Photo essay: Warhammer’s biggest painting competition in three years

In late March, fans from around the world came together in northern Illinois for the 2022 Golden Demon, the world’s biggest Warhammer painting competition. The event was the first Golden Demon to take place in three years. It also marked the first American Golden Demon for more than 10 years.

AdeptiCon was the venue for the contest. It is one of the most popular and longest-running wargaming conventions. More than 500 different pieces were entered into the open competition, representing a backlog of models that simply haven’t been seen in public since the start of the pandemic.

A single miniature model of a Lizardman stood just 1 inch high in the midst of an array of mechs towering over and intricate dioramas. It is cinematic and evokes the victory of hard work or the cold blooded anger of a soldier heading to battle. However, the art displayed was stunning. This little skink’s shading was perfect. The blending between the lighter highlights and the darker shadows was creamy, smooth, and consistent. Judges called it “literally perfect,” and it’s hard to disagree. Gavin Garza received thunderous applause from the standing-room only crowd.

A blue skink raises a spear overhead, an unseen light glinting from its obsidian blade. — This tiny model, barely 1 inch in height, was awarded the Grand Prize at Golden Demon.

The awarding the Slayer Sword wasn’t the only part of five-day gaming festival. AdeptiCon featured multiple tournaments, demos, and presentations from Games Workshop as well as companies such as Atomic Mass Games and Corvus Belli.

The heart of the event was an enthusiastic group of miniature painters, both amateurs and professionals. Each one set up shop in public spaces, unfolded their custom lighting, wet down their palettes, and got to work — all while sharing tips and tricks. The classrooms are a great place to spend time learning from the most skilled miniature painters around.

Dozens of painters at work in the painter’s lounge at AdeptiCon 2022.

YouTuber Lyla Mev at work during AdeptiCon 2022.

A painters studies a green bust mounted on a wooden handle.

I’ve spent many hours over the last few years painting miniatures. It’s become an everyday ritual for me, an extremely satisfying way to spend my down time after looking at computer screens for a living. It’s a great feeling to take a step back, get a good figure and practice for a while.

A Space Marine in yellow, his armor marred by battle.

A White Scars Space Marine with a falcon stands atop a rocky crag.

A Sister of Battle, resplendent with wings spread and doves in flight.

My trip to AdeptiCon proved without a doubt that I’m hardly alone in that pursuit. Hobby games are booming with Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast and Games Workshop making record profits. To find out why, I spoke to Ian Williams, an academic fellow at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill who is a huge Warhammer enthusiast and teaching fellow.

This is only a part of our conversation.

A purple-clad sorceress holds up a magical device.

A troll, covered in giant mushrooms, pulls a beast out of the swampy earth.

Polygon: Ian, we probably couldn’t get this many people in one room to do watercolors of birds, but you put the demon god Khorne on a plinth in front of them and they’re all about it. How have you learned about the miniature painting community?

Ian Williams There’s this guy, Richard Sennett who’s a theorist, and he writes this book called The Craftsman where he’s trying to figure this question out. Craft? Why do people craft? He explained that craft is simply the art of doing good work for oneself.

There’s something about us that we want to do a good job at things. The trick is that most of us are stuck in shitty jobs where the quality of our work doesn’t really matter; where we are exploited in terms of wages; where we just don’t get paid very much. In these circumstances, why would anyone work so hard? Or maybe you work a job in the classical, industrial mode of working where you don’t actually see what it is that you’re making in the first place. You can take pride in your work at putting a steering wheel on a car in your 1940s Ford factory, but you’re detached from the final product. It’s classical Marxist alienation.

A grot tank, no more than a few inches tall, covered in freehand designs.

There’s a lot of stuff that I think that Games Workshop does not always do well. They increase their prices. They’re not operating at a monopoly level, but it’s not too far off. One thing they excel at is the craft aspect. They call it “The Hobby.” They capitalize it.

Now, that’s all a means of kind of enclosing this impulse in this corporate machinery. But I’ve also known enough people over the years at Games Workshop — I used to work at a Games Workshop store — to know that they value the craft side of things in a way that I don’t know that too many gaming companies do, either inside or outside the wargaming space. I think that they do a good job of tapping into that impulse, in a way a lot of other companies don’t.

A diorama of Adepta Sororitas fighting in gothic ruins.

Spirits covered in rags wield golden scythes.

Freehand work covers the shell of a purple mech.

What role does the Golden Demon play in this?

When you’re part of a craft you’re always part of something social, even when you’re by yourself.

If you’re just painting by yourself, how do you know you’re doing a good job? Even if nobody else is around or you don’t have the pictures, you have this idea, which is socially constructed, of what a good miniature looks like: Because it was made by someone else. You might have seen a guide. You might have seen something similar.

Golden Demon serves as the peak of the craft. It’s something to aspire to, it’s something to get ideas from, and it’s something that you’re participating in by viewing. Even if you know that you’re never going to become a Golden Demon painter, you still watch it, knowing that you’re never gonna do that. You’re participating in this larger community just by the act of viewing and paying attention to the awards and the output of these master craftspeople.

An imperial fighter, just a few inches wide, passes over a delicately shaded backdrop.

A winged medusa-like creature casts a fiery spell.

This really makes it feel like the county fair has given it this foundation. Great British Bake Off. Here’s my blue ribbon-winning apple raspberry pie, please consider me for the Golden Demon.

I would go so far as to say that it’s not different. It’s exactly the same thing. I don’t think that too many Warhammer painters, head-down, think of what they do as they do as akin to baking a pie, or whittling, or starting a knitting circle, or getting together and jamming with their friends on the guitar. But it’s exactly the same thing.

We all have that thing that just kind of piques our interest, and that’s the thing that we want to do a good job on. It’s exactly the same. They’re bakers, the Golden Demon guys. Master bakers.

James Wappel displays some object source light (OSL). You can also see the non-metallic metallic metal effect on this helmet.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Lyla Mev (and Anthony Wang) show off their techniques, creating miniatures for AdeptiCon’s charity raffle.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
It can hold a Space Marine of 28 mm in height inside this large-scale model.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Each model must be painted at least three times in order to win a gaming or painting contest. The Sharpie was used to create this extraordinary piece.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Many Warhammer: Age of Sigmar participants created elaborate displays bases that allowed them to transport their army.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Star Wars Legion came out force to play at elaborate tables, such as this one. The landing lights on Kylo Ren’s shuttle here actually work.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
Artis Opus, a vendor on the floor, was there to demonstrate its drybrushing tools in action.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
These are some of the possible effects with Artis Opus brush.

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Marvel Crisis ProtocolAtomic Mass Games.

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Halo: Ground CommandAlthough the book is no longer in print, it still enjoys a loyal following. The fans gathered together to display the final results of 3D printing miniatures.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
New miniatures games, like Lunar Black Site Studios has many beautiful paint jobs.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
The old-school Napoleanics still existed, with this Prussian column marching to war.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon
For the defense of our country, we need a huge army Tabletop Miniatures: “A Song of Ice and Fire”Gaming CMON.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon