Even 'Eavier Metal: (Aurumina Demonicus) - What's Good is Great Again!

Thanks to Painting Bhudda at masterminis.blogspot.com I just found out that David Soper won the Games Day UK Golden Demon Slayer Sword. I'll let that sink in a bit.

Yep - that David Soper!

So Congratulations Mr. Soper! That is awesome! For those of you who are newer to the Oldhammer movement, David Soper is an incredible artist who won the Golden Demon UK Slayer Sword in 1990. I graduated high school that year, and missed my only chance so far of going to the UK show. Due to political events that year, instead of going to the UK for my dream trip, I headed over to Berlin and got to help chip the Berlin wall down. While nothing will ever replace that wall going down, it is still one of those wistful moments when I wish so much I could have done both!

Here is some of the highlights from the Fantasy Miniatures Hardback book about that Golden Demon and David's Winning Model and further collection:

David Soper - Golden Demon Winner Fantasy Miniatures 1990 by Attilla13 [/url]
Well, David has an incredible blog here. And it seems that he left the hobby for a while, and as he puts it "After dropping out of the hobby for a few years I’ve rediscovered my passion for painting miniatures."

I am going to post this here - but it is his miniature and picture of his WIP Helion base. This was only a part of the winning model, a Dark Eldar Diorama. For more amazing photos, please make sure to check out his blog.

David Soper's WIP Helion from his Golden Demon winning Diorama. Incredible!

So it is amazing that he was able to win a Golden Demon 23 years apart, but is it really? I mean, he is one of a small incredible group of artists that helped instill our hobby with the passion it had back in the "Oldhammer days", is it really surprising that his, as he put it "rediscovered" passion was able to win again? Technique is an incredible thing, and I'm not anywhere close to any of these guys in my own abilities. But I sure can appreciate it in others. But just maybe it is that passion that drives us to Oldhammer may be making a bigger return than even we think.

I would love to find out from him just a little bit of info, mainly the differences in the awards, the competition of the different eras, the different techniques that he explored. That type of thing. Hopefully we'll hear from him about this.

But lets talk about his original winner - the Nurgle Predator tank. This was an incredible piece and I have drooled over the pictures of it for many years. It truly is a thing of nightmares, and has an incredible amount of work. The description in the book says it took over 6 months, and I can barely believe it was done so fast! The incredible control on the conversion work, and the detailed painting makes so much of it pop, and your eye is continually drawn to the face and organic details of the tank. With any less skill, it would be almost too busy, but at this level it draws you on and on to another amazing detail. Looking at it now, I'm particularly liking the mushrooms, but that is because I've decided to try adding these to my figures of my Orc army.

I don't have full photos of his new entry, but I'm sure they will be on his blog, just to celebrate, but the same incredible color control is on display in that WIP photo above. I'm sure it was simply amazing to see in person.

I'd also like to point out the other page in the small selection at the top of this post - As amazing as the Predator Tank was, these let you know how good he really is at painting. The Chimera is outstanding to me in the subtlety, highlighting the Palanquin Champion of Nurgle was genius, and my favorite has always been the troll. If I tried that many colors, it would look like a mishmash or a child's finger-painting. But he pulls it off so well that it kinda became my ideal for this Troll. All of the detail work in conversion and paint is top notch, and you would never expect less.

Back in the "Sweet Spot" of gaming, the Fantasy Miniature books highlighted some of the most incredible artists around - John Blanche, Andy Craig, Mike McVey, Ivan Bartlett, Dale Hurst, Tim Prow, and a whole host of others. With Oldhammer gaining momentum like it has been, it just seems fitting that one of the Kings of Old would return to the pinnacle of the mountain to take his Sword! Orlygg at Realmsofchaos80s was kind enough to include info on these incredible books on his blog, so I won't rehash too much of it here - just use the link on the right of my page to go there. But for more of the Fantasy Miniature Books look here - 1988,  1989 and the full 1990.

I have never met Mr. Soper, and would probably have to control myself from drooling all over his miniatures if I did get a chance to see them in person - because as we all know, these are even better in person than the photos. But I have to admit, seeing one of the Great Champions of our favorite era come back and win again has gotten me pretty excited tonight!

And while I am not at this skill level, I did get my W&N ink on Friday, so I got to start on the Ruglud's today. I'm hoping to have photos of them by this weekend. And I have another Hobby Update on the project coming on Wednesday.