Contest: Spikey Bits Giveaway

Spikey Bits is having another giveaway tied to their followers!  Head over and check out the announcement for full details!  The drawing is being held August 25th, so you've got plenty of time to opt in!  I've also added this contest to the Contest Calendar!

Got a contest?  Maybe just a giveaway?  Need some exposure for it?  Send us a link at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com and we'll do what we can to help!

Contest: Horus Heresy Giveaway

Floor to Ceiling Books is giving away a full set of the currently released Horus Heresy series.  Head over and check out the contest.  If you haven't gotten into the series yet, this could be your way into the world of 30k.

Got a contest you're running?  A give-away?  Shoot us an email at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com! 

Texas Painting Masterclass by Mathieu Fontaine

I was lucky enough to have two classes at Adepticon with Mathieu Fontaine and now I'm lucky enough to drag him down to Texas to teach his two day Masterclass.

500 Scavenger Hunt Winner!

We've randomly selected the winner of our 500 Scavenger Hunt, and it just so happened to be the very first entry we received! Congratulations to Robert B. of Texas on his new High Elf Lord on Dragon!

Here is the list of answers for the clues:

1. Stone Walls Tutorial
2. Friday Quick Tip: Paper Tarps
3. How To: Simple Wet Palette
4. Friday Quick Tip: Perfecting Primer
5. Friday Quick Tip: Painting Battle Damage

To everyone who participated, I hope you had fun figuring it all out and maybe even found a few articles you might not have seen in the process! We'll definitely do this again for a future contest, maybe with more cryptic clues though!

On with the next 500 followers and the next few years of tips tricks and ideas for and from the community at large. Thanks to everyone who reads The Painting Corps, you're what keeps us going. Now, what to post for a Friday Quick Tip...?

Contest: 500 'Scavenger Hunt'

It's finally happened, The Painting Corps has hit 500+ followers!  It's been a fantastic journey to this point and the community response has been wonderful.  To thank everyone, we've decided to put on a little contest for our dedicated readers.  It's simple really, I've seeded a few select posts here on TPC and will give a clue to the posts they are contained in, you figure out the posts, send us an email naming each post title according to the clue list and we'll randomly select a winner from the pool of correct answers!

So the big question on everyone's mind "What's the Loot!?"  I dug through my backlog and found a suitably big prize for the contest, a Games Workshop High Elf Lord on Dragon!  The model is unpainted, on the sprue and in the box, though the shrink wrap has long been gone, the model is in perfect condition.

Rules are simple:  Find the posts seeded with the '500' image at the top of this post and send an email to ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com with the list of post titles in order of the clues provided (1, 2, 3 etc.) along with your name and address (for ease of shipping!).

I'll collect the emails as received and they will be assigned a number as I get each one.

At noon (EST) Friday of this week (June 18th, 2010) I will go to random.org and pick the winner who will be announced Saturday morning! 

The Clues:
1. If only the Union knew they were this easy to tackle.
2. Ronald never thought it would be used for that!
3. Hop in the Water's fine!
4. Chunky, Chalky and Fuzzy.
5. Where's the heck is the motor pool!?

One last 'Thank You!' to everyone who's been along for the ride.  If you're an old hat here or a fresh face, we hope you continue to enjoy the things we put out and the sense of community we've been working to build.  Now, get out there and hunt! 

Miniature Painting Master Class - California Bay Area

Those of you that were jealous of me heading up to Adepticon for some great painting seminars now get your chance for revenge: Mathieu Fontaine is hosting a Miniature Painting Master Class in the Bay Area July 10th and 11th.  Yes!  That's two days (over twenty intensive hours) taught by an award winning painter to a cozy class of twenty lucky students.

I took Mathieu's four hour class at Adepticon and those four hours were worth a year of my poking around and learning on my own.  I can't understate the benefit of actually receiving instruction at the same time you are painting and getting immediate feedback.

More information on the event and how to sign up can be found over at Mathieu's blog.

Dakka Painting Challenge: Nitty Gritty Armor

The latest DPC has drawn to a close and all of the entries are up for judging! Head over to the voting thread and check out the fantastic entries, and let your voice be heard!

A Years Worth of Tips

As of this past weekend, TPC has had the Friday Quick Tip running for an entire year, without interruption! I don't have to tell you how rough it can be to come up with a tip to post every single week of the year. There are a lot of late nights and hectic tip brainstorming days, even a few weeks where we were well planned out and ahead!

In the end it's extremely satisfying to have such a well of tips for the community to draw from and to help guide new and old painters alike to new techniques and methods.

And as cliche as it sounds, this wouldn't be possible without you, the reader. You guys are the driving force behind it all. With the great ideas and questions you submit to us at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com, to your insight in Ask the Corps, it's all about building community and putting out the best and most in depth information we can.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported what we're trying to do here on TPC. And to all the Corpsmen (and women!) out there, followers or not, thank you for reading.

A New Feature - Contest Calendar

Some of you might have noticed in the right column on the site, but I've created a Google Calendar for TPC purely to catalog painting contests/events and give a heads up to our readers on upcoming deadlines.

This is my call to the community, if you know of a contest, read about one, or have one that you will be running in the future, let us know at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com! Link us the info and we'll add it!

Be sure to check back often on the calendar posted here for new additions!

The functionality of the calendar heads up isn't up to snuff just yet (you need to open the links in a new window or tab), but it's doing it's job well enough to keep people informed! Though if anyone knows how to fix that, I'd also love to hear from you!!

A New Endeavor

I've been knocking the idea of doing a companion site to TPC around for a while now, and I've finally gotten around to setting it up and giving it an official start up. It's not much to look at just yet, but trust me, with as much as I post around the web in the forums, I expect it to quickly fill up with a lot of different projects.

So join me over on the new site Reinforcements, and let's continue the conversation!

New Addition

If you all haven't seen yet, there is a new addition to the team here on TPC, LBursley! His recruitment comes on the heels of some really great articles, tutorials, and tips as well as a really easy to follow blog over on DakkaDakka.com. His dedication to showing and helping people learn what he has has been a great inspiration to a lot of people around the Dakka community, even myself!

One of the biggest things he's bringing to the community is a penchant for using video to help give a better understanding for techniques. With his recent acquisition of some serious HD gear, he's started putting together some of the best looking videos I've seen on the web for modeling. And with that I give you the first, in what promises to be a fantastic line, of his HD modeling and painting videos.



Be sure you watch the video in full screen HD! You won't regret it! Take notice of the brush control and variety of techniques. While none of them are ground breaking or even all that advanced, the use of each is spot on.

So help me in welcoming LBursley to the TPC fold, and let him know what you think of the video!

BoLS Hobby Challenge: IG Command Squad

Just a reminder for all the Guard painters out there: Bell of Lost Souls is concluding their Imperial Guard Command Squad Challenge this Friday the 26th.

Rules are on BoLS, but basically you just need to construct and paint a squad from one (or both) of the new plastic Command Squad boxed sets and send in a photo.

The prize is a Valkyrie, so don't forget to enter and possibly win a nice transport for your squad.

I'm almost done with my mine; who else is entering the challenge?

Got a question?

As always, we're always up for hearing from the community. After our fantastic response from the community for the last Ask the Corps, the format has opened up the floor to all sorts of questions. If you have a question you'd like to see the community here on The Painting Corps tackle, we'd love to hear it! Send your questions to ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com. We'll pick the best and post them periodically for all the Corpsmen to tackle.

Get those questions in, and lets learn some things together!

Dakka Tutorial Challenge - The Winner Is...

DakkaDakka.com has chosen the winner for the Dakka Tutorial Challenge! Head over and check out the winning tutorial!

And if you haven't been to Dakka's new tutorial section, be sure you head over there and see what has been going on there. Some really cool ideas being shared that side of the web. You might even see a few tips you recognize!

Dakka Tutorial Challenge - Voting

Hey all, I just wanted to to direct your attention to DakkaDakka's latest contest that has just wrapped up, called "Get Your Teach On!". It was a drive to get the new 'Painting and Modeling Tutorials' section beefed up, and boy did it ever work! There are 46 completely new tutorials over that way from sculpting to some serious freehand. Go check out the new section and be sure to drop by the voting thread and let your voice be heard!

'Take Cover!' Painting Contest Results!

The contest is over, the entries have been submitted and the scores have been handed down. While we only received three entries, each was well planned and executed! The prizes they'll receive are well deserved. Thanks to the participants and again a big thank you to THQ for a great opportunity!

So enough jibber jabber! On with the results!

First Place: Jakub Kasperczyk

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Second Place: Mike Howell

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Third Place: Peter Yaskowski

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So let's hear it for them folks! A great first showing for our first painting contest!

'Take Cover!' Painting Contest Reminder

We're quickly coming up on the deadline for our Dawn of War II Painting Contest 'Take Cover!'. Just a reminder that all entries are due in by March 20th at Midnight Central Standard Time (GMT -6)!

So put those finishing touches on, get your photos and send your entry in to ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com!

For more information on the contest rules and prizes, check out the original announcement.

'TAKE COVER!' A DoW2 Painting Contest

Today we are forgoing our normally scheduled Quick Tip to bring you something a bit more exciting, our very first Painting Competition, sponsored with prize support by the fine folks over at THQ!


The contest is simple, model and paint a Blood Raven Space Marine using cover in battle! You will have one month from today to turn in both a WIP photo as well as a final contest entry photo of your mini. Once the month is up, we will gather up all entries and the winners will be selected by a panel of judges. Prizes will be handed out to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Prizes

First Place receives a T-shirt, Body Warmer, Dog Tag, Rucksack, and a Battlegear Keyring

Second Place receives a Tote Bag, T-shirt, Battlegear Pin, and a Cap

Third Place will recieve a Dog Tag and Bodywarmer

The Rules

• Model and Paint a Blood Raven Space Marine using cover in combat.
  
• Entries must be a SINGLE Games-Workshop Space Marine on a 40mm or smaller base. Models may be any type of marine but painted in the the chapter colors of the Blood Ravens Space Marine Chapter.
  
• Take a photo of the model in progress to be sent along with your final entry.
• Send all final entries to ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com with the heading 'Take Cover!', please include your name and address in the email.
• All entries must be received by March 20th at 11:59pm Central Standard Time (GMT-6)
• Entries will be displayed and voting by the judges will commence.
  
• When all votes from the judges are in, the winners will be announced and prizes will be sent out!
  

So break out the bits box and start modeling those marines shooting from behind a ruins, sniping from the bushes, or leaping from a hiding spot to assault the enemy! The possibilities are only restricted by the depths of your imagination! And for some additional inspiration, check out the recently released Dawn of War 2!

Ask The Corps

After some thought and consideration, we've decided to run with an idea pitched a while back where we would take submissions from the community in the form of pictures and questions, then give our two cents on the subject matter by way of experience or more formal reading material we've found through our years on the web.

The idea is to have folks send in a photo of their mini along with questions concerning specific things they might be able to do better but aren't quite sure how to go about it.

We obviously aren't going to be able to get to EVERY question and photo we receive, but we'll try our hardest to put like photos and questions together.

This is also not going to be a weekly segment, but you could very well expect to see about 1 to 2 of these 'Ask The Corps' segments every month. This will give us time to add remarks and do appropriate referencing for more in depth reading. Some posts will have remarks from all of us here at the Corps and some will only have a few, and hopefully any missing remarks will be fleshed out in the comments section by the member of the Corps that wasn't able to get their thoughts in before the post goes up.

This endeavor is completely community driven though! So we're going to need your help! If you've got a burning question about a model you've worked on, send it in with some photos of the model in question! More specific questions are welcome, but if you just have a general 'How would I paint this better?' that's fine too, we'll focus in on a specific major area of improvement.


So where do you send all of these wonderful questions and photos? Why to ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com!

Dakka Painting Challenge - Bump in the Night

It's that time again! I know it's a bit sooner than usual, but we moved it up to coincide with the Halloween season! Be sure to check out all of the details and get in on the fun!