Squidmar Open 2026 Winners Revealed as Community Painting Showcase Wraps Up

Stan Crric's goblin shaman took the Young Bloodoods overall winner spot as the Squidmar Open 2026, a global online painting contest run by the Squidly Bits team, wrapped up its results in mid-March with a winners video that has since pulled over 40,000 views on the channel's 115,000-subscriber YouTube page.

The Squidly Bits channel posted the results video, titled "Squidmar Open 2026 – did we just beat another world record?", on March 10, with the announcement drawing 2,941 likes at the time of recording. The contest drew hundreds of entries spanning Warhammer miniatures, Sona figures, and other tabletop subjects, with the organising team describing themselves as "completely blown away by all the beautiful Warhammer, Sona and other miniatures that you guys have painted."

Sarah Teal claimed the Best of Standard category and its prize, a Harder & Steenbeck 2024 Evolution airbrush, along with what the hosts called "the bragging rights of best of standard 2026." Hendarion took Best Unit in the entire competition with an Aeldari elder unit, winning a Squidmar Mark2 Kolinsky brush set due out roughly a month from the announcement. The Best Single Miniature category also awarded a dragon as prize, though the transcript available from the winners video does not fully capture that winner's name.

The Masters Large category, the competition's most prestigious tier, distributed gold trophies to seven painters: Alexander Giles Santos, David Cowwell, Alena Vladimirova, Hidalgo Munoz, Ker Su, Liam Powell, and Reuben Martinez. Bronze and silver placements in that category were also awarded, though those names were not captured in the available video transcript.

The judging panel drew particular acknowledgment from the organisers, who stated in the video: "The judging for these parts have uh like the discussions have been very ongoing. And I don't think we would have been able to do this without our guest judges." Guest judges named on the video include Louise, Axel, Ian, Sabatel, Era, Borca, Roman, and Sweet Legends.

Sponsors Harder & Steenbeck and Phrozen were credited in the official video description, with prizes including the Squidmar Ultra Airbrush awarded in the Young Bloodoods category alongside Crric's win.

The Squidly Bits team closed the announcement with gratitude toward everyone who participated, calling it "a wonderful experience for all of us." The video title's question about beating a world record remains unanswered in the materials available, with no official confirmation of a specific record claim provided by the organisers at time of publication.