Dread Knight Counts-as

Up this week are a few Dread Knight Counts-as models that I built up with dynamic poses and on scenic bases for Next Level Painting. Ken over there then painted them up with some amazing colors to go with his latest project. Here are the pictures of the finished ones I built up.

Refining a tournament: Painting Scores

   The independent tournament scene contains many variations on to how their ideas of a competitive environment should be. Now for soft scores, one of the more common issues I have heard from players has always been "why did I get this paint score?" and "how did that guy get that score?" It is an all too familiar discussion after a tournament between the organizers and the players. One idea that has helped ease those discussions has been the establishment of a painting rhubric for the players. This itemized list showed in order to maximize their painting scores, they had to meet certain criteria outlined in the rhubric. Now while this effectively makes painting scores anywhere from 80-90% objective, it leaves the remainder subjective and that can lend to discussions still.

   No matter what organizers will claim, every paint judge has a bias on what makes an army look good. Some judges abhor the use of airbrushes and have given lower scores if they know the army is airbrushed. Other judges put more weight on conversions and will score an army higher on that. This is based on personal knowledge, and talking to judges who scored GTs and local tournaments. For some players those bias and preferences can change the outcome of an award or overall standing.

     Time for a painting score game-change

  One possible solution is to adopt a policy that was used in the London 2012 Olympics. Any army that is fully painted recieves 10 points. An army that is based recieves another 5 points and finally if the models are fully WYSIWYG then add in 5 points. This gives 20 points to the player and is easily attainable for simply painting and basing your army and making it fully represented. This also cuts down the need to go through 5-10 min of reviewing a scoring rhubric for judges and allows speed of judging.

 Next, have 4-5 judges score painting on a scale of 1-10 on how they think the army looks in their own opinion.  Once they are finished scoring, have the top score and the bottom score discarded. This leaves the middle scores and they can then be combined. The plus side to this idea is that you can discard the scores of judges who are generous with their painting scores or judges who may harbor some prejudice towards a painting style.

  Another idea can be utilized if there are less than 4 judges and have the scores averaged. If there are some decimal points after the averaging, just round up to the nearest whole number. This may require a bit of math on the organizing side.

    This solution does not eliminate subjectivity but helps migate an excessive high or low score due to that subjectivity and with painting scores it is in they eye of the beholder. Note that this idea works best in a GT environment and does not translate well in the RTT environment. I will be writing about my ideas for an RTT environment in future installments.

Star Wars Celeberation VI

I just finished organizing all the photos I took at Star Wars Celebration VI that was held in Orlando this year. Next year Celebration VII is going to be in Germany. I had a great time and loved the merchandising. Here are some of the pics during the course of the weekend. People from all walks of life came to the convention and it was great seeing some of the cosplays. There was even a sighting of klingons and several trekkies at Celebration.

 Slave Leias :D

 Bender

 Random Sith warriors and Jedi.

 Mark Hamill's panel. He did his joker voice and hes damn good.

 Little kid taking on the Fett and Darth Maul

 George Lucas made a surprise visit to the super secret panel with Seth Green.

 Some writers from robot chicken and venture bros will be writing for Star Wars Detours

 Met the UCF Stormtrooper.

 Me posing with an asshole.

 Me having my balls squashed by the Shwartz.

 Gunning down a wampa as we escape echo base.

Those elusive Klingons with a starfleet chic.

DOOM!!! Ultra-Violent!!!

Today I want to share with you one of my greatest works with conversions. This is a project I helped my brother Ken with over at Next Level Painting. I had the luck and privilege to convert a Chaos Demon army to look and feel like the Demons from the amazing FPS DOOM. This article will be long and pic heavy, but I hope you will enjoy it

Penitent Dread Knight Complete

Here are the finished Pictures of the Penitent Dread Knight.

2k Grey Knight Army on eBay

I thought I would post the pics of my Grey Knight army that I am selling on eBay. This army did me well. I built it for Genghis Con in Denver earlier this year and won the event with a field of over 60 players with no practice using the army before hand. Since then I have played it 4 times, all against Ken at Next Level Painting to play test 6th and went 2-2. The army is the classic Paladin Star list and is every bit as lethal in 6th as it was in 5th. I never intended to keep it. It was always meant to be sold after Genghis Con. so now it is on eBay: Grey Knights on eBay

In addition to being the army I used to reclaim my title at Genghis Con, the army was also a test for my new airbrush. I used the hairspray/salt technique to weather the army, and the blue color was chosen as the best contrast to the rust. 

More pics bellow.

Penitent Dread Knight

Here are some pics of a commission I am currently working on, a kneeling Dread Knight. This model has a lot of work put into it with cutting, reposing, and green stuff.

The model is almost done. Just needs to have some of the green stuff work cleaned up.