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It;s here and it's back again the Nerdcademy award for 2018. This is a fun and feisty little competition to just have a bit of fun and laughter, perhaps unleash some of that pent up creativity we all have the theme for this years comp is 'More than meets the eye' one model taken from any Warhammer 40K faction and painted visually to represent another faction sounds easy right? well, technically it is, but it's about thinking outside the box and creating something that's obviously from both without leaning too heavily on conversions or bits from the chosen army.

So, for example, a Necron painted as a Tau or a Space marine painted as a Tyranid etc. you may use conversions to convey the theme of the competition and also the basing will be a great chance to add some more of the story as the model will be judged as a whole and how well the model and base work together.

to register your entry please send me a PM and a pic of the model and or parts being used.

Now for the PRIZES!

1st Prize is the coveted Nerdcademy award which shall have a plaque made for the winner attached.


2nd Prize is a Mortalis style card set of walls and doors these are on thick paper and you get a whole stack!! about 2cm worth which you only need cut and glue!


3rd Prize is the much maligned and often fought over 'Nerd's Nudes' yes people that's right, i'm back in the buff again for another year giving you the chance to win this black and white masterpiece.


So please put on your thinking caps and get painting! the comp will finish Friday 10th August Australian time mates! then we'll get judging and see who comes out on top!

So much awesome here...!!!

I'll have to see if I can squeeze something out for this.
I may have a seed of an idea that may work.
I'll PM you, as requested, once I have a chance of collecting the bits together.

Lord help me, I'm in. and this time, no terminator strippers, I swear

Awesome! take your time and get thinking guys! :-)

Pm sent am on me hols till 21st though so won't be near the old bits box till then for a pic!

Ohhhhhh Nerdy! Can I play too?!

Haha, this sounds like fun! I might give it a try

Do you have links to the earlier Nerdcademy editions/entries? To avoid doing something that already has been done in the past.

We have had drastically different themes each year, so shouldn't be an issue of duplicating efforts.

Oh, yes, indeed... I'm in

Good to see a few keen to battle it out for domination to wrest the title for themselves! looking forward to seeing some wip's :-)

Come on guys, lets see some models! any builds wip we can check out? :-)

I'e cleaned some mould lines and glued legs on, but not much to show yet Just quickly slapping some paint on some Maelstrom's Edge SecDef models for Monday, and can then get cracking on this!

I'm not going to get hold of a Primaris till Friday. This will be... Tight

I'm a bit further on with this, but I'll spread out the wip to better keep this thread up the list.

The model stems from an old idea that I had for a member of my army (for those that don't know, see my army blog for an idea of what that entails).
All I had as a note was; Use a spare Tyranid warrior head piece as a shield for a Dire Avenger.

I can then fit this into this competition by painting him up in a Tyranid scheme. It can be thought of as a kind of camouflage for a 'nid hunter.

That led me to collect some bits together (PM'd you Nerdy) and then start chopping and arranging them together with blu-tack.

Cool concept, I like where its headed.

That looks awesome. Although replacing the helmet crest with a row of spines would potentially help tie the head shield in a bit.

Thanks WM.

Thanks Insaniak. It's a cool idea, but for this contest I want to keep the conversion to a minimum.
I'm thinking of him as a proud Eldar; I don't think you could convince a DA to remove his plumage for love nor money.
The shield is a trophy as well as a practical piece of armour, and the colour scheme is for camouflage. The plumage is a status symbol.

However, I did operate to repose his legs a little.
The left leg has been moved inwards and forwards (just chopping and re-gluing), and straightening the shin (required cutting into the inside of the leg and inserting a wedge of plastic).
I also needed to add some plastic into the front of the " hip-cup" of the leg piece as that was now leaning forward a little and the upper body wouldn't have sat in properly.

I'm quite happy with the Hoplite look to him; another reason to keep the crest.

Hot damn Nerdy. You still taking nudie shots and calling them "prizes"? Glad nothing's changed.

Nice to see you still running these comps. They always were fantastic.



@Dr H. - Liking the Eldar. The warrior crest shield looks oddly fitting.

 Snrub wrote:
...@Dr H. - Liking the Eldar. The warrior crest shield looks oddly fitting.

Lo Snrub. Ta. I had a choice of 2 and thought this one fitted best (the other was a bit too pointy to match).

And primed.
(backdrop is a separate project)


Painting slowly as I is very hot...

Yeah looking good! paint paint paint!

It has begun!

So, to begin, painted as a stock smurf. Now, to let papa corrupt him...

And using typhus corrosion (what else? ) To mark the area to be corrupted.

Crucially, none of which can be seen from the front of the model, more than meets the eye, yaddayaddayadda

Nice take on the theme!

Cheers!
And he's now had some GS work. All you can see is the edge of a sculpted skull and U...

Side with skull insignia


Side with chapter badge


And rear


I'd started to powder weather but realised I really want to get sculpting with him...
Fun to do, and I think making decent progress.

Good stuff!


Finally got mine assembled...

Good take on the corruption, Graven',

Playing against type there, Insaniak. What's he being painted as?

What the hell I am in, got no hope, really not in a good place for this but lets see if it picks me up a bit....

So something that looks like something else....well the obvious one for me is a silly ork or grot pretending to be a marine, been done a thousand times.......MMMmmmm. Bit of role reversal maybe, so maybe an commando/ assassin type Guardsman sneaking about dressed as an ork????????

Started with this poor sod..


Added some bits.....





So that's it, off to paint now.....

That's gold. The nose is perfect touch.

Indeed, comedy gold. You're a mad wizard, Cam.

That's fantastic Cam. Next step, Digga mob!