Space Marine Paint Scheme Competition [RULES]

[Hive Lord]

A steady hand and a fine-tipped paintbrush can only take you so far; regardless of skill, without a good colour scheme, your model's going to look like it's just survived an attack from a horde of paint-daemons.
So, now's your chance to show your talent for picking out a clever palette and designing a colour scheme for the age-old poster child of Games Workshop, the Space Marine. It's a level playing field, so anyone can win this!

To enter, you need to use the Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine Painter.

This contest has proved to be a firm favourite amongst members and has consistently been the most popular in terms of entry numbers - so make sure your scheme stands out from the crowd!

Dates:

• Entries can be submitted via a PM to Thantos from September 1^st 'til September 21^st.
• Voting will take place between September 22^nd and September 29^th.
• Winners will be announced on the 30^th of September.

Prizes:

1st Place - 10pts
2nd Place - 5pts
3rd Place - 2pts

(The top 3 all receive official 2S winners seals as well).


Rules:

• An entry consists of an image of single Space Marine from the B&C Space Marine Painter
• The image must be unedited
• Image must be 400x500 (The size produced by the online painter)

A full list of competition rules can be found here

[Unholy Harbinger]

Can we use the earlier V5 version if we wish?

[Colonel Seth]

Can we use the earlier V5 version if we wish?

Yeah, the V9 one is pretty poor as it lacks all of the wargear and details.

[Wargamer]

However, that does raise other issues; you get people dumping Power weapons and cloaks and jetpacks onto the model, none of which are at all appropriate when the compeition is a paint scheme, not an "awesome picture".

Using V9 means the Marine is judged purely on the colour scheme.

[Anubis]

Can we not also use a picture of a painted marine? I'm not getting my scheme right on this painter thing but could easily post a picture of a tactical marine in my scheme or something.

[Colonel Seth]

However, that does raise other issues; you get people dumping Power weapons and cloaks and jetpacks onto the model, none of which are at all appropriate when the compeition is a paint scheme, not an "awesome picture".

Using V9 means the Marine is judged purely on the colour scheme.

I just submitted a V5 image with no issue. I do agree with Wargamer here, however, and I hope people don't get carried away with the upgrades. I just wanted it because it had some aesthetic options I needed, I didn't need a bunch of weapons.

[Rej]

Can we not also use a picture of a painted marine? I'm not getting my scheme right on this painter thing but could easily post a picture of a tactical marine in my scheme or something.

I don't think so, the idea is to create a level playing field, if actually painted mini's are entered then the quality and skill of the painter is also apparent, therefore effecting the outcome and things won't be based solely on the paint scheme anymore.

There will be plenty of chances for you to enter your actual mini's in other competitions though.


My entry has been sent using the V9 provided, I think keeping everything as level and fair as possible is a good idea.

[Anubis]

I'll see what I can work out then. I guess I could always load up pics of my minis into photoshop to get the exact colour codes rather that approximate. That way I could get a good representation of my colour scheme.

[Hive Lord]

We'd like a level playing field as much as possible - I'm not sure what the differences are between the V5 and V9, and I think it's best if only V9 is used - or V5 if there are no obvious additions that are not possible in the new version.

[Colonel Seth]

V5 maintains wargear options, whereas V9 is a beta to the best of my knowledge and just makes selecting colours a bit more intuitive as well as adding preset GW colours. It lacks the wargear, though. Now most of the wargear is pretty unnecessary to pull off a scheme, such as various weapons, but things like details to the armour, different markings, or robes, or so on can be very important.

[Wargamer]

Things that V5 can do that V9 cannot;

• Mk VI armour elements
• Honour Markings
• Weapons
• Grenades
• Pouches
• Robes / Tabards
• Purity Seals
• Grime

Things V9 can do that V5 cannot;

• Better half / quartered colour schemes
• "GW matched" colours

V5 maintains wargear options, whereas V9 is a beta to the best of my knowledge and just makes selecting colours a bit more intuitive as well as adding preset GW colours. It lacks the wargear, though. Now most of the wargear is pretty unnecessary to pull off a scheme, such as various weapons, but things like details to the armour, different markings, or robes, or so on can be very important.

I'd disagree. Robes make a visual distinction, and change the overall feel of the model. It's rather like putting in a Sternguard model over a Tactical Marine; even if both have the same colour scheme and are painted to the same quality, the Sternguard will look better.

[Thantos]

It seems that both V5 and V9 have their own benefits (halved and quartered scheme+colourmatches vrs wargear options).
Im inclined to suggest that folks use whichever version they prefer as the differences are minor. If you want your marine to have a BP and CC wep rather than a bolter then i cant see the harm in freedom of customisation.

If anyone believes that some entries having more purity seals than others is a bad thing, speak now

For the record; we used V5 last year with no problems and a nice variety of entries. 

[Wargamer]

"nice"? Some of the highest scoring ones were also stupidly cluttered (One seemed to have every upgrade bar the tabards put on it...).

Also, none of the naked paint schemes (ie: no upgrades) even came close to winning.

The top five schemes included:

1: Missing Backpack, Chainsword, Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenades, Two Purity Seals, Bionic Eye, Aquila, two Squad Markers, Chapter Symbol, Squad Symbol [12 non-standard parts!] Came joint first.
2: Beaky helm, bionic eye, power sword, bolt pistol, cape, frag & krak grenades, Aquila chestplate, two Squad Symbols, helmet stripe. [11 non-standard parts] Came joint first.
3: Jetpack & Harness, Robes, Tabard, Cloak, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon, Chapter Symbol, two Squad markers Squad Symbol, Helmet Stripe [12 non-standard parts] Came second.
4: Missing Backpack, Bolter, Cloak, squad symbol, squad marker [5 non-standard parts] Came joint third.
5: Four pouches, squad symbol, chapter symbol, purity seal, plasma pistol, power weapon, Mk VI greaves [10 non-standard parts]. Came joint third.

Four out of five have their 'extras' in double digits.

[kingofmonkeys]

hmm the army painter has not options for what I had in mind to bad it would have looked epic... Back to the drawing board.

[Thantos]

They cant have been thaaaat stupidly cluttered if they won the top 5 places - must have looked good on some level to gain top votes.
I take your point that its a colour scheme design competition and fancy upgrades somewhat detract from this.

Competition HQ shall debate the matter and get a unified response on this shortly, never fear.
Perhaps limiting customisation such as "your entry must be armed with a bolter or BP + CC wep" for example, rather than axing all pretty upgrades all together. - As KoM just posted - the version 5 lacks the options to create what he desired to enter.

There is a happy medium to be found, im sure.

[Wargamer]

Actually, I have the same problem; I currently have two colour schemes I'm thinking of using, and both look sloppy under V5 due to using Half / Quarter colour schemes. V9 does these colour schemes perfectly, allowing for total freedom of how the colour is applied; for example, you could have four different colours in each quarter, whereas in V5 it just covers half the marine with no way to alter it.

I can give a good example with pictures... here's a Howling Griffon Marine


Notice the model on the V9 (left) has the 'soft armour' colour on both backpack joints. Note also how I was able to reverse the helmet colours.

On V5, the left half of the Marine is a solid block of colour from backpack to abdomen. I reversed the arm colours just to show you CAN change those, but the fact is for this kind of scheme V5 is much more limiting.

So, anyone picking a Halved / Quartered or "Really, really fancy" colour scheme is being penalised if you allow free reign of wargear from V5... purely because Marines always look better with wargear than that stock pose.

[Restayvien]

I'll probably enter this, but I'll wait to see what version we can use first.

[Dangerman]

I've done a theme on both versions just to be sure.

I see the debate of the V5 vs V9 dependent on what is the actual point of this comp. If it is purely based on the scheme then V9 should be used. But if it is on the Scheme and "Feel" then V5 should be used.
V9 steralises the comp to a scheme only comp, whereas the V5 theme adds in attitude of the model too.

Once the final call is made I'll submit the proper version theme. 

[Anubis]

Can you change the colour of the face mask part of the helmet without changing the main part of the helmet?If not then I can't do my colour scheme on this, thus the competition is not a level playing field as previously claimed. If I cannot actually put my scheme onto this editor can I request to send in pics of an actual painted marine... it will be a basic marine at tabletop standard, so people can just look at the scheme itself. I don't see how that makes it unfair on anyone else if it is made clear that people should not be judging actual painting standards themselves.

[Wargamer]

Can you change the colour of the face mask part of the helmet without changing the main part of the helmet?If not then I can't do my colour scheme on this, thus the competition is not a level playing field as previously claimed. If I cannot actually put my scheme onto this editor can I request to send in pics of an actual painted marine... it will be a basic marine at tabletop standard, so people can just look at the scheme itself. I don't see how that makes it unfair on anyone else if it is made clear that people should not be judging actual painting standards themselves.

You can do this in both, but V9 allows far more customisation (you can add distinct colours to both halves of the faceplate, for example)