SMC 2026
Classes 33 and 35
Class 33
Military Vehicles
Greater than
1/48th scale
Masters Level
Gaming figures are perhaps where figure painting began, with teaching youngsters about battle tactics as far back as Egyptian times, and certainly right through until the nineteenth century, and perhaps games like chess being a poor man's representations of richer folks massed armies, they are perhaps where the art of painting models of all kinds began.
Although not displayed as armies in the competition, there were a few "Kill Teams" and Command Groups in evidence, but the majority were either single figures or paired pieces.
Still, you have to realise the skill to paint such small areas of models with such precision, and looking at the pictures here, it's easy to forget that a lot of them are only 28mm in total height.
SMC 2026
Class 35
Storytelling Dioramas and
Vignettes
Masters Level
Another opportunity for the modeller to go wild with scratch-building and adding lots of details.
Theres a lot of after-market additions that can be used, along with a broad choice of figures to set around a scene.
I'm still not sure what the difference "storytelling" adds to the classification of Dioramas and Vignettes, I always thought that was the idea, to make a scene depicting an event, a snapshot of a momant in time, and try to tell a story within it.
There was always the option to have things that were happening out of sight ot off the actual base of the model, hinted at by the positioning of the models that were there.
But again, my admiration for the modellers entering this class, theres a heck of a lot of work goes into each piece, planning, sourcing or making the pieces that make it up and of course tieing it all together
