imagery around the gates near Nagarythe, as though my Order Serpentis army is defending a gate (realm gate I guess!) or something along those lines.

[Kirjava13]

My painting wouldn't win any competitions, but I'm tempted to try putting one of my armies in for this...

[RuneBrush]

I reckon over the past 3 years one of the most often given pieces of advice I've given out is to never let your own view of how well you've painted something stop you from putting it into some kind of competition - if you go in with the attitude that you're not likely to win anything you're always going to come away with a positive experience and an insight on how you can improve for next year.

I'd say that Armies on Parade is also much more a "does it look cool" competition than anything else.  Most stores let visitors vote on the displays, most of whom don't really care (or more accurately can see) if you've painted every single rivet or eye lens.  So providing you're able to create a display board that shows your army off at it's best, head to your closest store* and see how well you do!

* unless it's Bath or Swindon, in which case I don't want the competition

[Melcavuk]

For those worried that their painting isn't up to scratch or that it could be daunting I've entered 3 years worth so far with my other half entering 6 months after painting her first model. She'd be the first to admit she isn't studio standard in painting but does a good tabletop level for what was a vibrant green board for sylvaneth with a river running through (no water effects, nothing fancy just paint) but took home silver because from a distance the rich greens of the flock and the myriad of trees drew customers of the GW over to get votes in. My painted Iron Hands that year only barely took gold from her despite years of painting experience because I had gone with grim, dirty setting and they had dark armour, so from a distance it didn't leap out but up close was better technically painted.

This year I've learnt from past experience, and will be featuring a converted webway gate from the 40k range as a Bridge between Ghur and Aqshy, vibrant lava effects and some of the larger monsters from my army.