As promised, I’m back on my feet and regular posts will pop out. Two times a week is my optimal plan, and I’m going to stick to this no matter what.

Today I have for you little photo report from Festival of Miniature Painting and Sculpture held in Toruń, Poland in 27-28 June 2016. I know, this event was quite some time ago, and I should post this sooner but, better late than never. Don’t you think? ;).

Toruń Festival was taking place for the fifth time, and like every year it is in the last weekend of June. For me, it was the very first time there. I was thinking to go to the festival for at last two years now. However, Toruń Festival’s date so far was colliding with another event, which was for me a long time tradition and number one priority.

And now random fact about me: as huge old school reggae and ska fan I would not miss This is Ska Festival in Rosslau, Germany for the world!. This is the time when I meet my long time no see friends, who across the years became like a family to me. Rosslau Festival was a must for me for many, many years.

And unfortunately, Toruń event, every bloody year, was in the exact same weekend as Rosslau festival. This is like, everything was against me at this point. This year though I decided to break with the tradition, and I said: enough. Time to go to Toruń!

To keep my nerves and feelings calm, I needed a perfect pretext to go there. If I would miss Rosslau fest, I needed a good reason for that.

So, after a long inner struggle, I decided to participate in painting competition in Toruń (even though I had no chance to win anything). This way, I felt motivated to go there, and not felt sad, because of missing ska festival.

At this point, I should present the miniature I brought to Toruń. Well, let’s say I’m still not happy with the model, so it will be shown in completely separate story. My whole painting process ended as usual. I started to paint it too late, in about one month before the event. Few sleepless nights and drybrushing at the end, to call the model finished to at least the level that I can said: it is more or less ready. I made it, allright. Not happy with that, but I made it. (I hope to finish the model next week and share it here).

So, with the finished model in my hand, I was ready to go to Toruń. After 3 hours drive, I was there. The festival was located in the school in Old Town district (the oldest part of Old town is dated to XII century). The whole location is amazing. Medieval buildings, churches and Teutonic Knights castle towering above all the area.

Sunny weather. 30 degrees Celsius, so I just knew the weekend event will be awesome. I haven’t been in Toruń since like forever, so the whole trip had also sentimental value for me.

The venue located in old building (which happened to be a primary school) was perfect place to hold festival. Spacious room was just right to exhibit all of categories of submitted models and few stands offering their products. The only thing I could complain was lack of AC or even fans. Inside was so incredibly hot, so it was impossible to last there for long. Thankfully, organisers provided free water bottles for everyone attending to the festival.

First day was submission day. After submitting my model, I had  few moment to take proper photos of all models around.

Generally, whole event was divided into two sections. First – historical models and second SF/Fantasy models.

Following categories were announced:

F1- Foot miniatures (until 1900, up to 60mm)
F2 – Foot miniatures (until 1900, more than 70mm)
F3 – Foot miniatures (since 1900, up to 60mm)
F4 – Foot miniatures (since 1900, more than 70mm)
F5 – Cavalry miniatures (up to 60mm)
F6 – Busts (until 1900)
F6F – Busts (since 1900)
F7 – Fantasy miniatures (up to 32mm)
F8 – Fantasy miniatures (more than 40mm)
F9 – Fantasy busts
F10- Vehicles
F11- Category JUNIOR ( from 0 to 15 years old:)
F12-Cardboard models
F13 -SF miniatures (up to 32mm)
F14- SF larger models (more than 54mm)
RZ – Sculpts
OA- Open Army

As the second section is the main area of interest, so please forgive me that I focused mainly on SF and Fantasy miniatures.

Painting level of almost all models exhibited at festival was outstanding. To be honest, my model were so mediocre comparing to most of the stuff I’ve seen there. I mean, I knew I will be way out of the league of most of the festival players,  but, shoot, I didn’t realise exhibition will include such great miniatures.

After seeing all of these – two things may happened. First – I could give up painting, as I’ll never would be great painter with skills like that. Or second thing – such great level of exhibited work will give me additional boost of motivation to be better in what I do.

Never been a ‘give up easily’ kind of guy, so you won’t see me abandoning everything. More work, more trials and errors, more improvement. Sounds like fun, right?

Enough writing. Just take a look at some of the works I chose for you.

Awesome, right?

All of these, were awesome. My favourites – Archaon on his three headed beast (by Kaha Górska. This model won Grand Prix of the festival. Congrats!), Glacier King (also by Kaha Górska!) and Eldar Falcons (impressive dynamics of the diorama. Love it! Do not recon the author though. Sorry…).

Second day, was all about giving awards (…and eating ice cream. This was another hot, hot, hot day). There were three awarded models for each category. Sponsors were really generous and each winner received bag full of hobby goodies. Congratulations guys! You deserved that!

I don’t even dream to receive any prize on such festival, but for sure I can train my painting skills and honestly I can be better prepared for the next year. I started painted my model about four weeks before the festival and it could be ready in such short time. I would need at least twice as much painting hours. Lesson learned.

The whole festival was great experience for me. I made a few new friends, I talked to great artists and I got the opportunity to study amazing models from close up. This meant a lot to me.

Organisers did great job and launched the event which should be absolutely a must for everyone who wish to paint the miniatures for real. You can see all the best in one place.

Hopefully, see you next year!