Last weekend the annual event Crisis was held in Antwerp by local club TSA. I missed last year's edition, so I can't really compare to the previous one, but compared to two years ago this one was much more crowded and more interesting shops were present.

Some highlights were Fantasy Gelände, with their new natural materials range, Black Cat Bases which brought Hasslefree Miniatures to the show and a small stand displaying a new game: Okko. This is yet another new game by some French miniature superstars and it is set in the Japanese universe of the comic strips and they offer both unpainted and pre-painted figures.

The painting competition was a very solid one this year. Not too many entries, only the single fantasy category had a high number of entries, but the average quality level for each category was very high. A rather small group of people attended the award ceremony afterwards, which added even more to the friendly and intimate atmosphere among the competitors.

When I first visited Crisis 5 years ago the painting competition mainly had historical miniatures. But now this is completely different. Several of the historical categories had only a few entries. Maybe the organisation should consider putting some of these together in one historical overall? The youngbloods category was also a bit of a disappointment this time, but the winner really deserved it. The best of show award went to Stefanie Arndt's piece 'Herbstspaziergang', well deserved I must say. Sven Wichert was another big winner, together with Brenda Gosman from Holland. I didn't enter anything new for this edition, but I won bronze with my Hell Dorado Demons unit :)

Here are some pictures from the event, expect a full photo report when I finally have a gallery :)

See you all next year.

The event was very crowded this year.

The different stands ranged from miniature manufacturers to hobby suppliers like this one.

An impressive table by a wargamers club from Dortmund, Germany.

Historical wargames still make up the mainstay of Crisis.

The beautiful demo table for the Okko game.

The crowded single fantasy category from the painting competition.

Some highlights from the competition entries:

Check this baby out. This is a planned release for February, when the new Lizardmen armybook comes out.

The Anima figures are completely finished, I took pictures last night but no time yet to put them online.

By the way you will notice a gallery is still missing here... I hope to fix that problem really soon.

And tomorrow is Crisis in Antwerp, I hope to meet a lot of people again, since I could not get there last year. Stay tuned for a report and a picture gallery of the event somewhere next week.

Spiel 2008 took place on 26 October. A great report can be found here. It's in German, but there are plenty of interesting pictures, for example this dungeon by Ziterdes and or those Alkemy demo tables (here and here).

After an avalanche of great stuff following the UK Games Day it was a bit a calmer period on CMON. But there were some highlights of course:

• Asaliah by blabla - great monochrome paintjob. Good base also.
• Daemonette by kai - check out the eyes
• Dark Crusader by Wappellious - great example of source lighting and very well executed
• Kin Strife by donga666 - another entry from the latest GD UK, I'm amazed it only got to the finals.
• Deathjack by Jens - looking at these warjacks so well painted really makes me want to paint one myself one day.
• Urmuth by automaton - Superb skintones.
• Sad Girl by fluffy - Strange sculpt by Poupee Canopee, very well painted. Note the pebbles in the water.
• High Elf by derwish - Super-human freehand.
  

Finally I found some time to continue painting the anima figures.

First up is Celia. I'm painting her in a similar color scheme as the studio paintjob: jeans, white top and shiny leather jacket. For the hair I decided to do something different to give the figure a more anime-style look.
I'm very happy about how she turned out so far. At first I wasn't happy about the highlights on the leather (too bright) so I put on a wash of black ink. When I see it on picture now I think it looks quite good.

Cordelia is a figure that takes up a lot of time, but at the same time it's very rewarding to paint. I'm going for a pink/beige scheme mainly. Right now I'm working on a secondary colour (orange/brown) for the top and details on the robe. I think I will use yellow for the rest of the details.

The third figure of the warband, Kujaku is still in a very early phase. I hope I can show some progress next time I post here.

Last week I stumbled upon this article. It describes how to create a cheap lightbox from an empty cardboard box.

Bell of Lost Souls has published a good article on the Drop Pod assembly. It covers several common errors that can happen during assembly and provide some tips for painting. Read the article here.