Thursday 17 December 2015

Painting Challenge Q & A


I've had a few questions regarding several aspects of the Challenge, so I thought it may be helpful if I did a little Q&A for the benefit of all the participants. If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to comment or send me an email.


Q: 'How do I submit my entries? Or, Gee whiz Curt, I liked it better when I could just email them to you to take care of.'
A: Back in the early years of the Challenge (I make it sound like the Tour de France or something) the lower number of participants allowed me the time to receive each entry and post them, one-by-one, to the blog. Now, with more people participating (which I'm always delighted to see), I found it necessary to streamline the process, and have the participants submit their own entries to the blog in draft form. This makes the Challenge much easier to administrate, thereby allowing more people to participate and a bit less midnight oil being burned in my household. :)
With this process, each participant will be provided 'author' access to the Challenge Blog. (In fact those who participated last year will find that they still have access to the blog and so will not require a 'new' invitation from me.) During the next three months, once you have finished an entry and photographed it, you can log into the blog, write-up your description, upload your (resized) photos and send a notification to your Adjudicator that your draft is ready to reviewed, scored and officially published to the blog. Again, I remind all participants, please do not click the 'Publish' button and post your entries live to the blog. Let the Adjudicators take care of that for you.
I will be sending out the invitations for 'author' access within the next day or so. 

Q: 'How literal are you regarding the Theme Bonus rounds?'
A: I want the theme rounds to be as fun as possible, so I've always allowed participants to exercise a great degree of imagination in how they interpret them (A certain Blue Spider from a previous year comes to mind, ahem.). For example, this year we have a theme 'Defensive Terrain' for which I've received a lot of inquiries. Well, this theme originated from a perennial request to allow terrain entries in the main Challenge. While I would love to accommodate this, I've always been reticent as I know terrain entries would be very difficult and time-consuming to score fairly. Anyway, 'Defensive Terrain' can be any terrain feature you can dream up that is defensive in nature. For example it could be a Hittite war wagon, a humble infantryman in a foxhole or a log blockhouse from the French & Indian Wars. I leave it to your imagination.

Q: 'For the 'Nostalgia' theme it seems pretty darn subjective. Depending on the person it could really be anything.'
A: Precisely. Again, I leave it to your interpretation. I only ask that you explain why your entry makes you feel nostalgic or represents a type of nostalgia. 

Q: For the 'Nautical' theme, can I use models that are smaller than the usual 15mm limitation?
A: Yes, but if you want to submit something smaller than 1/600 it will need to be more than one model (i.e. two 1/1200 scale Napoleonic ships, three 1/2400 Dreadnaughts, something like that.)
  
Q: 'I know we each have a specific day assigned for our submissions, but I wonder if we will have like other years, where the first two weeks and the last week of the Challenge be wide open for anyone to submit on any day? 
A: Yes! Sorry, I forgot to put that in the participant package. Starting on the 20th of December and running to the 3rd of January everyone can make submissions on any day of the week. Also, running in to the close of the Challenge, from the 13th of March to the 20th, participants can submit to their hearts content.

Q: Why does Miles insist on trying to submit 'wargaming furniture'? Why does Tamsin feel the need to complete entire space fleets/armies/etc.? How many freakin' Nine Years War units can Ray possibly collect? Why do people insist on giving Curt Bob Dylan figures?
A: Lord only knows, Virginia I suggest you do as I do, nod, smile indulgently and don't make any quick movements...



39 comments:

  1. Nine Years War figures???? Me? Never?? But...........

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  2. And can Evan actually come within a bull's roar of his ambitious target of 200 points...?

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    1. Your progress will be closely watched (and commented upon), Mr. Hughes...

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  3. Seriously that terrain one threw me for a loop. Durring the "Rapid Fire at will" period do we submit items to you or our sargent... err "Adjudicator"

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    1. Good point. As per the instruction package, I will be taking care of those weeks.

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  4. "Why does Tamsin feel the need to complete entire space fleets/armies/etc.?"

    Hey, Virginia, that's me and I have no idea either! ;)

    As for your question about Ray and his 9YW collection, I believe that when he runs out of regiments to paint he will be adding figures to expand them all until they finally get to one figure = 1 man; what he'll do when that happens is anybodies' guess :p

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    1. probably move onto home guard units or training units regiments that never made it into the war itself?

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    2. Or, heaven forbid, do it all again in another scale!

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    3. Some good ideas chaps....thanks!

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    4. @Curt You mean like greyscale?

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    5. Ray will add extra sandbag terrain works to each base...

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  5. Curt, is there any reason the "About..." and "Past..." links up at the top are broken? ;)

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    1. Actually they're not broken, I've just been negligent in populating them. :(

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  6. Thank you for some answers.

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    1. I think I see Ikea getting a call regarding "Defensive Terrain!"

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/history-saxons-viking-raiders-self_assembly-flat_pack_furniture-ksmn1498_low.jpg

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  7. Had a big laugh about this thanks!

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  8. Happy with submitting general entires to my designated overlord, Tamsin, but did we submit bonus round entries to your good self for a big reveal?

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    1. Yes indeed, I remain the Theme Rounds' 'Big-Reveal-Miester'. :)

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  9. Well I, for one, welcome my new overlord. Long live Tamsin!

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  10. I'm interested in seeing what people come up with for L'amour. It seems to imply romantic love as you've chosen the French for love. How about other kinds of love? The love of a soldier for his comrades or for his nation. Or even the humble love for a rasher of bacon?

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    1. Now you're talkin', Anne. A little out of the trapezoid thinking there. Excellent!

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    2. Ya, I was in a dodecahedron solid kind of place so naturally that brought forms of platonic love to mind:0)

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    3. A pair of Thebans from the Sacred Band... Thanks, Anne!!!

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  11. We have established that furniture is legal providing it has lasers of the "immenent death" variety installed next to the controls for brewing a really good cup of coffee. If it is merely a range finding laser, then it is just not good enough for mad-evil-genius. Also soft woods like pine just lacks flair. Some mahogany or popular heartwood just looks better....

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  12. You forgot "Why does DaveD smell like bleach?" :-)

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  13. I can't help but think that cartoon is a reference to me. Yes it's true I did delay going back to work after a long lay off till after one challenge finished and also was made redundant during last years LOL but I am trying to stay employed through the whole challenge this year :-)

    Ian

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  14. First comment on this part of the challenge. It looks like this is going to be fun. Do like the cartoon and rather glad the Curt is not the only one to put stuff online. Hmm there lies madness, much like painting buttons on 15mm Naps.

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  15. I beg your pardon, but would like to understand: message threads bonus spread as well as normal?

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    1. Hmm, sorry Alex, I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you please rephrase it?

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    2. How do I write a message in the bonus theme?

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    3. A message in someone else's entry or your own entry? If it is in someone else's entry then you just use the normal comment feature. Ahh, if you're talking about entering a submission to the bonus theme page then the answer is that I take everyone's submissions and post them to the Bonus page myself. That way I have better control of the composition and roll-out of the Bonus Rounds.

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    4. Thank you, Curt. Very well, the main thing in the Challenge - a photograph, because my English but I understand.

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  16. Geez...the amount of time I've spent trying to find figures I can convert into Bob Dylan...

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