Posted by Raffaele "Picster" Picca
Hey everyone!
Phew, just returned from the
Painting Crusade X in Brussels and I can tell you, this was a fantastic weekend! A great experience, meeting old friends and new faces and just having a great time in this small but excellent event.
Before the jungle report really starts, I want to thank everyone of the Painting Crusade Staff for this great event, especially Quentin for his great hospitality and making such a warm and familiar weekend for everyone possible, THANKS!
But let's start at the very beginning. The photos were taken by Philip Prinz.
Day 1 - Travel
Roman and I started our travel on friday. At 13:30 we left home with the car and continued our travel at around 17:00 with a plane to Zurich, Switzerland (there was no direct flight) waiting for our next plane leaving at 21:45. Around 22:35 we finally arrived in Brussels, where Quentin De Meuter and Rafael "Volomir" García Marín where already waiting to pick us up.
After some waiting time, another plane landed and Ana Shestakova from Moskow joined the party and we were leaving to reach our sleeping place.
... And then we reached the destination...
The old house of Quentins parents was a very important place this weekend and a looooot of painters were able to sleep there. The house was almost completely empty and so every room was stuffed full of sleeping bags, painters, figures and fun :)
Arriving at this place was overwhelming, so many friendly faces, so much good talks. Even if we were totally wrecked, we somehow made it to have some nice hours before finally falling into our bed :)
Day 2 - Arrival
The next morning was very relaxed, some nice coffee and breakfast and we started the day with driving to the event ambiance. The Painting Crusade is now beeing held for the third time in this place and so I noticed that the organisation gets more and more professional each year.
Signing up my figures for competition was fast and easy, all the organisation members speak english so it's very easy to get along as a foreigner. I started to put my miniatures into display even if the competition starts on sunday.
As the organisation of the Painting Crusade is doing the best to make the figures very easy to see by having a black background and bright daylight tubes. If you ever visited other events you may know that it can be very hard to look at the miniatures due bad lighted display space.
On the upper floor of the ambience you could see all the competition pieces and check out a one of a kind miniature flea market. I really love this market as you sometimes really find true treasures for a small amount of money.
On the lower floor, there is a big working table to spent some time chatting to other painters and sculpters, exchange tricks and techniques and just have a good time. You'll also find some smaller stores and what I especially love: A store for small miniature companies. The owner can give their stock to the organisation of the painting crusade and they will handle all the sales. This is very nice as you're able to buy some often hard-to-find miniatures there.
Beeing there and talking to people the whole day, time just flies and the quiz beeing held in the middle of the day brought some happy memories to old Painting Crusades for many visitors.
At 18:00 the doors of the event close and everyone goes home alone to sleep....
haha, NOT!
The Painting Crusade X was the 10th edition of the contest uniting painters from 10 countries.
This had to be celebrated! This year there was no official big party and I was very dissappointed hearing this before we traveled to Brusseles. But Quentin for sure found a solution and so everyone was invited to come to the old house of his parents to have a big party and most of the people could sleep there.
Imagine a house with 3 floors full of painters... yes it was this awesome.
I didn't have such a good time for quite a while :) So many good talks, so much fun... incredible!
My arsch was literally in flammen! (sorry for all people not beeing there not getting this joke, you can change that next year ;-)
Now I won't get into to much details of this night ... but just a big THANKS to all of you beeing as awesome as you are.
Day 3 - Sunday: Main Event
The next morning, for some reason it was not very easy to get up and enjoy the morning sun as it was snowing for the whole night. Arriving at the ambience, it was getting better fast, recovering after a coffee and seeing some nice faces and great miniatures.
The number of figures in the competition was quickly increasing as more painters arrived and the judging started. I really have to say that the painting and sculpting level this year was really amazing!
A big leap from last years overall quality. Especially the sculpting displays were deeply impressing me.
The time until the awards show was passing fast by looking at the miniature displays, having some nice talk and sculpting experiments ;)
Finally, the judges ( Roman "Jarhead" Lappat / Cyril Abati / Rafael "Volomir" García Marín) did finish their work and the organisation could start to do the awards show which started with a nice presentation with photos of past Painting Crusades.
After this, the show continued with a very unusual social experiment... the whole event did a
Harlem Shake video which will for sure be shown here when it is officially released!
After this crazy break, the show continued and it was cool seeing many happy faces and a massive applause for everyone!
The competition was very rewarding for me as I got a gold award in the Painting Master category and a silver award in the sculpting category which really suprised me! I also received a bronze 'Golden Edmon' for my 'Untold Honor' piece.
After the ceremony, the ambience was emptying pretty fast as many people had huge travels confronting them. We stayed for some time and left the place to head to a very nice and familial dinner at Quentin's parents. This was the perfect finish for a perfect weekend. Everyone was quite exhausted while enjoying the great pasta of Quentin's mom! After this nice dinner, it was time for some friends to leave :(
Sad, sad as always, but in the safety of seeing everyone again in one year :)
Day 4 - Travel again...
Roman and I took a cab to the airport to catch our flight, which was late as always. Traveling is sometimes quite nice to let all the impressions settle inside and get back to "normal life"... knowing to see all the nice faces again in a year makes the trip a lot easier ;)
I hope you liked this report and if you were there, enjoyed your weekend! Thanks again to EVERYONE, especially Quentin, Roman, Andi, Philip, David, Rafael, Ben, Valerie, Tue, Manu, David, Mikkel, Gautier, Ana, Olivier and so many, many, many others!
You can find more photos in our facebook gallery:
LINK
Best wishes,
Raffa
PS: You can find more Event reports by MV here:
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