Kontrast Festival 2024

 I had the good fortune to attend Kontrast Festival 2024, and so decided to write down some notes to compare it if I have the chance to attend again in following years. I was supposed to attend last year, but technical issues prevented me from going. So here's the good, the bad, and the ugly as I saw it.

The Good

The quality on display was top notch, and there was plenty of vendors, entry to the venue was free, and there was also plenty around for children to do. It happened to coincide with a Polish day for children, so the general area was really nice for families. Painters seemed friendly enough, though I didn't say hello to any in person (I figured some of the more well known would have too much of that already and I didn't want to intrude upon what little free time they might otherwise have).

The Bad

Too many people is actually one of the problems. The display areas just couldn't cope with that many people constantly hovering around. If I were organising, I'd probably setup a one-way route to walk through: gives everyone a chance to see everything, encourages people to not stop and hog space for too long, etc. I simply couldn't see as much as I wanted not because I had places to be, but because it was utterly boring just standing there waiting for a gap to move forward into. These are miniatures, you need to be close to appreciate them, and a glimpse between people from across a room just isn't going to do it.

I went to one presentation (I won't say which) and it was...well, it was a bit boring, ran over time, and didn't really match what was said. Perhaps the other presentations were better, or I was simply expecting more. Either way, that one presentation was kind of useless from an information perspective - better to just watch the youtube video of it later. I'm not sure how to make such things better in person unless you have a chance to talk and socialise, neither of which was on the cards for me. The presentations could play a large part of the festival, but perhaps need to be looked at differently.

The Ugly

This is going to be very controversial. It's just my opinion, and I can entirely understand it not being popular, but it's generally good to have opinions that aren't just in an echo chamber. This is nothing to do with the festival itself, but rather a comment on the state of the community I guess: everything was just uninspiring, unoriginal, repeated.

The models on display were all painted to a very high technical level. So much so, that perhaps people got a bit lost in the technical details and forgot the bigger picture. While there were of course some standouts, about 90% of the models had exactly the same super-matt finish (possibly for photography reasons, but these were on display in person), very similar colour palettes, very similar blending, very similar styles. Maybe I was missing a lot from having difficulty in seeing what was on display to begin with, but I didn't notice any cel-shading for example, no cartoon looks, didn't see gothic horror, bold black & white sketches, or the whole range of artistic ability that 2D art has enjoyed for hundreds of years (if not more). While yes a 3D model actually limits a lot compared to canvas, I didn't notice a whole lot of experimentation (there was some, just not a lot). Maybe presentations can focus on that.

The other part I noticed was related to what was on sale. The vast majority of larger scale models were scantily clad sexy females. Neko Galaxy is a little more unique, but almost entirely female sculpts. I was actively looking for something male, and heroic (or at least not monstrous). There was a barbarian from Mindwork Studios (next to a scantily clad sexy female), and the frost giant looked almost right but the style of that studio isn't quite what I was after. Radio Miniatures had the best - but that was historical gaming type stuff that isn't for me (though I was still very tempted, the scale was too small for what I was looking for). I would've liked to see druids, forest archers, barbarians, wizards, etc, for the fantasy stuff, and more on the sci-fi, cyberpunk, etc, side of things. I can understand that when painting a model for a while then it helps to be a pleasing subject, but at some point it all just becomes the same and I would've liked variation to be explored more. 3D printing helps artistically here, but 3D printing still doesn't match the quality of the resin casts that I saw.

That's a Wrap

And that wraps up my impressions. I know some of it sounds a bit unfair to say the least, especially as I'm not anywhere near the top levels and haven't entered competitions myself, but for what I look for and how I want to progress as a miniature painter, that's my thoughts. Actually realising how much of it just looked the same over & over is going to help me going forwards as I start to find my own style and how I can focus on experimenting with my own works. These reflections are after all mostly for myself to look back upon later rather than a soap box to shout from.

-- silly painter.