The GSW Sword 'n' Steele Takedown

Green Stuff World
vs Vallejo
vs Sword 'n' Steele

I shared this on Facebook and wanted to save these ramblings on my website as well, so here we are. 

(All relevant links will be posted at the end)

Going to jump in here because as people are wondering what's up, there's a bunch of person view tainted misinformation circling. SO, rumour control, then my own thoughts on the whole situation:

Basically:

OK, yeah, pretty close font usage.

1. Vallejo released a new line of colour shift paint.
2. Green Stuff World went after them because they claim ownership over both their brand, Chameleon, and the term "colorshift". (There was also a claim that some things had been copied, right down to font and packaging.)
3. GSW won and Vallejo was forced to rebrand and they've gone with the name Shifters.
4. People had already received the original product line and one such person, posted a review on her YouTube channel Sword 'n' Steele.
5. Instead of reaching out to her, GSW asked their legal team to order takedowns of anyone displaying the infringing products. And they did. Full YouTube copyright strike and the ensuing demonetization.
6. Sword 'n' Steele released a reaction video with shots of all her communication with GSW and a few other people are sharing images of their own communications with the GSW social media accounts.
7. GSW has removed the strike against the channel but warned if it was posted again and still displayed the infringing imagery or says/uses the word "colorshift" then it'd get striked again.
8. GSW and Vallejo have released statements and Sword 'n' Steele has rereleased her original video with a bunch of hilarious large [CENSORED] tags and audio of her saying "beep" instead of the brand "colorshift". (Or is she saying "colour shift" as a description? More on that later...)

Frankenstein's Bust

This past spring was the 200th anniversary of the novel Frankenstein and our local library system celebrated it in a number of ways. As the Artist at Work that month and them wanting to promote their 3D printing services, I decided to paint a Frankenstein Monster bust... which was also my first time painting a bust and a neat experience.

In this article I'm going to briefly talk about the demo experience, then some 3D printing, painting the bust and finally mounting it to a plinth.

Time for Games Workshop to Drop Misogyny from their Fluff

Games Workshop has been doing a great job on social media to promote the upcoming release of their newest version of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer TV's tutorials have become a staple for many aspiring artists. It's refreshing to see a modernized approach to engaging with their fans.

As Games Workshop embraces the modern era, it's time to update some of the background that has become so ingrained in their storylines and culture. I'm talking specifically about how their writers have defined that women are too weak to be genetically engineered into mighty heroes of the galaxy. This attitude negatively influences younger players within the hobby and infects the minds of established gamers.

With the new edition about to release, it's time to change. They could change based on the content in the video they just released. But I bet they won't. In fact, I doubt the idea even garnered a real conversation. I would love to be proven wrong.

If you haven't seen it yet, the video's below. Keep reading to see my take on things.

Armies on Parade - Kitchener [2016]

Yesterday was the first Armies on Parade held in the Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph region. The following is a post that shows off all the entries we had at Warhammer Fairway Road. While I highlight the top 3, the final count is posted on their page for the curious.

Close competition, great artists, great people. It was a blast of a day and we all had a lot of fun chatting, visiting, discussing and sharing our techniques and brainstorming ideas for next year. It was neat to even talk to the walk-in visitors as they asked us about how we accomplished various details.

FYI, it's pretty graphic intensive.. around 70mb, so NOT mobile friendly without WIFI. I've posted these mostly in their original size so everyone who participated can have some high quality photos.

Maker Expo 2016 Recap

What. A. Day.

I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks to recap after the crazy day that was Maker Expo. Last year it was more of a demonstration about the miniature hobby in general, with a small spot to paint at. This year, I put on a workshop specifically to introduce people to painting. The 16 spots filled up almost right away and the moment someone left their chair it was filled. It continued on this way during the entire 8 hour day and people were still trying to sit down as we began tear down at the end of the day. Last year we went through 70 miniatures so this year we had 456. At the end of the day, there was only about 20 left and a few of them were painted by people who didn't take them afterward.

I couldn't have done this without the help of my wife who was there every step of the way. She built 100 elves, a target she was quite proud of. (Especially with all the fiddly little parts.) As well as many more figures. We orchestrated it together, she knows the hobby inside and out and was probably talking to just as many people as I did, running her voice raw, helping people and working with the volunteers.

[Interviewed] Woot Suit Riot at Maker Expo

I was interviewed on Saturday by Woot Suit Riot while hosting a workshop at Maker Expo 2016. Take a listen!

Maker Expo: Retrospective

What a day.

I'd certainly say that the first public event I've presented at was a rousing success and all full of positive energy! To recap, Maker Expo was an event full of inventors and artists showcasing their hobbies and businesses to reach out to the community and expose the public to all sorts of new and wonderful things. The event had roughly 7500 visitors, 100 volunteers and 100 exhibitors in an 8 hour span. (OK, so it was a lot longer of a day for the exhibitors, especially if you're fighting mono and a cold like I am. Think I survived on adrenaline alone.)
[See a clip from CTV News.]

TheWife starts things off before her volunteer shift. A retweet by the Mayor to begin? Well thanks!

Wargaming Tradecraft presents: Work in Progress

I'm proud to announce that this Saturday, September 19th, Wargaming Tradecraft will be representing the miniature community at this year's Maker Expo located at the City Hall in Kitchener, Ontario.

"Work in Progress" is an art exhibit demonstrating the process taken to complete miniatures, terrain and special effects. I'll also be involving visitors of the event by inviting them to participate in ongoing group paints throughout the day.

What is Maker Expo?

From their website: "Maker Expo is a diverse, family-friendly showcase of makers, artists and organizations who create amazing things in celebration of the do-it-yourself spirit."

(and it's free!)

There will be all sorts of cool exhibitors showing off items of technological and artistic innovation.

Interested in Attending?

As mentioned, it's going to be held at City Hall in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

Join the Facebook Event.

Check out the full details here.

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Signage:

Kickstarter: Pop-Up MIniature Terrain

I just want to bring some attention to an awesome looking Kickstarter... pop-up terrain kits. My wife LOVES this idea because of how easy to store these things look.

The pricing is also very reasonable.

• $15 - PDF versions you can print yourself.
• $32 - Full set printed on sheets, some assembly required.
• $160 - Full set, assembled.
  (Which gives an indication that assembling might be a days worth of work, not too bad.)

Check out the Kickstarter

[COMMUNITY] Stolen Army

Today, one of the guys at our local club in Windsor, Ontario, Canada (border city across from Detroit, Michigan, USA) had his car broken into and his army case was stolen.

The contents were a Warmachine Cryx army (photo below) and any details you might have or publicity you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

As always my email is NPlusPlus [AT] WargamingTradecraft [DOT] com

Thanks,

Interviewed by World of Warcraft Insider

I was contacted recently by Lisa Poisso of WoW Insider, wanting to do an interview thanks to my Hordebloods project. Last week, after a number of emails back and forth, that interview was completed. You can read the whole thing:

Hordebloods Miniatures Customizer has WoW in his Blood
(Also mirrored on my drive)

For the Warcraft enthusiasts, you might enjoy some of her other articles, like her focus on race-only guilds. (For example, Orcs and Tauren)

Using War Room on the PC (For people who own Androids)

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Yup, you read that right folks, you can run War Room on your computer IF you already have an Android device. The "how" of it is pretty straight forward and while there are other methods to remotely control phones and tablet, this one does NOT require root access.

As for the "why"... well, originally I wanted easier control over the app when I only had it on my phone. (Tiny screen, big fingers, somewhat funny tap zones within the app.) Now that I have a tablet and can comfortably kick my feet up on the couch while working on an army list, it's not as high priority. HOWEVER, this could be very handy for the person who wants to be all multi-tasky and work on a list while they're googling strategies or pounding out some math-hammer and not have to keep going between PC and mobile, dealing with screen time outs, etc.

FIND A BLOG Network from Wargaming Tradecraft

For over a year now, I've had a Network page that's allowed hobbyists to find blogs that cover the content they're interested in and for blogs to advertise themselves and what they're about. In this time, the network page grew to a whopping 72 blogs!

Now, I'm proud to announce version 2 of the Wargaming Tradecraft Find a Blog service, with plenty of new features!

Most prominently, is that this is a single page that lists all the blogs signed up, is easy and fast to search for content you're interested in, contains contact information for all the authors in one place, and directs readers to YOUR website.

• Blogs listed with the Topics they're about and (NEW!) the miniature Genres they cover.
• ex Topics: Gallery, painting instructions, modding, strategy, theory, fluff, etc
• ex Genres: Warmachine, 40k, Fantasy, Medievil, Steampunk, Black Powder, etc  
• ALL the Topics and Genres are fully searchable.
• Click on as many as you like to only display blogs covering those topics.
• Social Media links
• Sites and authors can enter links to their Email, Facebook, Twitter, etc
• Allows the Find a Blog page to be a 1-stop site for connecting with your favorite authors!
• RSS Feeds
• Allows readers to quickly follow your blog!
• Sites that enter their RSS links will be part of future features to further our hobby's interests.
• I won't use your RSS feeds to post full articles.
• Update-able
• Authors can update their site's information themselves as the focus of their blog shifts or they change emails, create a Facebook account for their site, etc.

Not mandatory, but I still ask that you put a link to the Find a Blog network on your own site, so that we can connect as many people as we can to the blogs that interest them. I've updated the old Widget to point to the new Network page, but don't fret! Anybody currently being sent to the old Network page will automatically be redirected to the new one.

Also, thanks to Thor over at Creative Twilight for answering some questions I had... and to him and Curis from Ninjabread for signing up in the early stages so I had some real test data to work with. 

(Don't forget to follow my Twitter and Facebook to get peeks in to what I'm up to.)

http://www.wargamingtradecraft.com/p/find-blog.html

Also, I'd just like to thank those who've already signed up - if you haven't, what are you waiting for?!

"What if I was in the old Network list?"

Because authors now get a username and password used to update their information whenever they wish, YOU WILL HAVE TO SIGN UP AGAIN. This is the only speed bump to getting the network back off the ground, hopefully surpassing the old 72 and compiling a list of all the miniature hobby sites out there in one location.

Adeptus Mechanicus Fan Codex v3

I don't go off-topic too often, but this is an interesting project that an active member of our community, aka Lantz, has been working on for quite some time now. When the internet was in it's infancy, there were a LOT of junk codexes out there created by people who basically were only interested in convincing their friends they should be allowed to play some overpowered list... to be fair, I even tried creating [totally broken] rules for a Revenant Scout Titan once. (But I recognized after 1, maybe 2 games that it was too OP and put that sucker down.)

However, here's a codex that's had a lot of time and effort put into it. It's now in it's third version and continuing to be worked on. I love the style - almost a "steam punk 40k". There are also some neat rules... like being able to blow up your wrecked tanks so the technology doesn't fall into enemy hands. He's even put together a list / photos of miniatures from various manufacturers that can be used to create your army.

Click over to AdMechFanDex.com to download a copy.

Mine's Bigger than Brent's

Dethtron's returned to the Blogosphere... and already he's shaking things up.

It started with Brent showing off his rather large hobby collection, and Deth not only prepared a rebuttal that shows off his own massing of toy soldiers but called out the community to do the same. So far, Loq's also responded to the challenge, but I call shenanigans 'cause she owns a game store.

So I'm taking this opportunity to show off my own collection, but asking you to show yours off too - when you do, please post a link in the comments here.

CoolMiniOrNot.com Hacked

Saw the news on Massive Voodoo's Facebook update, and looks like it's back to normal now. (Grabbed the pic here) Chern Ann, an admin, posted that it was their webhost, www.inmotionhosting.com that got hacked, which I just confirmed it since I know some others using them. (No notice from In Motion either, apparently)

Chern says all passwords are encrypted, but that's just a question of time. Even though they've fixed the site, there hasn't been an email to warn us about the hack and there isn't a news post on the site. Personally, that's just bad business.

If you had a CMON account, you should do two things, right now:

1. Change your password.
1. Login
2. Click "My Profile" (top right)
3. Click "Edit Profile" (left)
4. Click "Edit Email & Password" (middle)
2. Change your password on any websites you used the same PASSWORD and EMAIL to sign up, especially if you used the SAME password for your EMAIL.

I know it's a pain, but odds are that the hackers will have all that data sooner or later.

[Update, 11am]

Looks like an index.php was dropped into the first few levels of all websites hosted with In Motion at around 4am last night. Was data compromised? It could have been. It all depends how long the hackers had access before putting up their splash page... in theory they could have had access for days or more and downloaded whatever they wanted.

Point still remains - change your CMON password and change your password anywhere you use that password / email combination to be safe. Need a password? Look around you and choose 4 things - that's your new password, relying on length for security.

[Update, 5pm]

Their website's totally down now... possibly a failed restore? Two people I know who had their sites compromised were up and running by mid-day after taking all sorts of post-hack security precautions. I can confirm that no data was deleted... databases are still intact, but CMON hasn't sent out an email to users yet... tsk tsk.

Damnatus on IMDB (Warhammer 40k Fan Film)

Heyyy, that's cool.. as of a few months ago, Damnatus, the Warhammer 40k Fan Film, is now listed on IMDB with a full cast and a few reviews.

Too bad it was never officially released. As one of those reviews mention, apparently, it was leaked on Internet. Tsk, tsk, those pesky Internets.



For those not aware, this was a German movie made by a bunch of fans at their own expense. It was shaping up to look like a quality release and their website has some nifty galleries of some of the work they put into it.

The problem they ran into was some sort of crazyness regarding German copyright law. I don't fully understand it, but it seems that if Games Workshop game them the permission to release this film, it would have relinquished the 40k brand into public domain. (Something GW would obviously never do, and we can't fault them for) In addition to that, they couldn't transfer creation rights of the movie to GW either.

Unfortunately, while GW told them "Hold off, we're looking into this." they went ahead with spending money and time to make the movie - admittedly, that was their bad. By the time GW gave them the verdict, the movie was completed and the cast and crew were told their efforts could never see the light of day.

As I understand it, it's actually a better movie than Ultramarines.

(FYI, I will remove any comments directing people to the supposed leak as I don't want a GW ban-hammer coming down on my blog. Please keep it to yourselves or take the risk on your own sites.)


Why post at all about this? *shrug* With all the GW crazyness lately, it reminded me I hadn't checked if there had been any update on the Damnatus project. I thought it great to see the movie listed on IMDB, so those involved would at least get some recognition for their hard work.

Warhammer 40,000 Memes

Blood of Kittens Adepticon display board.

As many of you are aware, Blood of Kittens had a contest a short time ago to have readers submit Warhammer 40k styled memes to end up on their poster board at Adepticon. For those interested, take  look at their Adepticon coverage.

I may not have any coverage, but the following are my entries to the meme contest and should provide some amusement for everyone. Feel free to link and share and spread the love all you want! (Just please remember a link back here :)

Wargaming Tradecraft Networking

The void left by From the Warp is not one easily filled and this post isn't going to suggest I'm going to try... I certainly don't have the time to attempt to recreate what Ron built over there. I know a few people seem interested in keeping the Tuesday Top 10 alive, House of Paincakes does their Weekly Top X and I too post links to all the articles that stand out to me each week in my Weekly Update.

One of the best things I took from From the Warp was connecting with all of you. It was a great place to find all sorts of interesting blogs through his weekly features and the constant updates in the blogrolls. You can always view my blogrolls on the blog itself, or view those I've Followed on my profile.


What I would like to do is create an index of all our hobby blogs out there, as well as advertise what aspect of the hobby they're focusing on.

So, I've created a "Network" page that you can find at the top right on my site's tab index. The instructions are there, but basically just send me an email with a little info on how your blog fits into the topics I've created. (Let me know if you think I'm missing something) I would also appreciate it if you'd place a link to the network page on your site, so that others can utilize it as well.

In theory, this will lead to a large list of blogs that anyone can quickly scan through, seeking blogs that contain content geared towards what part of our craft interests them. (Red boxes signifying the primary roles of the site)

Let me know what you think of all this.. hopefully I'll receive emails from quite a few of you soon.
(And please have patience if I don't get your sites up right away in case I get quite a few people responding)

on Competitive Gaming and List Building

via http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/1/21/new-world-record/