‘Kontrast Festiwal Malarstwa Figurkowego’, or more familiarly just Kontrast, is a yearly miniature painting & gaming festival held the first weekend of every June in Warsaw, Poland. Despite it’s fairly brief history (the first edition was held in 2021), thanks to the immense amount of work and love that the Polish community puts into it, it has quickly become one of the premiere miniature painting events in Europe, up there with the likes of Scale Model Challenge and Monte San Savino.
After some regret due to not biting the bullet and heading there already last year, I had marked this in my calendar well ahead of time to make sure not to miss out on it this time.
The event was held in the Ursynów district of Warsaw, in the Ursynowskie Centrum Kultury “Alternatywy”, located about 10 km south from the Warsaw city centre. The location was no issue, as it was right next to the Imielin metro station, and getting to and from the venue using public transportation was thus very simple despite booking my hotel in the city centre.
Entry to the event and to the painting contest was totally free, which was refreshing but also a bit odd when you’re used to paying for most other painting contests. It was a pleasant surprise but for an event of this quality I would definitely not mind paying an entrance fee to support its growth.
The venue itself was very nice, with the first floor being host to the main vendor hall, the contest hall and the stage for presentations etc., the second floor hosting a lot of the gaming programme (tables, vendors etc.) and the third floor having a Lego exhibition.
The venue did feel a bit crowded at times, which had its positives and negatives. On the other hand, the event felt intimate and it was easy to bump into friends all the time, but the downside was that especially the contest hall felt rather crowded particularly during Saturday, when the time window between the opening and closing of the contest area for viewing was quite small. Luckily it wasn’t nearly as bad on Sunday, so I had a fair amount of time to look through most of the categories. I can’t however help but feel that the contest will need a larger venue if it keeps on growing at the rate it has for the last three years.
The main vendor hall was a bit small as well, but packed with really interesting vendors such as Mindwork Studio, Scientific Models, Neko Galaxy, ZabaArt and more. There were also other vendors like Midguard Miniatures spread across the first and second floors of the venue. Due to limited luggage space (more on this later!) I promised myself to be a bit frugal with the purchases. The one thing I just had to get however was the Warsaw Mermaid figure produced by Mindwork Studio exclusively to support the festival.
Before I discuss the contest as a whole, I want to give a special mention to the Speed Paint Contest held by the Chest of Colors -team. It was some of the most fun I had during the event, the atmosphere was lighthearted and despite missing 95% of the Polish discussions it was such a fun event. I ended up forgetting to take my entries home from the contest area so unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of them, but as a slow painter it was very cool to try something a bit different like this.
I ended up going all the way to the finals held on Sunday morning, but unfortunately getting roped into staying up very late on Saturday with some new & old friends (also most of them Polish, just saying) had its drawbacks on Sunday morning. Let’s say that the eyeballs I painted on the contest figure in the finals on Sunday were definitely not my proudest work… 🙂
Before attending I had heard only praise for the contest, but still the amount and quality of works was a surprise. If I remember correctly, there were about 1300 entries into the contest in total. The contest was split into the traditional Standard and Masters divisions and consisted of 8 ‘regular categories’, two gaming categories (regiment & army), a junior category and the speed paint category. You could enter as many pieces to a category as you wanted to, and you were judged either on your entire display within the category or the best of your entries in it.
The judging followed the open system, which means that rather than a top 3 all works deserving of gold received gold, all works deserving of silver received silver, and so on. In addition highly commended entries received a cool pin, a golden one in the masters categories and a silver one in the standard categories. In the Standard & Gaming categories the awards were engraved metal plates, whereas the Masters category awards were beautiful mermaid statues, a nice local touch as the Mermaid or ‘Syrenka’ is featured in the Warsaw coat of arms and there are a lot of statues of them all over the city!
One definite positive of the contest was the openness of judging. At the start of the contest area there was a small table for showcasing the judges’ works, which also told who the judges are and had small pictures to show what they look like (often in this hobby we have the problem that we know what peoples’ works look like but not what they actually look like, which can make for example asking for feedback a bit tricky if you’re new to the scene!). The judges were all internationally acclaimed miniature artists and at least I personally felt it was very easy to ask them for feedback on Sunday. As an entrant, I can’t overstate the importance of all this. The more open the judging is, the better, and when asking for feedback I was able to gain insights into painting that I would have probably never thought about myself.
I ended up going all in and brought a ton of works from the last few years. In the end I had 13 entries with me and I enteres all of the Masters categories (except the Sculpting one) and the Gaming Regiment category. I felt incredibly silly going through security with not only my miniature case but lunch boxes stuffed with display miniatures and I was sweating my ass off when unboxing all of the entries for the display, but in the end it seemed to be worth it as to my surprise the judges ended up awarding me in ALL of the categories I entered. In addition to the seven trophies from Masters and one medal from the Gaming category, I ended up receiving three special industry awards including the best miniature chosen by special guest Patrick J. Jones, probably one of the highlights of my miniature painting career so far.
By the end of the awards ceremony I was completely blown away, and my small plastic bag filled with trophies became a bit of a meme by the end of the night and I think pictures of it have been circulating a few groups after the event.
The best of show of the contest, the Grand Kontrast Award went to Krzysztof Urban for his stunning diorama display pictured below. Incredibly well deserved, big congratulations to him!
The contest was rather focused on figure painting. It was thus surprising to find out that there was a large scale model show, “Babaryba 2023”, held by the local IPMS, within a 15 minute walking distance during the same weekend. We visited it briefly on Sunday. I’m not a scale modeller myself, but the quantity of works was high and as far as I heard from my friends more well-versed in the scene the level was good as well. Maybe this could be something to attract more of the scale model focused audience to travel to Warsaw in future years as well?
I’ve been discussing the contest and the event a lot, but honestly that is all just an excuse to get to experience the best part of it all – the people. I had a wonderful time hanging out with friends both old and new from Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, UK, Greece, New Zealand and much more. As we were only two Finns at the event, it was amazing to see how warm and welcoming the atmosphere was, and I can’t wait for the next events such as Scale Model Challenge in the autumn to meet up with all of these people again.
Overall I can’t recommend the Kontrast Painting Festival enough. This year was a mindblowing experience and I can’t imagine it getting any worse next year. In addition to the event, Warsaw is a very interesting city to visit with tons to see. This is all something you definitely need to experience!
Finally, below is a gallery of the pieces I entered for those interested. Disclaimer: For some of the awards I’m not sure if the award was for the entire display or a specific piece I entered in the category (diorama, busts, small miniatures).
Thanks for reading, until the next time!
Erkka
Cold Tones Society 