It has been both an absolute pleasure, and a cause for mounting panic, for me throughout December as excellent entry after excellent entry arrived in my inbox for the Deadcember competition (sponsored this year by Ral Partha Europe - thanks chaps!). The pleasure came from the well-planned conversions, clever colour combinations, nostalgia-made-lead model choices, and the evident satisfaction from both completing a figure(s) and from taking part that came across in the submission emails.
But the panic.
Oh yes, the panic. How on Earth was I supposed to pick a winner from this array? Should productivity be rewarded - Alex painted a whole army, and there were other multiple-entrants. Should keeping it hardcore Oldhammer miniatures be a guide? That only leads to the rabbit-hole of "what is Oldhammer?" all over again, and gnomes have only just saved us from that!
It's a cliché of any competition to say that any contributor could have won, but I genuinely mean it when I say I'd have been happy to reward any one of them. In the end I listed them all and picked between two at a time, like in a knock-out competition, using some excel jiggery-pokery to randomise the list. I did it several times and the same winner came out each time, although the final choice was really, really, really hard each time.
