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I just wanted to toss up a quick thread to get some time in on the vote, will get more in depth later.

After many years of running the challenge, Paradigm is stepping down from running it. I’ll be taking over running it, and hopefully we can keep the tradition going.

Last year there was a bit of a rebellion and pushback vs. the traditional March “Space Marine” theme. So quick poll to decide if we want to run with that moving forward, or do an open poll. Or a compromise, where SM is always an option in the poll (Which, to be honest, will happen at least this year if we go to a poll)

While we are talking about changes is there anything else? I don’t want to fix things that aren’t broken, but do we want to revisit the 5 model limit, 6 pictures, or other aspects?

I quite like the idea of a set "start" to the year. I mean I've just finished my current SM project, but that's neither here nor there other things seem good to me.

I think even the space marine theme permits enough flexibility for basically any kind of sci fi models, so I think it’s good. Similarly, the model count does t prevent people from painting more, just need a choice at the end of the month of you’ve been particularly prolific

Thanks for picking g up the reins! Onward to glory! Or at least minor bragging rights!

As much as I gripe about Astartes, I'm actually okay with the Space Marines.

I like that it's a long-standing tradition and that Cap'n Brown & I can playfully enter Eldar as "protest" entries

Thanks, Nevelon, for stepping up and taking on this task.

Re: the poll: if we are keeping the March Is For Space Marines theme, it should just be Space Marines. Space Marines+some theme would be a little too limiting for us Marine non-enthusiasts.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Thanks, Nevelon, for stepping up and taking on this task.

Re: the poll: if we are keeping the March Is For Space Marines theme, it should just be Space Marines. Space Marines+some theme would be a little too limiting for us Marine non-enthusiasts.

If we stick with marines, it will be the same as before.

It will not be a subgroup, or restricted poll. When I say weighted poll, I just mean that one of the options for March will always be space marines. If the poll looks something like:

A - Space Marines
B - Fluffy things
C - Murderbots
D - Stabbings

And “fluffy things” wins the poll, you do not need to paint a fluffy space marine. You still can, as the Rabbit Legion fits in the venn diagram, but it’s not required.

I like having certain months set, I don't have to think to hard about what to do for each one e.g. Space Marine, Halloween theme in Oct, Open for Dec.

Space marine is pretty open, doesn't have to be GW, just generally a Sci Fi solder, if your aim for that month is to get through a unit of Fantasy lizardman that's probably too much of a stretch. You could put some armour on them give them guns and call them Loxatl from the Gaunts Ghost book Salvations reach (and others references to them)
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Loxatl

I did put a grot in a Space marine suit one year

 Nevelon wrote:


And “fluffy things” wins the poll, you do not need to paint a fluffy space marine. You still can, as the Rabbit Legion fits in the venn diagram, but it’s not required.

Ouch! My eyes!

That gif needs to come with an epilepsy warning...

I'm of the opinion that the space marine month should stay. As others have said, it doesn't have to only apply to astartes, there are plenty of interpretations that allow for other subjects to be painted. And I'm guessing that the majority of people on here, myself included, have at least a small force of GW's posterboys they can use as competition fodder for the month.

Personally, I don't really see the issue with having a few 'set months' during the year for certain subject matter (or for anything you like in the open round). If anything, it helps me keep track of projects and gives me a break from painting the same stuff over and over. I do paint a lot of eldar, after all.

Though... could eldar corsairs be considered space marines? They're armsmen on space ships, after all...

I would absolutely love to participate in a Fluffy Space Marine comp.

Totally going to make a fluffy stabby murderbot (chaos) marine (but not for the contest, I have an idea already).

Nevelon wrote:Last year there was a bit of a rebellion and pushback vs. the traditional March “Space Marine” theme. So quick poll to decide if we want to run with that moving forward, or do an open poll. Or a compromise, where SM is always an option in the poll (Which, to be honest, will happen at least this year if we go to a poll)

Vive la révolution.

We all just tease about this one, for those of us who have no Marines. Keeping Marine March just makes it easier for the organizer to start without a poll, the same for the other scheduled themes.

KidCthulhu wrote:I like that it's a long-standing tradition and that Cap'n Brown & I can playfully enter Eldar as "protest" entries

I will try findings something pointy eared again this year.

Do you hear the miniaturists sing?
Singing the song of angry painters?
It is the music of the people
Who will not paint marines again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is art about to start
When tomorrow comes!

CB

I voted to stay the course too. It's nice to have a month off each year!

Keep the Space Marine theme going for March, I say. Of course, I'm biased as I'll probably always have some Marines around to paint! Thousands of points of Dark Angels aren't going to paint themselves after all...

As the reins have been passed, might it be an idea to start a Para appreciation thread to thank him for all his hard work over the years? I for one would like to show my appreciation somehow...

And, of course, big thanks to Nevelon for taking over!

OK, it’s the weekend, I have my coffee, time to ramble.

Looks like keeping things the way they are has a comfortable margin, even if we combine both the "switch to poll" options. So we’ll stick with “Space Marine" next month.

I want to echo what everyone else is saying, by extending a heartfelt thanks to Para for running this all these years. I’ve subbed in before to help, so know what’s involved in keeping this thing running, and it’s not a trivial job. But it is an important one. We’ve built a community, helping each other grow as painters and hobbyists. Supported, encouraged, pushed, and critiqued our fellows, regardless of skill or experience. From top-level painters to people picking up the brush for the first time, we are all here together helping. And all due to you putting in the work to maintain and run the competition here. So again, Thank You to Paradigm for the years of effort and hard work. Big shoes to fill, hopefully we can keep things moving in the direction you’ve shown us.

--

So a little insight into the behind the scenes of what goes on.

Setting up the new competition thread is mostly copy/paste work. Goes up on the first of the month. Grab the boilerplate of rules from the prior month (edit if there are any exceptions like upping the model count for the month). Change the start/end date. Copy the fluff blurb from the poll thread, maybe pad it out a little. Proofread for errors, miss them anyway, create post.
Question:
In the past we’ve edited the start thread with a list of entrants and their proof pictures. I think I skipped this a few times when I was subbing, as it’s a lot of work. Do people enjoy this? Is it useful?

Running the competition Is mostly just saying “yes” to people. The whole point is encourage, not restrict. And it’s not like we have WAAC tryhards trying to break the system to win. If you think it fits the theme, it’s probably close enough. If not, people might just not vote for you. Is it OK that you are painting something that you already had one color on the gun in addition to the basecoat? Yes. It’s not like you are entering fully painted models you spent months on, just to try for the podium. You forgot to grab a proof pic? I trust you. Proofs, IMHO, are partially a formality for the “start to finish in a month” format. I like them as they help others decide what to paint, and sometimes we get little mini-sub comps as people paint similar/the same things.

While the answers are normally pretty simple, running the comp does mean keeping an eye on it. I pretty much always have a Dakka tab open, so not a huge deal for me, but it is a commitment. When maintaining a list of entries there is more work, as we also need to keep track of updating the first thread whenever a new person tosses their hat into the ring or changes their entry. That’s a bit more work, and normally done 3-4 times over the month. This can save some time from the final work, but not a huge amount.

Close to the end of the month need to remind people of the deadline, source ideas for the next month, and extend the time if needed.

I’ve not done the topic polls yet. Those need to go up about a week before the new month so they can run for a couple days and give people time to source minis. At the start I think we tried to have the different options fit into classes, but that got dropped somewhere along the way. A quarter of the comps are fixed (SM, Spooky, Open) but the rest need options. One is the second place choice from the prior month. The others are crowdsourced/divined/pulled from the aether.

Once the comp is closed, the bulk of the work happens (while also starting the new month). If maintaining the first post with a list of entrants, you need to add all the last minute additions. This list can form the core of the vote thread. This is not perfect, as you still need to edit out all the proof pics, and trim the people who entered, but didn’t finish.
For the vote thread we need to get all the links for the final pics from the last entry of the participant. With people posting links, this is pretty easy. I hit quote on their last post copy/paste (into a Word doc as a WIP) grab the links (and also the correct spelling of their username). For people who embed/attach images, it’s a little more work. Need to click into each pic, right click to grab the URL, paste, and add img tags. For each pic. I generally start at the end of the thread and work back. To make sure I didn’t miss anyone, I go back over the thread from the start, and click “filter thread” on anyone who posted an entry who didn’t do a final pic.
Next is to make sure everyone has a name for their entry. Some people title their own, or it’s obvious. I’ve got to guess on others. Collectively, we have a diverse selection of things moving across our workbenches, and I’m not familiar with them all.
At this point we are ready to create the poll thread (after probably 2-4 hours of sifting through threads and markup codes, and probably at least one adult beverage). Copy the list onto Dakka, set up the poll by adding entries copy/pasting names. Set for 5 days, allow multiple votes. Proof and make sure the tags are OK, nobody is hiding under someone else’s spoiler, everyone is on the poll, etc. C/P some of the stock boilerplate, reiterate the theme. Submit.

Once that runs for 5 days and closes, figure out who won. C/P winners and pics in order of podium, including ties (which seem to happen a lot). Write a little intro for each winner. Congrats/thanks/encourage.

Other things that need doing are the yearly retrospective post (which I need to get up), Maintaining the index (which I do roughly monthly, but skip a few) and maintaining the League table (big thanks to Midget Gems). And probably other stuff I’m forgetting.

OK. Time for me to get moving and start my day. Still need to finish my entry for the month!

 Nevelon wrote:

Question:
In the past we’ve edited the start thread with a list of entrants and their proof pictures. I think I skipped this a few times when I was subbing, as it’s a lot of work. Do people enjoy this? Is it useful?

I myself have neither enjoyed the list of entrants and proof pictures at the top, nor have I found it useful. If you stopped doing that, it would not lessen my enjoyment of the Challenge one whit. It seems like a lot of extra work for little benefit.

I never even realised you did that! I would also be happy to streamline the process by dropping that bit.

To elaborate on that a bit, it was basically a holdover from how I used to run things when we started. At first, I'd add someone to the OP every time a Proof was posted. Eventually, I realised this was filling up the OPs with a bunch of unfinished entries which had to be edited out in the end, so I just started collecting finished entries there when they were posted. I then switched to doing that 3-4 times a month in batches, and most recently had ended up doing it all at/after the end of the month, at which point they might as well have been compiled into the voting thread regardless (which is what Nev is suggesting, if I understand correctly).

A big part of why I'm stepping aside is that the workload started to outstrip my time/motivation/mental capacity to manage it, so anything that can streamline the process for our new overlord, I'm fully in favour of! (and it should go without saying, but Nev has my full blessing to change anything about the presentation, format or rules as he or the community at large see fit!)

 Paradigm wrote:
To elaborate on that a bit, it was basically a holdover from how I used to run things when we started. At first, I'd add someone to the OP every time a Proof was posted. Eventually, I realised this was filling up the OPs with a bunch of unfinished entries which had to be edited out in the end, so I just started collecting finished entries there when they were posted. I then switched to doing that 3-4 times a month in batches, and most recently had ended up doing it all at/after the end of the month, at which point they might as well have been compiled into the voting thread regardless (which is what Nev is suggesting, if I understand correctly).

A big part of why I'm stepping aside is that the workload started to outstrip my time/motivation/mental capacity to manage it, so anything that can streamline the process for our new overlord, I'm fully in favour of! (and it should go without saying, but Nev has my full blessing to change anything about the presentation, format or rules as he or the community at large see fit!)

I wasn't planning any changes, but with the call to revisit Space Marines for March, I thought it might be a good time to review what we are doing and why. We have altered things a few times in the past.

5 models a month seems a good compromise between people wanting to do squads, and individual showcase models.
6 pictures lets you do an individual shot of each one, with a group shot.
Vote for as many as you like.

I'd vote for the WIP thread summary work to be a contender to be chopped if needed, it doesn't add to much and looks to cause extra work, up to Nev if he still wants to do it and if its useful to do finished models in chucks rather than all at the end.

 Nevelon wrote:


A - Space Marines
B - Fluffy things
C - Murderbots
D - Stabbings

These are the best poll options ever.
Also, I only voted for "Other" because no one else had and it seemed lonely.

 Midget Gems wrote:
I'd vote for the WIP thread summary work to be a contender to be chopped if needed, it doesn't add to much and looks to cause extra work, up to Nev if he still wants to do it and if its useful to do finished models in chucks rather than all at the end.

I also support this position; I very rarely look at the entry summary these days.

And we’re off on year 9!

Just a reminder that this is a community driven event, I just happen to be currently running it. If you want things to change, feel free to toss an idea out there. At any time. While there are reasons (and years of tradition) for the way we do things, nothing is set in stone.

Also, I’m human and will miss things and screw things up. This is not out of malice. Feel free to point it out and I’ll do what I can to fix it.

While we generally do a call for topics near the end of the month, I’d like to start a list of general ideas to pull from. Anyone have any subjects in mind? I’d also like to sprinkle in technical challenges, as they are good for pushing ourselves out of comfort zones.

June will be the big 100. I was thinking of doing a retro-open round, where everyone can pick their own previously used topic. Bonus points for re-doing a model that you did before, but not required.

Thoughts?

^ This is a very cool idea

I wholeheartedly support this idea, providing the category is called “Tribute” and we all get to rock out…