Finest Five.

Finest Five

Competitions Allow for five pictures. You will complete five tiny details or detailed areas each
no bigger that than 3cm by 3cm. As well as 3cm deep if needed.

Look at all the terrain you have. Are there incomplete pieces, pieces that are finished, but need something more? Are you missing something vital to join a group of pieces together? Now is your chance to identify five key areas to use as a base for some expert detailing and embellishment.

The five areas need not be on the same piece or the same theme. They can be right next to each other as one large detailed area. However you must be able to photograph five distinct objects, efforts or effects.

You may use more than one terrain piece.
You may use an old competition piece.
You may use an incomplete or complete piece.
You must create 5 details, objects, groups of details or one detailed area photographed as five distinct parts.
I would Prefer you not use a diorama and rather a tabletop terrain piece as base, however you will not be penalized and the base(s) remains your choice.
You may create a detailed area on a blank background (new unpainted terrain piece) as long as the showcased details themselves are complete and the photograph is cropped to exclude any unfinished areas.
Thus every surface in the final photograph must be finished and the details must be attached and part of a terrain piece.
The areas may be at any angle, position or even suspended.

Note: The paint job and texture of the terrain piece used as background and not included in the final five pictures will not count towards the competition (only the new details will) So if you spend a week painting an old terrain piece to use as base, you are wasting time better spent on the tiny things.

Work In Progress Threads will start with a before picture of the areas you chose to embellish with a description of what you want to do there.

The five details must be different to each other. Example: If you want "moss" as your detail, all five pictures can't be moss, must be five very different kinds of moss or moss with toadstools, moss on a plow etc.

If you want to make doorhandles. The door handle counts as one detail unless you create five unique doorhandles. One with an animal face, one with a sliding lock etc.

Similarly if you use five trees as bases, The focus is on the coin-sized special detail: Owl's nest, hanged man, axe etc. Or five details around the same tree.

If you print a sign for a building. It will need some kind of effect, paint job or mechanism that adds another dimension to it.

Time to buy that magnifying glass you always needed. Get out your triple zero or
quadruple zero sized paintbrushes and ponder the damage of a lifetime spent in front of a monitor. Bless you and happy detailing!

Last edited by superscenic on June 9th, 2014; edited 1 time in total

Congratulations on winning.

I recommend establishing a standard base size across all countries to make the competition standard for all participants in the interest of fairness.

The US Half Dollar is 30.61 mm in diameter (1.205 inches). Australia has just minted a coin that is 31 inches wide about 4.7 inches thick. I doubt anyone will have one for pocket change, though, as it is worth a cool $1,000,000.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8852246/Worlds-largest-gold-coin-unveiled-in-Australia.html

Perhaps that is a bit of an extreme example, but it does illustrate my point.

Elderac

Right: edited. So I am going to say 3cm by 3cm. This is still quite small but large enough to something complex.

Well done on winning!

Ooh, this is an odd one. Ok, they CAN be on separate builds, but no more than 3cm x3cm x 3cm, hmmm... *strokes chin* will have to think about this one.

What if an entrant is building new pieces? Is the 3x3x3cm size limitation still in effect?

I've been trying to think of something to do for this, I like the challenge of building something new each month and at the moment (due to no space to actually game) once they're finished they get put away. I'm building my skills for when I have space for a game board as well. It has been suggested that I need objective markers for my armies, or at least my main army, would 5 small detailed pieces (not exactly sure what yet, maybe treasure of some sort) be allowed within the parameters set?

This is an interesting theme, but a tricky one. It sounds like a new item on a 3cm base would qualify as one of the five?

The way I see it, it's 5 (very, perhaps too small) small improvements to existing builds.

Yeah, it's awkward (not hard though) - I'll prob sit this one out

I spotted this also:

I am thinking an entry could potentially be a mix of old and new?

This seems to contradict the size requirement. We went from a 3x3cm area to every surface.

Hey Tob,
My best guess is that the "detail" that is the subject of the photo needs to be confined within a 30mm square area.

FREX: Somebody could take a Guards Watchtower --- that they never completed --- and they could paint two sides of it, and on those two sides they could add tiny details like:

• Ornate Door Latch
• Stained Glass Window in the Door
• Wanted Posters in a Wanted Posters Frame
• Lord Vetenarii's Coat of Arms above the Door
• I need one more notion to go here, maybe some pidgeons on a ledge....

But the remaining sides of the tower could be unfinished. All five details could / perhaps should be part of something larger.

Which would appear to contradict in turn:

Does that mean every visible surface in the photo? Or the surface selected for its one 3x3cm area?

How are entrants supposed to demarcate this 3x3cm area to be judged? Unless the surface/area is already 3x3....? In other words, if I have an unfinished house on which all surfaces (walls, roof) are greater than 3x3cm, how do I demarcate the comp area?

If this isn't done, we have the whole arbitrary judging problem again. Will people ONLY judge a 3x3 area? No. The biggest piece entered will win, just like every other time we've had this problem.

That is how I read it.

This too. Each detail has to be on or in a finished area.

Any of the methods people usually use to indicate scale would work. I think.

I don't think you have to. Just put in the text portion of the entry that: "the Ice Research Outpost (Ice Station Walrus) is only 28x19mm" and I think that would suffice.

But an example relating to the house you mention would go something like: "the stained glass window is 30x20mm".

This is also a bit of a photo challenge. FIVE details are required. So that is one per shot. Unless folks are adept with split images and photo-fu each detail item will get only one picture. A picture wasted on an overall view of the whole piece would mean not showing one detail in, errr ... detail.

So....placing a mini next to it? Does that make any sense?

I think you misunderstand.

If the side of my house is 60x300mm, how do I demarcate the 30x30mm area to be judged?

--

I PMed superscenic a few days ago and he hasn't responded. I suggest we scrap this comp and either start over or just forget it. The only person to show any interest so far was going to build new pieces and we have no indication whether that fits the criteria. I would enter this comp as an excuse to complete my AWI houses, but every surface is greater than 30x30mm.

I think you are reading too much into it. My take is this for an example;

If the tiny detail to be added to the model is a picture hanging on the wall then make sure the wall within the frame of the photograph of the model is painted / finished. Since this is an interior wall that is being photographed, the exterior of the structure need not be finished. Then put a ruler in the photo to show scale. Simple. Done.

Five separate details to be included in the contest so there will be only one photo of each detail. So working on the interior of this house... a candlestick sitting on a wall hook, fire grate or pots and pans in the fire place, herbs drying from a hook on the wall or the ceiling, and small canister of flour on shelf would constitute the other 4 photographs of this example. If all of this is on one wall of the interior of the house, no need to photograph the other 3 walls that are not painted.

Correct me if I am wrong but this is my take on this comp.