Round Two: Farewell to Rogcollectibles

The readers of TMP have voted, and Rogzombie has been voted out of the contest. One of the privileges of being "voted out" is the chance to make an exit speech. I also invited him to predict who the contest winner will be...and who will be the next one voted-out!

Here is what Rogzombie writes:

Greetings

A sincere thank you to everyone participating in Last Painter Standing - painters and voters. A great thank you, as well, to TMP and i-Kore for a very unique painting contest. It was indeed an honor to participate and to be one of the Finalists!

It was a different experience for me - enlightening in many ways, stressful in others - but overall it was a good experience. Painters need to do these things occasionally to keep the creativity fresh. I am not a huge fan of painting contests, which are seldom done in a fair manner. This contest was much fairer than most, given the diversity of TMP viewers. I found it interesting to hear what various people said was the most important thing in selecting the contestants.

I entered this contest to see how my work stacked up against some of the best in the business, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I got as far as I did. One of my main points in entering this contest is proving that you don't need to use a lot of trendy painting techniques or spend forever on it to create nice looking miniatures. I use traditional painting techniques, some of which are scoffed at in competitions. I did them anyway and would have continued to do so had I advanced.

Unfortunately, I do believe that painting contests have become much more than 'painting' contests. The painters ability to resculpt the figure as well as using the NMM technique seem to be current prerequisites to having popular entries. I find, too, that in contests that allow random figures, the more garish the sculpt, the better it does in the running. I credit it to the status quo created by trendy painting contests such as The Golden Demon Awards and CoolMiniOrNot. These are both fine ways to present figures, but people should know that there are other ways of doings things, and that your painting isn't garbage because it isn't painted in NMM and done over a course of several months!

My last entry was a disappointment to me in many ways. I was rushed in the execution stage, and made several bad choices in the styling; the plates and coat came out rough, and some of the color choices didn't produce the contrasts that I hoped to achieve; the inner coat didn't contrast the body suit enough, and purple guards on the gun looked stupid. It was done at the last minute, though, and I had little time or energy to redo anything.

Despite these flaws many of you decided it was worthy of passing this round, so some folks must have liked the general idea of the figure. Art is a very subjective thing, and it cracks me up when someone gets all indignant because others aren't seeing it the way they do. It's more than just perfect brushstrokes. In my opinion, the overall presentation is much more important than how you achieve it. It looks good or it doesn't. That is a very personal choice to a judge, for many reasons.

I have really enjoyed seeing everyone's takes on the i-Kore figures and their solutions. There are some really awesome figures being painted for this contest. I look forward to seeing the next rounds. In my opinion, all the painters remaining have a flawless technique, and will need to use a great deal of creativity to stay in the contest. I don't think painting skill will be as big a factor as creative choices. I was asked to call a winner and loser for the contest. It's really impossible for me to do so. I really believe on any given day any one of the contestants remaining could win or lose. It is in their hands.

Again, a great thanks to everyone, especially those who backed me along the way. I hope I have shared something of value to anyone interested.

If you would like to see more of my work, please check out my website (I've just uploaded lots of new galleries) which also links to my eBay auctions.

Happy New Year!