PRIZE GAME - Mail for participants

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You should also give me your address which will be only used in case you end up being the winner, your information will not be published anywhere or anytime.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 25^th 2013 until January 25^th 2014, all models that arrive during that period are in. I’m sure that’s plenty of time.

 After January 25^th 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 4^th 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