Cathy Wappel Memorial Miniature Painting Open brings judging and feedback to Origins 2026
Cathy Wappel’s name gave Origins’ display-painting open real weight, and the Sunday feedback session made it as useful as it was competitive.
The Cathy Wappel Memorial Miniature Painting Open opened June 17 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center with something display painters do not always get at a major convention: open-style judging built around growth, intent, and execution, plus a Sunday feedback session that could turn a good piece into a better one. For painters chasing more than a ribbon, that mix made the event one of the most practical stops on the Origins Game Fair 2026 schedule.
The memorial framing gave the competition its emotional center. Origins described Cathy Wappel and her husband, James Wappel, as pillars of the hobby in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which helps explain why the open felt bigger than a standard contest entry. It was built as a tribute, but it also gave display painters a public stage to test composition, finish, and storytelling under real competition conditions in Columbus, Ohio.
The event was listed as part of Origins’ special programming and miniatures-related offerings, alongside Miniatures Gaming and Paint N Take, which put it in front of a broad convention crowd rather than a narrow painting-only audience. That mattered at Origins 2026, a five-day tabletop convention that GAMA said featured 7,000-plus gaming events across the week. The scale of the show meant the painting open could draw both dedicated display painters and attendees who wandered in from the larger hobby floor.
The format pointed clearly toward ambitious work. Open-style judging, category awards, and the Sunday feedback session made the event especially suited to display pieces, character models, and showcase units that benefit from scrutiny at close range. Origins’ stage schedule listed the Cathy Wappel Memorial Miniature Painting Contest Awards for 12:00pm Sunday, giving the competition a visible public moment inside the convention program.
For painters, the practical value was straightforward. Entrants could measure their work against judges who would look past simple neatness and into the decisions behind a piece, while spectators could study the top tables for paint control, basing, color balance, and how a model reads in person. That is the kind of competition that rewards both polish and purpose, which is why Cathy Wappel’s name still carries real prestige on a display-painting roster.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
