What are these contests?

These competitions are run alternately every two months (more or less).

The Golden Hat is a miniatures painting competition, whereas the Artisan’s contest includes everything but wargame miniatures.  So we have things like a rules competition, terrain, short stories etc.

The winners of these competitions gets a medal and a number slaves according to how many people have entered.  As that thread says, both competitions have medals according to how many people have entered, if there are less than 10 there is only a Gold.

The competitions are always announced in the Website News section.  We officially announce the contest, with a deadline.  After this has closed we start a thread with the entries and a request for people to vote, then after the voting has closed we start a third thread announcing the winner(s).

Previous Golden Hat winners are displayed on the main site

What can I enter?

Each contest will have a specific theme.  An entry that bears absolutely no relation to the theme (unless it is called an ‘open contest’) will not be allowed.  Models have to be fully painted and by the person entering them.  Note that you can have someone else convert the model that you then paint.

The Golden Hat and Artisan's contests are always Chaos Dwarf related, you cannot enter models that are obviously from other armies (like a high elf for instance).

When can I enter?

The deadline will always be clear in the announcement thread.  It is always based on Eastern Standard Time.  So regardless of where in the world you are you need to look up how far ahead or behind this time you are to make sure you get your entry in on time.

No entry regardless of how cool will be allowed to enter after the deadline.  There are no exceptions.  If someone has made a valid attempt to enter before the deadline but have had technical issues (such as links being invalid), they will normally be allowed.

How do I enter?

There are three ways to enter a CDO competition, the one required will be made very clear in the announcement thread.  

> Entering image links by Personal Message
To enter by personal message, you first have to upload up to 4 pictures of your entry to a hosting site.  For instance http://photobucket.com/ or http://imageshack.us/. These are both free hosting sites.  Note the specific rules below on them not being montage shots.

To enter the contest all you need to do is simply click the link provided (it will always be to the ‘Staff’ account) and send the links to the 4 photos.  If you do an album link I will try and ask which ones you want.

> Entering text by Personal Message
Some contests, like the short story based Artisans you can just copy and paste your story into a personal message to the Staff account.

> Entering by email attachment
Sometimes uploading big pictures onto free hosting sites can distort them.  So for any like art or terrain we always say you can enter by sending an email to cdostaff@hotmail.co.uk instead.  A story will be better done this way as it keeps the formatting better.  A rules based entry must be done this way.  Note that we will need to know your username if you send it by email.

NOTE:  Copy and paste the address:  cdostaff@hotmail.co.uk   It does not have a fullstop at the end.

What happens after I have entered?

The personal messages all sit in the Staff inbox until after the deadline has passed.  After this time one of us will look through them all and start to save all the entries to our computer.  If you need to do something specific, like saying which photos you want to be used, the staff member will send you a pm.  It is expected that people will answer any and all questions about their entry (and do what is required) within 48 hours of the competition closing.  If they don’t, perhaps because they have not logged in since, the staff member will either make a decision themselves or potentially disallow the entry.

Once we have all the entries, the staff member will do some editing to make them look pretty for the site, and to make sure they all have a similar formatting to make things fair.  See rules below for more on this.

The staff member will then make a thread with all the entries and request people to start voting (see how to vote below).  After the voting has closed the staff will collate all the votes into a spreadsheet (if there are more than 10 entries) to find the total votes for each entry.  Note that this is something all staff members can check, there is no vote rigging here!   Finally we announce the winners, the voting key and assign the medals and slaves.

How do I vote

As already said, if there are more than 10 entries the voting will be done by personal message.  Send a pm to the Staff account (as described above) with the 3 entries you consider are best, whatever that means to you.  You don’t need to rank them, or give reasons why. You must place three votes, don't know who deserves your last vote? Choose one at random.

You are not allowed to vote on your own entry in competitions. Self-voting is considered cheating and will result in disqualification.

If we have less than 10 votes it will be an open timed poll, you select the one entry you want to win.

What are the Veteran Medals?

These are medals we give as a reward to people who have shown a great deal of commitment in entering successive competitions.  The exact details of how you get them are not something the staff discuss.

GOLDEN HAT CONTESTS

ARTISANS CONTESTS

FAQ

Where did I come in the ranking?  How many votes did I get?
Both of these are done by private message for whoever asks.  We don’t list where people come publically, unless they are in the top three.  Occasionally we say who came 4th/5th.

Why doesn’t CDO have a judging panel?
This is something that has been asked a few times.  CDO is a community for the many, not for the few.  Because of this, we think it is vital that the community decide what entries are best by a majority vote and it’s not done subjectively by a small panel of people (who cannot obviously have entered themselves).

Why doesn’t CDO have multiple categories depending on skill?
This is more work than it’s worth really to be honest and the current system of voting doesn’t always favour the same people over and over.  Having a category that only one person wanted to enter would be stupid and people would resent being moved into that category if they knew they would lose.  At the end of the day even an ‘eavy metal painter could only enter one model, leaving the other medals up for grabs.

What happens if we get a draw?
For a competition where we are voting by pm (as there are more than 10 entries):

Draw for Gold = 2 x Gold and Bronze awarded
Draw for Silver = Gold and 2 x Silver awarded
Draw for Bronze = Gold, Silver and 2 x Bronze awarded

Multiple draws = vote off on all of them by public poll.

For competitions decided by a public poll (less than 10):

Draw for Gold = 2 x Gold

I never seem to win
Not a question as such…  We may not all be great painters, but the taking part is what counts and not only do you get to improve your skills but you also get a painted model at the end of it (or a story, terrain etc).  You may eventually get a Veteran Medal for your troubles.  So all the effort is not wasted and it can be all you need to motivate you to actually paint something!

How do I take good pictures of my model(s)?
There is a basic guide here people may find helpful.

This post was last modified: 05-08-2019 03:06 AM by Admiral.

Update: As of February 2015 self-voting is no longer allowed in competitions.  

Update: Background scenery and similar pictures in the background are as of now no longer allowed for Golden Hat entries. This is in order to even the field between entries, and make the sole focus of the photographs rest on the miniature(s). Naturally, we'd still love to see artistic shots with scenic background for the entries in the entrant's project log, once the competition is over.

And, as always, if in doubt write the organizer.

This post was last modified: 05-08-2019 04:49 AM by Admiral.

Update: The above-mentioned blank background rule has been dropped, and likewise rules on basing and display bases have been removed and boiled down to:

This is not only to reflect the new scene where different wargames use different base shapes and sizes (that has been in effect for years now), but it also mean that dioramas and display bases are permanently welcome, going forward.

Chaos Dwarfs Online started out with a mission to claw back Chaos Dwarfs into a full army book faction, which translated into contest rules on base restrictions to better play ball with Warhammer Fantasy standards in order to play up the army list legitimity. However, long experience has time and time again shown that rules on basing was an unnecessary limit to creativity.

Both the blank background rule and the basing limits were born out of a tendency toward fairness across the board, but that's not really what these competitions are about: These contests are all aiming to encourage creativity, beautiful hobby work and community fun, by exploiting the competitive tendency of human nature.

Who cares if there is a magnificient display base to go along with the miniature, or a scenic diorama take on a contest theme, or a gorgeous background to enhance the impression? It's beauty and creativity that we're after, in the end. If someone wants to go the extra mile to make their entry pop, then let him or her do so. It'll give us good display pictures to show what this hobby is all about. Stickling to fairness considerations in these instances limits creativity, which runs counter to our hobby purpose.

Please note that photoshopped background images are still not allowed, though! The modelling & painting contests are about handiwork and physical materials (including printed 3D-sculpts).

This post was last modified: 05-08-2019 03:42 AM by Admiral.