Squidmar’s Miniature Masters, a $10,000 painting competition show that took two years of budget to make, just dropped its first episode!
Most of us know Squidmar from the painting tutorials and the occasional hobby flex, like that record-setting Thunderhawk or the Forge World Tau Manta diorama. But this new series takes everything to the next level. A full reality-style miniature painting competition show is something totally different, and he clearly didn’t half-build it.
The first episode is live on YouTube now and premiered on July 8, with a new episode dropping every Wednesday for six straight weeks. There are seven episodes total, edited like a proper TV show, with judges, eliminations, real sponsors, and a grand prize big enough to fund a small army.
This Is Not a Casual YouTube Challenge
- The take: Squidmar just gave the miniature hobby its first real prestige painting competition, built by a hobbyist instead of a corporation.
- The scale: eight painters flown in from eight countries, seven themed episodes, a $10,000 prize, and roughly two years of channel budget on the line.
- What it changes: it sets a production bar every other hobby creator now has to answer, and gives 40k fans a Tacticus-backed reason to watch.
We’ve all seen the “paint this in an hour” videos, but this is definelty not that. Squidmar says the show cost about as much as two years’ worth of his normal videos, so the scale is way beyond that of a regular YouTube project. The seven episodes are built around different themes that test speed, skill, creativity, adaptability, and artistic vision, and the painters were put through it.
Maybe best (or worst of all depending) is that hosts are pretty clear that filming was rough on everyone, both physically and mentally.
But for us, the wide range of hobby projects is what makes it work. One episode leans into Warhammer dioramas, while another shifts toward display pieces or busts, so nobody gets to coast on one comfortable skill. If you’ve ever tried to go from a contest-grade display piece to a fast tabletop job in the same week, you already know those are very different tasks all together.
So this format punishes painters who only have one lane, and it feels closer to what turns a painter from beginner to competitor than another lazy Sunday stream.
Eight Painters, Eight Countries, One Title
The cast is the big reason to watch. Squidmar flew in eight painters from Australia, Greece, the United States, Norway, Spain, the UK, Poland, and France, which is more travel budget than most hobby projects ever see. Trent Denison, Anastasia Lucrezi, Josh Berman, Amalia, Carla Casases, Aaron Clark, Natalia Oracz, and Maxime d’Adere all bring something different, from massive dioramas and darker storytelling to box art speed, freehand, sketching, and conversion work.
The winner gets $10,000 and the title of first-ever Miniature Master. For a display painter, though, the exposure may be the bigger career boost. That’s also why the eliminations actually matter. Squidmar says the group became close on set, so every send-home carries more weight than the usual reality-show drama.
If this makes you want to pick up a brush and chase your own first place, that’s kind of the point, (and a decent brush can carry you further than you’d think.)
The Sponsors Tell You How Serious This Is
Nobody brings in Harder & Steenbeck, Vallejo, and Tacticus for a throwaway video. Harder & Steenbeck built custom airbrushes around the show, the Squidmar Infinity Mark II and the Miniature Masters Ultra, both released alongside it.
So, if you’re airbrush-curious, our current airbrush picks are probably a more sensible place to start. Vallejo’s range handles the paint side, including inks, express colors, regular acrylics, and their true metallic metals, so you get to see very different painters pull very different results from the same paint line.
And if a miniature painting show still sounds like it’s not your thing, the 40k tabletop angle is there as well. Tacticus is one of the sponsors, and Squidmar has teased episodes with a direct Warhammer tie-in, so some of those speed-paint tricks worth stealing may show up on models you actually put on the table.
Final Thoughts on Squidmar’s Miniature Masters
Whether Miniature Masters becomes a returning series depends on how the next six Wednesdays go. But the important part already happened: a hobbyist, not a corporation, spent two years’ budget to give miniature painting a real prestige competition show.
That bar is now sitting out in the open for every other hobby creator to look at. We’ll be watching to see who takes the title and whether anyone else has the nerve to build something this big next.
🔗 Related Reads:
- Squidmar Hides Golden Tickets in New MK II Brush Sets
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- Best Model Paints for Warhammer Miniatures: Ranked By Brand
- A Beginner’s Guide to Airbrushing Miniatures
- Vallejo Contrast Killer: Xpress Paint Painting Tutorial
- Insane Forge World Tau Manta Diorama From Squidmar
What do you think of Squidmar’s Miniature Masters and the idea of a real painting competition show?
