General Guidelines

• All submissions must have been painted by the submitting contestant.
• All miniatures must be properly based, which means they have a base that has been finished, flocked, etc., as a minimum. You are NOT required to have a large elaborate base. Those contestants that mount their entries on more elaborate bases should take note of the limits on base sizes by category (below).
• Prizes: There will be a first place prize for each category as well as honorable mentions.

Head-to-Head Miniatures Painting Competition

There will be three separate genre for miniatures entries:

• Fantasy
• Historical
• Modern/Sci-fi

For each genre there will be three different classifications of miniature:

• Best Single miniature: up to 54 mm or 1/35 scale, maximum base size 5"x5".
• Best Vehicle/Monster: up to 54 mm or 1/35 scale, maximum base size 8"x8".
• Best Unit*: up to 54 mm or 1/35 scale, maximum base size 8"x8", minimum of five models.

* - a "unit" can include basically any small combat element that fights as one; this includes, but is not limited to, standard military units as well as nonstandard units, such as a Mordheim warband, or a mechanized infantry unit with men and a vehicle (of course, the vehicle would not be allowed to compete in the Vehicle category in that case). If you are unsure if your prospective entry would qualify, please contact us.

Please note that the "unit" competition is judged in part upon the unit character of the entry. Having minis that can simply be put together to make up a unit is not going to take home the prize on its own; it needs to look like a unit.

Each contestant may submit only one entry per category and genre. For example, a conestant may only submit a single entry for "Fantasy, Single Miniature". With three classification and three genre, this means the most a contestant could submit is nine entries, 1 for each combination of genre and classification.

Important Details

• No entries may compete in two categories at once - A given miniature may only compete in one of the categories of the Head-to-Head Miniatures Painting Competition. However, army-level competitions outside of this competition do not affect this; a miniature may compete in the Head-to-Head competition as well as an army-level competition.
• This competition is completely separate from the army level competitions, so individual miniatures, units, vehicles from armies are valid entries for this competition.
• Storage: entries may be placed in a locked display case at Registration, on a first come first served basis; enties that cannot fit into the case will need to be brought to the Registration area for judging Saturday between 1900 and 2000.
• Judging will occur Saturday between 1900 and 2000 (during the break between game slots) and winners announced in the Convention Party at midnight. You do not have to be present during judging, but if your miniature is not secured in the display case, you may want to be present for security.

Best Army Used in an Event

This competition is separate from the Head-to-Head competition. Entries may be any scale/size, but must be used in an event at OwlCon XXIII that does not already have built-in awards for army appearance. Minimum of 8 units.

Judging will occur over the span of the convention as judges wander about and look at the armies in play. As a result, there is no special need to stage your army anywhere in particular for judging. If you are concerned that a judge has not assessed your army(ies), feel free to ask our staff to look into it.

Note: Some events, such as The Rogue Trader Tournaments (RTT) include built-in contests for Best Appearance among the armies used in the event. Therefore an army in such an event is automatically competing for a Best Appearance award (within the event) and thus cannot compete for the this prize.