masterminis.net - where we learn to be a better painter!: Euromilitaire 2013

Euromilitaire 2013

Talking the show away

WOW! My first Euromilitaire - and what an event it was!

Meeting new and long time friends is just the BEST!

Imagine visiting one of the biggest miniature events, an event that in 2013 is in its 28th year. Imagine there are about 1000 absolutely world-class miniatures and models of every conceivable genre: Tanks, busts, historic, fantasy, light boxes, dioramas, vignettes. Imagine more vendors that you can throw money at: Miniatures, plinths, lamps, terrain, tools, lamps, books...

And now imagine a two day event where you meet many great people from all over the world - from Canada to South Korea, from Finland to Italy - in fact SO many that you almost miss the whole miniature exibition!

THAT was my weekend.

28 years of miniature & modelling madness

"Bruddha" Scott & very nice lady posing in front of the
massive vendor hall.

The show, without doubt the premier event in any military modeller’s diary for 2013, attract many of the biggest names in the hobby, both as competitors as well as demonstrators.

There were over 100 trade stands selling a diverse range of products from across the hobby, including kits, paints and diorama accessories and much, much more. In addition, this year for the 28th time, Euromilitaire hosted one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious modelling competitions, attracting visitors from around the world to compete and display their work. Over 3000 visitors filled the halls during the two day event.

We will give TWO Nocturna miniatures away in this post!
Curtesy of paintingbuddha.com and Nocturna!

Some of my favorite companies of the last few years, Heros & Villains, Scale 75 and especially Nocturna had their booths at Euromilitaire alongside long established fan-favorites such as Pegaso and new and upcoming small companies such as our friends from JoeK Miniatures. It was simply overwhelming! It took a lot of self-control not to buy more than would have been good for me ^^.

Talk talk talk

H&V's Fernando Ruiz had an ingenious idea: The QR code
on each of their boxes leads to a massive step-by-step tutorial
on their website! He is holding one of the Giveaway-prizes ^^

I had a really good talk with Jesús Martín from Nocturna and Fernando Ruiz from H&V talking about how we at paintingbuddha plan to grow the hobby, what our mission is and how we engage in charitable and community work from the profits of our company (you can read more about this here).

They spontaneously offered to support us by providing giveaway prizes for today's blog and we will stay in touch to discuss ideas about some future cooperation. Stay tuned, the revolution has just begun!

When we took this picture, there were
still a few boxes left - that changed!

Our friends at Scale 75 got robbed. Well, not really, but at the end of the show their store looked like a battlefield! Their awesome new Scale 75 paints and many of their miniatures were all but sold out. Elias said "Wow - we thought we had more than enough product with us, but this really surprised us!"

Good for them. Awesome companies with fresh new ideas, great service and fantastic products like Nocturna, Scale 75 and H&V truly deserve their success. We are looking forward to working with them in the future.

And the best thing is - these are genuinely good guys: They don't do this for fame or profit alone - they absolutely and positively love the hobby. Like we do.

Check out their sites and their awesome products!

New kids on the block

Luke, Joe and James - just totally hooby guys :)

Next to the established 'bigger' players you could also find some really fresh, new companies at Euromilitaire - some just started their business (with or without the help of kickstarters) and all of them have one thing in common:

Love for the hobby and absolute commitment to fresh ideas, highest quality and most importantly: FUN. I think our corner of the show tended to be the one bursting with the loudest laughter during the show :)

Sorry for any inconvenience caused! ^^

Krisps & pints

Located in the beautiful Leas Cliff Hall, overseeing the channel we took breaks from standing at booths and talking by going outside, sitting in the sun, have a beer or two and - of course - continue to talk. I can't put in words how many interesting people I have met - it was an absolute blast!

The Leas Cliff Hall has a bar and a small cafe and to offer to anyone who needed a little break. Prices were very reasonable and the beer cold :D

Wait, what about the miniature competition?

Judge Dredd? No, Bruddha Conrad!
(Still a Judge, though)

This was probably the first time at any event that I almost missed the miniature competition completely. And that would have been a loss!

On Sunday at 3pm I finally got downstairs into the showroom. And I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of entries I saw. After all, my plan was to take a picture of every single one of them and I took pictures to the very last minute. In fact, so late that I quite literally almost missed my flight by 1 minute.

Running to the gate turned the Painting Buddha into a Panting Buddha :D

In the end, I think I was able to take pictures of most miniatures. Some entries had already been taken away as people needed to travel back to wherever they had come from.

At this point I would like to say that the level of competition was very high. Euromilitaire is known for not handing out medals easily - so catching one of the medals or even a golden one, presented on stage, is a great honor and a great achievement.

My personal "Best of Show"
by Chris Clayton

With 30 categories, the judges had their hands full. And I can only say that they have done a tremendous job! This goes for the whole organization of the event, too. Behind the scenes you could see dozens of judges, assistants and organizers, making this event run smoothly towards one of the best organized shows that I have ever had the pleasure to attend.

Pics or it didn't happen

I could go on and on and on. I could talk about Richard Poisson, Chris Clayton, Antonio Fernandez Lizaso, Iguazzu, Myeong-Ha Hwang, Man Jin Kim, the Volquarts & friends, David Zabrocki, Ernst Veingart, their charming wives, Mathieu, Scott, Luke,.... and the dozens of other awesome people I knew from Facebook but had not yet met in person.

I am still overwhelmed.
And a little tired :D

So here, without further ado is the link to my picasa webalbum. You can use the pictures any way you want - you know our motto: SHARE & ENJOY.

If you have pictures that you would like to share & enjoy, you can just leave a link in the comments below or contact me via email, facebook or carrier pigeon.

Mario's Facebook Album
Pekka's Facebook Album
John's Facebook Album
Asharimrai's Photo Bucket
*new* Cursed Monkey's VIDEO!

Euromilitaire 2013 Giveaway

First of all an apology to our last giveaway winners - the prizes have not been sent yet as we have simply been too busy. BUT I am confident that we can send them out this week ^^ We simply have to as the next few giveaways are already on their way!

Again thanks to Fernando from Heroes & Villains (he sponsored a Holmes & Watson bust set!) and to Jesús from Nocturna (who sponsored us his awesome Luz, New York!) for their sponsored prizes. And thanks to me (heheh) for buying two of Nocturna's pre-release Akelarre, the dragon enchantress. Soooo pretty!

You can win these! How? Please read below :)

How to win

Simply SHARE & ENJOY this post with your Facebook and Google+ friends! That's all. As always we will randomly draw our winner. This time, we will draw the winner after our Games Day UK 2013 report which should be in some time next week.

How to support us

A question I got a lot when presenting our Painting Buddha Box (quote Jesús from Nocturna: "This is the best miniature product I have seen in my entire life!") is:

"How are you making profit with this?"

Starting at 42€? "Insane!" - the #1 resonse we get.

Well, we don't make a lot of it. That's the whole secret. Of course, we still need to pay our bills - so by supporting us with the purchase of one of the best deals in the miniature industry today, you can help us keep doing what we and YOU love in the future!

We do everything for the community - that means we work for YOU.

Our thanks go to the over 300 Bruddhas who supported us with their purchase in only the first six weeks of our launch!

Except for Antarctica, the Painting Buddha traveled to all continents!

Again, thank you for your support!