Well after spending 1 week and a half in Paris, painting my entry and judging the mix-open it was finally time to live for GD UK. Meeting point: the York's place in Paris' suburbs. When I arrived in the evening everyone was hard at work finishing and polishing their entries:


Julien was finishing is title plaque, Cedric was done with airbrushing and up to brushing to fill the 70 hours gap (note that GD was in a bit more than 48 hours...) and Nicolas was... actually in the same situation as Cedric. As for me, I had the base to cover with pigments and a few touch ups to do.

Friday morning, time of departure and here is our GD UK Mobile, can't really call it Team Montreal mobile since we were 2 members of Team Toulouse, 1 member of Team Montreal/TNA and one Team Himself... so...


Note Cedric who was plagued by a toothache... and a view of the full trunk of the car. Note if someone hit us from behind is dead with all the minis in there!!!


Otherwise uneventful ride to Calais. French highways are just as boring as North American highways but honestly what's up with all the rond point??? Let's turn in round to get our exit. Of course if you miss it you just keep turning around to get it back... pretty dummy proof but honestly I prefer our exit which are get it right the first time or get lost.

Anyhow, after a quick lunch in France it was time to board the shuttle accross the Euro Tunnel.
So we all boarded a big train (note that the train was done by Bombardier, a company from Quebec!!!)

And then we packed ourselves in the train:

And 35 minutes later WELCOME TO ENGLAND!!!


Honestly England's highway are even worst than other highways. I was all happy to be in the mother land (being Canadian and all) but frankly beurk... Quick question for anyone: Is there any other colors of brick in England than the orange-brownish ones? Ok I admit we did highways and Nottingham and Birmingham... so nothing too touristy but... Yeah for the Queen!

A few hours later... actually a few hours more than planned due to traffic we finally made it to our hotel close to Nottingham.


Which looked more like a prison made by IKEA:

But in fact it was affordable, confortable and more or less quiet so finally a good choice... Obviously the fairly quiet part was for me... for Julien sharing the room with me it was another story... It seems I snore... like a bear... But eh! During the day I had to endure his hyperactive behavior, at night he endured my snoring...

The hotel staff was nice enough to open the lights of the breakfast area for us to paint all evening long.


Julien added a little snow, I had a few touch ups and the 2 guys from Team Toulouse were still trying to close the 70 hours gap..

So what do you do when you are done? You play Blood Bowl of course:


And you experiment Red Bull Cola!


Ok... I'm a big fan of red bull... honestly I don't know how I would achieve my deadlines without it at times... But honestly this version is just foul... awful... disgusting... briefly as our resident actor is expressing:


Funny moment at 11h30 when a men came to us asking if he could look at our work and then said: "Oh yeah! My son has Tau!" LOL we are everywhere!!!

So after a good night sleep, at least for me, back on the highways to reach Nottingham proper. Here's a nice highway scenery:


And what's up with driving on the other side of the road??? This mix with rond point every 2 kilometers his really annoying... ;)

And finally... GAMES WORKSHOP HQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pure geek moment here!

Ah... we felt at home! The Mecca of the fantasy figurine world! But here is the heaven:


Every single miniature painted by the Eavy Metal team is there... (sigh)

Interesting... they didn't paint it turquoise and pink...


Some scouts waiting for their landspeeder:

And if you ever wondered what is the first piece that ever inspired me, here it is by our father and master of us all, Mike McVey:


And one day my name will be on this wall:


Warhammer World is also full of original artwork and here is a proof that GW sponsors Red Bull:


Obviously our trip wasn't complete without a stop at Bugman's Tavern! The bar of every self-respecting dwarf!


And a glorious fish and chips!

Finally, the summum of our geekiness:


Time to head to Birmingham for the GD!!! The evening was quite uneventful with our 2 TT guy painting the last stroke on their entries. A good dinner at a local student pub.

As for the GD, well wow! Okay, it's still a normal GD which is quite boring when you mostly paint but the size of it is simply incredible. The number of people as well! And honestly and crowd strong of thousands of persons to cheer the winner is simply heaven when you are accustomed to the North American GD.

I haven't been stressing that much over the judging of the event in a long time. I felt like my first GD ever as this demon was basically the strongest I ever won! And here is the moment when I could finally relax and breath:


The rest of the day was pretty straight forward. I want to thank to various people I met on site that were very nice and welcoming. It is always nice to meet new painters from abroad.

As for the results, well there was certain issues, but nothing that couldn't be understood under certain argument. Obviously we have to remember that it is an subjective contest and the results are always up to discussion. Personnally I loved the Slayer Sword, simple, effective, well painted and 100% empire!

Back to the hotel it was time for dinner. After inneffective service from a beardless blond female dwarf a few growl from a Canadian bear were necessary. But eh we got free beer and a cheap bill! Back to the hotel, the four of us, four guys, ended up watching Dirty Dancing... I have to admit I've watched that movie so many times in my youth, ended up that Cedric too and we basically both knew the story by heart... anyhow... let just say it was followed by Point Break...

So there we go... back to Paris and then back to Sherbrooke, home... and now it is time to show that speeder!!!

Gold in vehicule at GD UK! Can't ask for anything else. More pictures and stories on wednesday!

Here are the last pictures before leaving for Paris tonight. The exterior of the speeder is finished. I have to finish the interior and the 6 scouts which received their base via airbrush!


So I'll be painting in Paris. I'll probably alternate between Play Factory and Starplayer. Basically I should be at Play Factory except on wednesdays. So don't expect new pics until the final pics of when I'll be back from my Euro trip at the end of the month.

On these words keep painting!