Competition rules and some additional
information
If you want to participate in the competition you
should mail me (to my home address) one mid-sized infantry FoW base (tile) with
a minimum of three WW2 model soldiers in scale 1/100 (15mm).
I’m aware that it’s not a popular method but the reasoning behind it is simple. If someone would do an average paintjob it’s easy to do a touchup of the pic with Photoshop and get a great result. If you have first grade photo equipment the base with the models will look fabulous. With an average camera and without the macro option the photos might end up grainy or blurry lessening the overall impression and downing your chance to win this competition.
Both the soldiers and bases need to be colored
and decorated. It doesn’t matter which period of the war you’re covering (EW,
MW or LW). The maker of the model isn’t important and it also doesn’t matter if
the soldier and the base aren’t the same brand. The base doesn’t need to be an
original Battle
front. Alongside the model please enclose a text about the coloring and one
photo of it made by you. You should also give me your address which will be
only used in case you end up being the winner, your information will not be
published anywhere or anytime. After the vote alongside the photo of your model
I’ll attach your photo, your text about the coloring and just a flag of the
country you come from. Please make sure you put a sticker with your name on it
onto the bottom of the base just to make sure we avoid any kind of mix-ups.
The competition is open from November 25th 2013
until January
25th 2014, all models that arrive during
that period are in. I’m sure that’s plenty of time.
After January 25th 2014
I’ll take all the bases to a professional photo studio for a photo session.
Each base will be treated the same, one photo from each side and one from the
top. After the session the photos will be put up on the blog named “Base 01” or
“Base 20”, depending on the amount of participants. There won’t be any info on
the makers of each base until the voting is over.
All participants have to vote using the system with 3, 2 and 1 so called big points.
You can’t vote for yourself, but you do have to give out points to all other
participants. The voting is open for everyone else, their votes are measured
also with 3, 2 and 1 point but their points don’t carry the same weight as the
ones given out by the participants. Those small points will matter only in
situations in which two or more contestants have the same amount of big points.
The voting will be open for two weeks.
The scoring should be based on the complete
impression of the bases with soldiers, mainly the coloring of the soldiers,
decoration of the base and the authenticity of the uniforms.
The winner will be the contestant with the
highest score. The winner will receive a prize to his or her home address, and
will need to give a short interview which will be published on the blog and in
PDF Magazine.
For you to consider sending in your work I have
to motivate you somehow :) The prize is supplied by a company named XY (I can’t
advertise anyone on the forum), and the value of the prize depends on the
amount of the participants. If there would be 10 applicants the prize will be
valued at 50€. The prize is a standard orange or blue FoW template with my logo
on it, plus a Range finder and 4 objectives, one MDF board FoW house. I’m still
on the hunt for sponsors so the prize can only get bigger and better. Some
companies don’t want to sponsor a small competition so everything is up to you.
All of the voters that aren’t participants,
after they’ve emailed their votes, will be put in a separate box. After the
competition is over and the winner is pronounced I’ll pull a lucky winner out
of the voter’s box and he or she’ll get a FoW template and two objectives.
The design of your base depends only on your
imagination. It doesn’t matter if you put a Russian commander, commissar, EW
soldier with a rifle in a summer uniform and a Siberian marksman in winter
apparel from the LW period. Half of the base could be spring grass and the
other half can be snow. The whole impression is what matters, and the name of
the base might be “Russian army 1941-45” so the diversity is justified. You
could decide to put 6 soldiers on the base, the bases don’t need to be designed
as if they were intended to be used to play FoW later on.
The use of readymade resin bases is not allowed.
Be imaginative and do your base design by yourself. Put a destroyed jeep,
motorcycle or a part of an airplane on your base… If you can pull of putting a
destroyed tank turret and 3 soldiers, excellent! Maybe you’d want to show a landing of
American soldiers from some kind of a transporter onto Normandy
beach with only the front part of the vehicle showing. Or maybe you’d put
German paratroopers getting off a transport plane on your base. I’d make a mini
diorama with 3 Japanese soldiers rushing an American Stuart…
It could be enough to send a base you made
earlier with colored soldiers you already used in FoW. There’s no need for you
to make something brand new for this competition. Even though there’s plenty of
time maybe you’re simply busy. If you wish to participate, and you’re pressed
for time, it’s definitely easier to send a base that has already been colored.
It’s all up to you.
I will not return the models after the competition.
They will stay with me decorating a shelf above my worktable.
Besides on the blog photos of your models will
be featured in the 4th edition of the PDF magazine “Tom’s Magazine”.
The photo of the wining base will be on the front page. As I mentioned earlier
the interview with the winner will also be published in the magazine.
I’ll search for participants on some 10 to 15
FoW forums. Some will receive e-mails, and I’ll contact some through their blogs…
There’s a flyer I’ll put up on forums followed by these rules. Please inform
your friends, acquaintances and fellow FoW players about the competition. The
prize depends on the amount of participants.
There’s no way for me to know if somebody is a
professional coloring expert, and that doesn’t really matter. It is one thing
to color a few models, and a completely another thing to make the soldiers and
the base into a whole so the winner can really be anyone. Maybe someone makes a
mini diorama depicting a fight of a couple of soldiers and amazes us all a lot
more than perfectly colored models stuck to a base.
I promise to do my best to attract as many
participants as possible. Ever y manufacturer of 15mm models will get a
sponsoring request from me, and I also plan on contacting several magazines and
stores.
What’s in it for me? A bit more interest for my
blog :), some fantastic bases for my exhibit as my kid would say, one more
topic for the blog, more sponsors and more visitors.
What’s in it for you? You get to fight for the
main prize worth not less than 50€, professional photos of your work published,
also the photo of your work paired with your personal photo :) The winner of
every competition gets a chance to win the prize of the year.
If this reaches you and you don’t want to
participate as a contestant but you could help as a sponsor please feel free to
e-mail me and we can make arrangements.
If I haven’t covered everything you’d like to
know send me an e-mail, and I’ll reply in my averagely bad English :)
Thank you all! Participate if you want, vote and
enjoy!
Tomislav