Wargaming Tradecraft: Charity

Historically Accurate Miniatures

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Topics: Charity / commissions / Headshots / hobbying / outside_the_box

Last year I donated my painting services to be auctioned for Headshots from the Heart, a marathon I'm involved with in support of the Childs Play charity. The person who won is a bit of a history buff. He's involved in reenactments and plays various historical miniature games.

It took a bit, but he got ahold of the miniature he wanted me to paint: Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. There'a a difference when painting historical miniatures instead fictional ones, mainly that these things happened so there's a certain way they should be painted.Sure, I could paint the clothes whatever I wanted, I could've given him a funny hat and I could even have painted the horse to look like it belongs in Robot Unicorn Attack... But when you factor in the client's importance on history, accuracy becomes even more important.

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Win a Custom Painted Miniature from Wargaming Tradecraft

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Monday, April 28, 2014

Topics: Charity

Yup, that's right - I'm going to do something I don't do and pony up my painting services to the lucky winner of one of the many auctions during the Headshots from the Heart 24 hour charity marathon for Childs Play this weekend.

Have a special character model you’d like to stand out from the rest? Maybe a leader or great warrior for an army? Perhaps your epic hero for Dungeons and Dragons? I’ll paint a small or medium sized miniature (that you provide) and will even discuss doing some minor modification like custom green stuff sculpting.

Details such as colour and composition, painting style, basing, effects, weathering and modifications will be worked out with the winner after the auction. Quality will be of a professional level, such as models from my current Hordebloods project.

The auction starts at 8:30 PM EST on May 3rd, so tune in as we stream everything on TwitchTV. (In HD this year!)

Be sure to visit the Auction Schedule and see what else is up for grabs this weekend!

And if you're in Ontario, consider coming out to see the Gaming Expo, join the Gaming Extravaganza (LAN, board gaming, etc) and other events we'll have going on. Not only will it be a bunch of fun, but there's more great stuff up for grabs to participants!

Also check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

[CHARITY] Headshots from the Heart 2014

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Friday, March 21, 2014

Topics: Charity

It's that time of year again.

For those new to this site, two years ago some friends and I began a charity marathon called Headshots from the Heart. We played Borderlands for 24 hours straight to raise money for Childs Play, a charity that brings joy to the lives of sick children, and streamed the whole thing online. Last year we repeated the event and have raised a total of $7,616. Yeah, that's kind of a big deal.

We're doing it again. Starting at 12:30 pm EST on May 3rd a team of players will marathon for 24 hours taking donations and pledges. You can sponsor the, wait for it, number of headshot / critical kills they make during that period.

Website: http://HeadshotsMarathon.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Headshotsmarathon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeadshotsHeart
E-Mail: admin@headshotsmarathon.org

Want to help? Here's how:

DONATE

Don't want to worry about all the little details? Just donate your money.
Money is sent directly to Childs Play

PLEDGE

Pledge your support. Offer pennies per critical kill and we'll email you when the event is over to let you know what you owe. (You can cap your offer.)

SPREAD THE WORD

Got a website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc? Tell everyone about this event.

SPONSOR US

We need sponsors to provide items we can auction off and prize out throughout the event.
Last year Gearbox, SteelSeries, Runic Games, Cards Against Humanity and many others offered a great selection of stuff which allowed us to blow our previous numbers out of the water!

GIVE US STUFF

Not a big company, but still want to help or sponsor? We've gotten some great things from Etsy shops or had artists donate paintings and sculptures.
Contact us ahead of time with your idea, please.

PARTICIPATE

The event takes place at KwartzLab in Kitchener, Ontario. Come on out during the event and join in the games, LAN and other activities that will be going on.
Stay tuned at the Headshots website for details on all the events, costs, etc.

Want to volunteer or have another idea on how you can help? Send us an email!

[CHARITY] Headshots Wrap-Up

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Topics: Charity

I've been meaning to post this for a while now.. basically a quick thank you to the Team and Volunteers as well as any of you who might have watched, donated or spread the word during our Headshots from the Heart gaming marathon for Child's Play Charity.

We raised $5,035.71

This puts our total to $7,616.34 from the last two years!

[CHARITY] Headshots from the Heart LIVE ONLINE

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Saturday, May 18, 2013

Topics: Charity

As you're reading this, we're in the process of kicking off a fundraiser to help sick kids. Last year we raised $2,700 for Childs Play - this year the event's just starting and we're well past the half-way mark to beat it!

The full 24 hour event is being streamed online RIGHT NOW.

GO WATCH

Help us!

Spread the word

Website

Where you can come watch and find all the info

Facebook

Interact and share with your friends & family what's going on!

Twitter

Interact and RT!

Donate

Money

Donate a flat rate

Pledge

Offer a few pennies per headshot kill. (1 penny will be apprx $36)
Feel free to limit your pledge.
Check in Sunday at noon to see what you owe.

Auctions

Going on throughout the full 24 hours
Check the page to know what's being auctioned when and for how long.

I'll be posting updates from the LAN section of the event on my Twitter account, so check in over @InDavesLife.

100% of profits goes to Childs Play... we use their ChipIn! widget and eBay Giving Works so we're not handling the money.

[CHARITY] Headshots from the Heart, ramp up

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Friday, May 17, 2013

Topics: Charity

As you're reading this, I'm with a bunch of friends setting up for tomorrows Headshots from the Heart gaming marathon. Last year we raised $2,700 for Childs Play - this year the event hasn't even started and we're well past the half-way mark to beat it!

The full 24 hour event will be streamed online tomorrow, Saturday 18th 2013 at noon, Eastern Time.

Help us!

Spread the word

Website

Where you can come watch and find all the info

Facebook

Interact and share with your friends & family what's going on!

Twitter

Interact and RT!

Donate

Money

Donate a flat rate

Pledge

Offer a few pennies per headshot kill. (1 penny will be apprx $36)
Feel free to limit your pledge.
Check in Sunday at noon to see what you owe.

Auctions

Going on throughout the full 24 hours
Check the page to know what's being auctioned when and for how long.

[CHARITY] Headshots from the Heart (2nd annual)

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Monday, May 06, 2013

Topics: Charity / Headshots

You may recall that last year I spent a solid 2.5 months painting some themed miniatures (donated by MiniWarGaming) for charity. Specifically, for Headshots from the Heart. A small group of us put on a 24 hour gaming marathon where we played Borderlands without pause, gave away prizes, auctioned off a bunch of phat lewtz, accepted pledges by the headshot and streamed the entire event online. In the end we raised about $2,700 for Childs Play.

You can tune in Saturday May 18th at 12.30 pm Eastern Time or catch a practice before hand.

This year I'm just volunteering, but you can bet I'm still going to pimp this out on my blog. With the release of Borderlands 2, that's the game that'll be running 24 hours straight... but instead of 4 people the entire time, there's only going to be 3... why? Because people who donate to play in the LAN party won't just get chances to win some cool stuff, they'll also have a chance to join in on the event!

As for the lewt up for grabs, we've got some amazing sponsors this year... Awesome gaming gear from Steel Series, Steam codes for Torchlight 2 donated by Runic Games, an absolutely beautiful leather mask from FeralCrafter and plenty of other geeky items, like, oh, a baby wyvern skeleton! Y'know what, just go LOOK AT IT ALL. There's a lot of stuff, but they're still accepting more so now's the time to contact them if you'd like to help a good cause.

If you don't have anything monetary to give, you can still help. Tweet this, Facebook it, post it on your own blog and help raise awareness for what's going to be a great time! They've also got banners you can use!

Last year I also posted an article detailing the steps on how you too can stream this sort of event online. I went with the software method and used a professional sound mixer with mics around the room to capture all the audio for the event. We were also prepared incase we had to reset anyones crit counters.

Weekly Update

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Monday, June 18, 2012

Topics: Charity / weekly-update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft

Not much of an update yet... but there is progress. Yesterday the Hordebloods were victorious as I finally got back to my FLGS for some WarmaHordes action... which helps to renew the bug to get painting again. As such, I cleaned my hobby area last night and it's about ready for some painting action again... so stay tuned.

Also, I've got something new in the works... give it a week or so tops... should prove to be a great step for the community.

Last Week in the Community

If you haven't seen it yet, The Black Crusade is this years charity project using the same formula as the guys who've raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity over the last few years by auctioning off armies. Santa Cruz et al are taking a well earned break, but no worries because this is your way to help out today.

This year proves again to be a great project, so head on over!

http://blackcrusade2012.blogspot.ca/

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, Mike McVey has a Kickstarter going on for his Sedition Wars boardgame. The game itself looks pretty easy to learn, and has FANTASTIC miniatures that he's sculpted to go along with it. Definitely worth checking out.

Headshots Marathon Wrap & Thanks.. and Up Next at Wargaming Tradecraft

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Topics: announcements / Charity

Well, the weekend is over, and the whole event was quite an experience. We got 3,508 Headshots, (including every boss in the first play through) raised over $2,500 for Childs Play (assuming all the pledges come through) and put on quite the show. If you forgot and want to make a last minute donation, the ChipIn Widget will be up for the next week. What do you get for your money now? Besides helping sick kids, you can still watch video from the event!

There was a fantastic bunch of donations for some great people and companies, an entertaining batch of volunteers and some great viewers who stuck in there for a great deal of the event. We also appreciate the support we got in the miniatures community, so thanks House of Paincakes and Father Geek... and of course, a HUGE thank-you to MiniWarGaming for supplying the miniatures I've painted over the last month.

Next up at Wargaming Tradecraft...

Needless to say, I'm a little burned out. Six well-painted miniatures and fancy bases in under 2 months with a full-time job was definitely an over-commitment. Except for a little time here and there wielding a Plasma Cannon in Space Marine, (as "N++") all my spare hours went in to painting... and that's too much.

I'll be taking a brief break to shift gears a bit and take care of some things around the apartment, fiddle with some server stuff, game, veg, sleep and a wedding to attend shortly. My thanks ahead of time for being understanding. You might find some neat things over at Tech Tradecraft though.

To the people who've sent me Network requests... I haven't forgotten about you - and I'll add you to the list once I'm back.

To all my Twitter followers - sorry for the "spam" over the weekend as I was promoting #Headshots like crazy. Please forgive the efforts of a good cause.

WHEN I'M BACK,

there will of course be more painting of my Hordebloods to continue working on my Hordes army.
I'm also going to look at my Techniques and Supplies pages and get back to writing some actual tutorials - the original intent of this blog. I've got some even saved as drafts that just need finishing... like water tutorials...
sooo, less WIP, more TUT.
Experimenting with a new art style on those Borderlands miniatures was a real good time.. I've been wanting to for a while, and I think you can expect to see me playing with art styles and theory some more..

I think Marcus looks the best... I'm floored at how well he turned out.

Charity: Headshots from the Heart

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Sunday, April 15, 2012

Topics: announcements / Charity

http://www.headshotsmarathon.org

On May 26th at 1pm, a couple friends, my Wife and I will begin a 24 hour marathon of playing the video game Borderlands to raise money for the Childs Play Charity.

"A game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 70 hospitals worldwide."- about Child's Play

The entire event will be broadcast online, hosted by more friends and volunteers. We'll have a chat room set up so that everyone can join in with the fun as well.

How to Help Out

We're taking pledges to raise money based on head shot kills. (Critical Kills) The game keeps track and we'll total things up at the end then ask you to make the donation in the final amount. (Up to your max pledge.) In testing, this could be around 3600 kills... so if you pledged 1 penny per kill, you might end up donating $36.

Of course we're also taking direct donations if you just want to give a set amount.

You can also donate stuff for us to auction off during the event. (Such as geeky or gaming related products or crafts) Or if you'd rather, you can help support the event to cover some of our expenses. (Contact us to work out details)

If you're a business or organization, we have a page dedicated to providing credit for our Sponsors. We're just getting rolling, so help us fill that site up!

If you live in the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario, Canada, then feel free to Email us about volunteering during the event.

All donations and auction winnings are being accepted using the ChipIn widget, so money goes directly to the charity without going through us.

Socialize

You can also help out by advertising the event. Anything helps... a post on your site, a small banner, big banner... we appreciate it all. Winding up to the event, we'll all be posting various updates on the Headshots site as well as organizational info that might give others insight in to putting on their own events.

Follow us online:

Or add one of our banners:
Blogger users can click "Add Widget" on any of the banners here to quickly add a link to the Headshots site to your own blog.

That's Not All!

Remember how I mentioned there were going to be auctions during the event? I'm going to be painting 4 - 6 themed figures over the next month and a half.

A BIG thanks goes out to the guys and gals at MiniWarGaming, who have agreed to sponsor us! This is an awesome crew who have an online store with a wide variety of miniatures and resources (When TheWife bought my Hordebloods from them, they actually included free surprise candy) and they've also got a huge amount of videos full of battle reports, tutorials and other useful info. On a personal note, it was getting involved in their very positive forum that sparked the bug which led to me launching Wargaming Tradecraft in the first place.

They've provided the figures, so here's the plan:

The first four will be themed after the Borderlands player characters, and then time permitting I'll paint Moxxi and a young Marcus. Artistically, I'm going to try to bring that cell-shaded look to 3D figures and I'm aiming to magnetize them to be usable on their normal bases, and some larger ones for display purposes. You'll be able to watch these miniatures unfold both here and on the Headshots website.

The miniatures themselves are from Privateer Press, and I chose them because they resemble the characters quite well. There will still be a little sculpting and modding to make them look closer, but not too much. The Mordecai character may be modelled on the Vindicare Assassin from Games Workshop, we'll see.

For those interested, these are the miniatures:

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/units/ogrun-assault-corps
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/retribution-of-scyrah/solos/ghost-sniper
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1140004&prodId=prod1140033a
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/warcasters/ashlynn-delyse
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/solos/captain-maxwell-finn
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/mercenaries/solos/madelyn-corbeau
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/warcasters/lieutenant-allister-caine-2009

Please note, that I and the Headshots team are not affiliated with 2K Games, Gearbox Games, or the Borderlands franchise.

Foodmachine 2011 Charity Auction and WIP painting

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Thursday, December 29, 2011

Topics: Charity

A little while back, Papa JJ of DiceRolla posted about a charity project going on called Foodmachine, raising money for Feeding America. [ http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=5271 ]

Basically, the idea was to get a bunch of people together to paint up a pirate army for Warmachine that would have an orange (hunger awareness) colour theme. Next, that army would get raffled off. For every dollar you give, ($10 minimum) you've got a chance to win the whole thing.

If you'd like to donate a little something or see photos of the figures, visit the following link:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Foodmachine2011/
(Photos are from the artists - they're in the process of being uniformly based and professionally photographed)

Here's a list of the artists involved:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At_zruzbwbYWdHE2T2wwSURxX0JUOUg1ekQ4WGFIblE&hl=en_US#gid=0

If you've got a blog, Twitter, Facebook, why not share a link to the donation page as well?
(Feel free to copy and paste my above description, and/or the below release if you want to save some time.)

Release:

"While official Foodmachine tournaments end this Sunday (1/1/12), there is a way you can still help out the cause. Expert painters from around the world have been painting up models for a Tier 4 Shae army using orange in the paint scheme. (Orange is the color of hunger awareness). We have a few early photos up on our donation site in this "soft opening" phase to whet your appetites. Soon we will have all the models based and well-photographed so you can see what you will ultimately win.

Here's the website with all the details of the raffle: www.razoo.com/Foodmachine2011/

Read more details about it at the Lost Hemisphere blog: http://losthemisphere.com/blog/?p=18027

Listen to some information about it at the Elite Cadre podcast: http://elitecadre.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/bonus-episode-1-a-visitor-from-afar/

Thanks in advance for your donation and good luck winning the army!"

Papa JJ sent out minis to people who wanted to get involved in the project, so here are my WIP photos for the Sea Dog Crew Leader. Nothing detailed, as I was focusing on the work, but here you are:

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Foodmachine 2011

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Thursday, September 29, 2011

Topics: Charity

So here's something I read over at diceRolla.... Papa JJ has a post about a food drive that Privateer Press is pushing for the holiday season.

It's a combination of collecting cans at your local hobby shop that are to be donated to your local food bank as well as painting up a model (un-based) to send to Privateer Press, who'll auction off a complete army for charity.

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Charity Roundup

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Friday, May 27, 2011

Topics: Charity

image from davetaylorminiatures

Previously, I did a Charity Efforts Round Up and promoted some of the different things that the wargaming blog community was doing to help those in need around the world.

This post is to notify you that I've created a section in the sidebar on my blog devoted to promoting the charities that are currently in progress through the community.

If anyone wants to directly link it from their site, rather than keep a list updated themselves, then use the following link:

http://www.wargamingtradecraft.com/#charity

Hobby for Charity

From the desk of Dave Garbe on Thursday, April 14, 2011

Topics: Charity

image from davetaylorminiatures

An unfortunate truth of this world is that many people don't get to live lives as privileged as others. Then again, even those who do lead a "privileged" life can have unfortunate things befall them as well. I'm sure many of you have been touched by some form of tragedy at one point or another - even in our moderately sized wargaming community it seems like someone's life is negatively changed every month or two.

In those times, we tend to give them the space they need and there's always plenty of warm wishes passed on. There are plenty of organizations out there that are more active in life changing circumstances, doing whatever they can to ease the pain of those directly affected as well as friends and family. There's plenty you can give besides money, which not everyone has.. supplies and especially TIME can often make a big difference - if you're not sure what you can offer, then ASK. I've been involved with a number of local charities, donating money, yes, but also time - and if there's one thing that will show you the difference a charity can make, it's spending a moment of your life with both givers and receivers.

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