Updates

Long time no see… But not anymore!

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I was really looking forward to write this post, yet so many things have been going on that I never managed to give it the attention and time it deserved. But now here it is, finally meeting you again and casting some more light on what we have been doing for the last months and what the whole thing with Mixed Dimensions is all about.

New projects…

New team-up: Mixed Dimensions

As some of you may already know, we got involved in a new and exciting project, in which technology meets art and our hobby. We were unable to tell much about it for some time, but now I can tell a bit more about the whole thing.

… in a new studio.

The partner we’ve teamed-up with is Mixed Dimensions, a company that combines 3d-printing technologies with painting and traditional modeling in order to create various kinds of collectibles. So while they provided the technological part, we brought the painting and modeling. 🙂

Test prints for the Bella project

Where did it take us? Oh, first of all we got to work with models in totally new sizes, like 7″ or even 12″ scale. Pretty impressive, I must say, even if they hardly compare to what we usually do.

It’s big, it’s heavy, and you surely don’t have enough space free in your collection. 😉

We’ve taken some of these models to some miniature painting and modeling events, and we still may carry them with us to show you, fellow hobbyists, painters and collectors, that figures can be more than just miniatures! 🙂

9″ pin-up model prepared for Mixed Dimensions the Collection
12″ Blood Demon from Mixed Dimensions the Collection

Our involvement with Mixed Dimensions allowed us to collaborate with as interesting partners and projects as DAZ 3D, Ubisoft or Cryptic Studios, and there’s still more interesting stuff to come, more that we finally may be sharing.

Painting a Star Trek Online model for a Mixed Dimensions customer.
Painting Bella, a model for Mixed Dimensions

If you were following Kacpero’s or Ana’s instagram profiles, you may have noticed some works we’ve prepared in the meantime, but we may be finally revealing them here as well. Well, let’s see before we promise something we cannot fulfill…

Werewolf from Mixed Dimensions

Changes, changes, changes…

With the basic work with preparing the team for the new projects, training new artists and preparing for all the new subjects already mostly done, we could finally return to the community and take a look at the website.

We visited a few events and exhibitions, met some old friends and were happy to see that we still enjoyed that part of the miniatures hobby. We decided we will return to visiting and participating in various events, so let’s meet at some events! Don’t hesitate to come and say hi if we meet, the fun is so much better when shared!

Meeting at MosonShow. We want more! 🙂

We decided to close the forum, as announced in July. As sad as it was, we had to admit we wouldn’t have enough time to make it active enough to justify the amount of work required to keep it updated and maintained. So we re-activated this Chest of Colors facebook group for all of you, who still want to be a part of the community and chat with your fellow hobbyists the way we used to do in the forums. Yes, silly chatter is totally allowed there, as long as it is not (too) offensive for others. 😉

We still need to take proper care about our Facebook fanpage and our other profiles, but there’s only so much one can do, and we have more interesting things to do first.

Hunter bust from Mixed Dimensions

Cool things to come!

Now that we could finaly reveal the cooperation, we may officially do some cool things together, which is good, because our time for projects which are exclusively Chest of Colors related is more limited now that we need to take care of both them and those which are related to Mixed Dimensions.

You haven’t seen it. You haven’t! 😉

One small thing I can spill some beans about is that we may have a contest soon. We are still working on the formula, subject and rules, but one thing is sure – the prizes will be nothing short of cool. 🙂

So who can howl louder? Do you recognize the vampire? And the werewolf?

We will also be posting some more information about various interesting projects we have been working on in the “lost months”. And believe me, there’s much to talk about!

Painting service? Why not!

Having sorted out more urgent matters, which have been keeping us busy, allows us to offer our painting service some more attention again.

We have been noticing an increasing number of inquiries about availability for commissions and special projects, so we would like to make sure they can be answered and taken care of. We should be posting some pictures of our recent paintjobds soon, so please stay tuned.

Commission, result of collaboration with Mixed Dimensions and Daz 3D

I will also make a separate post about all the new options that we’ve prepared with our painting service in mind, but for now it’s just great to share that now we have access to a larger and more versatile team, that can handle really diverse projects – from miniatures to dioramas, from single high-quality models to huge armies, from 3d printing and modeling to painting. But please give us some time to tell you more. 🙂

You all probably know these guys, don’t you?

So, as you can see, we’re not gone, and happy to be finally allowed to show what we’ve been doing for the past months. Keep your fingers crossed for us and wish us luck, as there’s so much great stuff to come! 🙂

Updates

Time to say goodbye

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It is not easy to say what I have to say, but the time has come to make the decision. We decided to close the forum.

Closing the chapter

It has been an important part of the website for so many years. I mean since early 2005, which means in 2020 it could be celebrating its 15th anniversary. It had its better times and worse times, it’s ups and downs, but in its glory time it was a thriving hobby community and a common ground for Polish hobbyists, who could learn, exchange experiences and comments, and just enjoy their hobby together there.

2006, the first meeting of our community members

Why?

Then the time of Facebook came, Facebook groups took place of many internet communities, and despite being less informative they were much more accessible. Popularity of internet forums faded and we knew it but still didn’t want to close the forum. We decided to keep it going as long as there were people interested in using it.

Unfortunately time we could offer to the forum was shrinking, more and more people moved to their serious adult lives, having less and less time for socializing online. Having less and less hobby time, many had to choose between spending it online or actually painting or converting miniatures…

We discussed the future of the forum and we knew one day we would have to say goodbye to it. It would be when the effort to keep it alive, to clean it from spam and to oversee it will be more than the return we were getting – no matter if it’s positive feedback, rewarding hobby time, or just plain participation in the community. With little life going on there and much maintenance required to keep it spam free and enjoyable to use, we thought it was the time to pull the plug.

How?

I thought it’s no use taking it offline, it would serve no purpose. The whole collection of information, feedback, advice or guidance would be lost. Instead we decided to keep it online. Inactive but still online, so anyone interested could take a trip into the past of the hobby, into the past of one of the very active miniature painting communities of the early 21st century.

All the good things about the community we used to have here were a result of a common effort of the people who participated in discussions and events there. For some it was almost like a second home. They considered the place theirs. Some of them did it even without being members of our team, some joined us. Some came, others left. The community lived on.

Thank you all, and you too!

After so many years it’s difficult to name all the great discussions and events that took place there, but definitely there are some people who deserve to be thanked for everything they did in our forum. They breathed life into it, they made it what it was. So taking advantage of the opportunity I have now, let me thank at least these people, who will always be a part of our forum community for me: Nameless, Demi_morgana, Skrit, Slawol, ToMaZ, sea.man, Hellspawn, Maru, Ana, arctica, NAVARRO, Corvus, Pandadosmares, kacpero, IRKUCK, Marta, Trovarion, Gildor, LadyEyes, Szary, Illusionrip, przemosz., quidamcorvus, przemo, Galharen, endrem, dead, Flameon, Rentall, szczurek_, Le6n, Cyberpaddy66, MiSiU and JerzyK.
Thank you for being with us and building the community together!
I will always be grateful for the time we spent discussing the hobby we shared!

Me and Nameless in 2016. Two spammers frequenters of the forum. 😉

As it was already said, the forum will stay where it was, it will just be inactive. Let it be a museum, a library, a sentimental trip to the hobby as it was when we had time to spend hours discussing it.

UPDATE: As some people contacted us and asked about a replacement for the forum, we re-activated our Facebook group, so if anybody wants to join and discuss, feel welcome there. 🙂

We aren’t leaving!

We’re not quitting the hobby. One does not simply give up miniatures. 😉

One does not simply give up miniatures
You don’t think Boromir might be wrong, do you?

So, well, see you elsewhere…

See you in different parts of the internet. See you at various hobby events. See you at exhibitions. See you at figure painting competitions.
See you on our website, see you on our facebook page! Stay in touch, just because the hobby is much better when enjoyed together! 🙂




Updates

Tale of Gamers – Pirate Orks by Arctica

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Now don’t you think that Chest of Colors is only a painters community! We game and we love pictures of painted units doing their best on table tops.  Here at our forum we’ve got a special section called Tale of Gamers, and our friend Arctica posted his Pirate Orks there for us all to see.

Tale of Gamers – what is it about?

In this part of forum any member (if brave enough 😉 ) can start his own tale.  Every thread is devoted to one miniature project. There are no deadlines, no gaming system restrictions and everyone sets his own point goal. As an example it can be:

  • 2250 points Ultramarines army for Warhammer 40000
  • 200 points Lost war band for  Hell Dorado
  • 45 points Khador battle group for Warmachine
  • any Malifaux or Freebooter’s Fate skirmish band
  • Space Hulk, Dreadfleet or maybe Super Dungeon Explore… own point goal

And yeah – you can start as many tales as you wish 🙂 The point of a Tale of Gamers is to motivate each other to paint and finish collections of models.

Tale of Gamers

 

To show you an example of such a Tale, let’s take a look at Arctica‘s Pirate orks, and read what he said about this project:

Pirate Orks by Arctica

So I first came up with the idea of ork pirates when my friends started playing Necromunda, they wanted me to get involved and join in. So I looked through the current range of models and actually I was not really a fan of any of the gangs so I decided to make a customized gang.

Since I’ve always liked orks but knew there were too many for me to do a sensible force this seemed a good opportunity and the release of the conversion bits for ork pirate heads seemed liked a good time to try this project.

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (2)
Pirate orks assembled

Plans and preparations

I put the models together and primed them and decided to go for a slightly different approach to the models to break up my usual state of painting. So going for a white primer rather than a black one was to challenge myself and see why other painters took this route.

After painting the first miniature I found it super fun and I was really excited to actually move onto the next model. The encouragement of the painting community here on Chest of Colors miniature painting forum and my own eagerness pushed me through the whole gang very very quickly. My original intention was to use the ork gang to break up any monotonous army painting but I quickly found that the orks were much more interesting than anything else and so I focused everything on them.

In many ways I would say that having 1-2 projects on the go is a good thing but I think for those exceptional projects you never need more than that one. And I kept posting my work up and getting group shots of the whole lot being completed one at a time made me really feel good about a project so I kept rolling with all that drive and motivation and pushed the project to completion very rapidly.

I always have plans for many things, but for now I have plenty of Warmachine models I want to finish so that I can compete at tournaments etc. I have another gang idea floating about but I need to work a few things out first.

If you would like to see Arctica’s tale or even comment it, here is the link to it.

Watch the progress

The most interesting part in having a tale is to watch the progress of an growing army. Here is an example how Arctica did it.

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (3)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (4)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (5)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (6)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (7)

End of the Tale

Enjoy the photos  of each member of pirate crew.

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (8)
Pirate orks warband ready for gaming!

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (9)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (10)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (11)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (12)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (13)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (14)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (15)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (16)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (17)

Tale of Gamers - Pirate Orks by Arctica (18)

Join us – start your own tale!

Did you know that painted miniatures do on table top battlefields much better? And for sure they look better on the shelf. 🙂

So are you a gamer? Does the possibility to play with painted miniatures motivates you to paint? Join other painters that try to turn metal piles of lead soldiers into battle ready killing machines. We help, comment and discuss about our armies and the most important we motivate each other.

Remember, there are no rules or strict schedules here. This forum section is always open for anyone who wants to challenge himself with any army/war band/ battle group. It is just simple fun helping to win one big prize – your own fully painted army.

And finally: what do you think about this kind of projects? Are they interesting to you? Are they motivating and encouraging? Why don’t you leave a comment to tell us if you want to read about our other tales and share your other suggestions with us. Thank you!

— sea.man

Events

6th Chest of Colors Miniature Exchange is here

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As you surely remember, Miniature Exchanges became our community’s tradition. We can enjoy them thanks to the coordinator of Chest of Colors Miniature Exchanges, Nameless, who prepared something for our faithful readers again!

He says that you know something was well done when people come back for more. As his PM box got full of requests for another Mini Exchange, he knew it was the time to keep the promises he had made. 🙂

6th Chest of Colors Miniature Exchange

Yes, we have yet another Miniature Exchange. We invited our users to take part in the 6th Chest of Colors Mini Exchange. If you received an invitation from us, this means you meet this edition’s requirements. And if you didn’t, well, nothing is lost. There can always be another chance, so read the rules, check this editions requirements and you will be prepared for the kind of conditions you will have to meet to qualify for our future Chest of Colors Miniature Exchanges.

So let’s move on to the rules…

Rules of the 6th Chest of Colors Mini Exchange

  1. If you want to participate, send the following data to Nameless’ e-mail address (PMs, e-mails sent to other addresses, phones etc. won’t be accepted – Nameless doesn’t care if he has your address already; send the above data as requested and Nameless will reply to confirm receipt of your application) by the 23rd of December:
    • Chest of Colors nick
    • first and last name
    • post address
  2. You need to meet at least one of the following requirements at the announcement date if you want to participate (We have the database, so you don’t need to check this information by yourself ;)):
    • membership in the Chest of Colors group or the Chest of Colors Painting Studio
    • at least 30 posts since the 5th Miniature Exchange
    • at least 25 “thanks” received since the 5th Miniature Exchange
  3. Nameless will randomly choose a recipient for each of the participants by the 30th of December. You will only receive an e-mail including data concerning your recipient. This means that you will know who you are painting for (of course), but you will not know who is painting for you.
  4. You have ca. 2 months to paint a single 25-35mm mini on foot. Mini needs to be sent on the 4th of March 2013 (Monday) at latest. Please send me an e-mail to the aforementioned address to confirm shipping and receipt of a mini. Avoid delays if possible. We all know that life can get in your way and shit happens all the time. That’s why we are giving you 2 months for painting. It’s more than enough. If you have some true problems to finish your mini, please let me know in due time. Do not run away from us, we’ll find a way to resolve such situation. Please, take your time now and think about your commitments for next few months. Are you sure you can paint a mini in 2 months?
  5. It’s up to you what mini you choose for your recipient. Nobody expects you to paint to a contest-winner standard, but a bit of effort is of course welcome. It’s about having fun, surprise and sending gifts to fellow painters and members of Chest of Colors.
  6. We like the element of surprise in our Mini Exchanges. Do not let your recipient know that you are painting for him/her and/or what you are painting for him/her.
  7. Take a photo of a mini you painted. We’ll have a special thread opened for posting ME pics. Do not comment on minis there, it will only serve for showcase purposes. You are of course allowed to post pics in your own thread to have some discussion about your paintjob.
  8. Minis need to be shipped as registered letters/packages. Please leave your receipt for future reference.

Want to participate?

Now the 6th Chest of Colors Miniature Exchange became a fact. The deadline for sending your applications has passed and if you want to participate in a Miniature Exchange here, stay tuned for the announcement (it’s best to follow our miniature painting forum for this purpose) and prepare to meet the conditions of participation. And in the meantime why don’t you check the galleries of our previous Miniature Exchanges.

If you have any questions or doubts, feel free to ask them in comments or in the forum.

Thank you for your time. Good luck and all the best for the holiday season!

Updates

Forum rebuilt?

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They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day. And yes, they’re right! But they can say the same about our miniature painting forum! It took us some time to make it what it is now, and we felt it was time to change some things!

Forum rebuilt?
You don't rebuild a forum in a day

Chest of Colors miniature painting forum

Most of you surely know that one of the features of Chest of Colors is our miniature painting forum. For some of you it’s the central part of the website, and it’s great that they feel this way. The forum is the meeting place for our community of miniature painters, pretty friendly and active. It’s also where quite a few members of our team were spotted, appreciated for their contributions to our community and invited to the group.

The first posts there date back to April 9th, 2005, which is about the time that the Headblast Design forum was abandoned and a new home for its community was needed. During the time a nice community of painters gathered around our forum, thousands of posts were written and many painted miniatures were presented there. Sure, we may be smaller than the biggest miniature painting forums on the internet, but still many people choose our forum and praise that it feels more friendly, more personal and more helpful than most other forums – including the biggest players in the game.

Why change anything?

During all the years much has changed. Some users disappeared, some new ones joined us. Groups of users formed, reformed and ceased to be. Sections of our forums became more or less popular. Manufacturers of miniatures came and went. Game systems saw their glory and decline. And finally: our site underwent some serious changes.

The first serious change happened when we had to separate the forum from the old green website. Many people knew only the forum and were surprised to know there was also a website to accompany it. Both parts of the webiste had different layouts and they felt like totally separate things. This state lasted for a few years until we managed to rearrange and re-launch our website in its new form.

We had some long discussions about the forum and the shape it should have. Some most frequent users of our forum talked about the sections which grew to be more popular than we expected and others which happened to become abandoned and almost dead. We felt that things would better be rearranged for improved usability and for more enjoyable experience of spending time our forum.

We managed to give the same consistent look to the website and the forum again and to integrate them partially. The integration is still not complete because logging in to the forum and to the main website is still done separately, but we may change it one day. We will see if it’s necessary at all. And when it was done, it was time for the changes we discussed!

The pub you visit

Yet before the changes were introduced, some of our members started a nice thread with thanks for the work we do to make Chest of Colors a homely place for us all. It was so very encouraging to see that most people liked the way I felt about the forum:

I always think about our forum as an old pub that you drop into one day.

You know, there are many of them but you stumble into one and see people chatting on topic and off topic, giving each other ironic comments and sharing private jokes. First you may feel strange and not quite fitting there. But then you spend an hour or two. Listen to the guys there and then find the courage to stand up and say “hello, I am new here”, and then you’re a part of it all. Then their jokes are yours, their place is yours, and you feel at home there.

The pub you visit
Think about our forum as an old pub that you drop into one day

That’s what I always wanted this place to feel like for fellow fans of miniatures.

It seems it does. Thanks to the people who spend their time here. The site is not about the computer code, servers, layouts, etc. It’s all about the people. Just like a pub is not just the walls – it’s the people who create the atmosphere.

Are the changes drastic?

No, they aren’t.

What we did was:

  • removing rarely used sections and merging them to more active ones that they would fit in
  • reorganization of some sections (like creation of a complete Rules, FAQs and technical help section on top of the forum) and moving topics and sections to places they belong more than to their previous locations.
  • adding guidelines to showcase and WIP sections
  • adding a new method of posting images to our forum, so they don’t break the website’s layout
  • adding a medals system to award users for their achievements and contributions
  • improving the system of reporting posts and threads to moderators, so users can help us keep the forum clean and in good order
  • rewriting our forum’s rules and answers to frequently asked questions
  • marking Polish forums in a visible way, so people know which part of the site is the international one and which is the Polish one

So it’s more of tidying the place, cleaning it, and trying to put things in better order. We hope you like the new order of things better and that it’s more natural and obvious for our miniature painting friends. We know that our users will need some time to get used to it, but we believe it’s not too much of a problem.

Is this all?

Well, honestly speaking there’s still a bit of work to be done. Some smileys need to be added, some old duplicate threads and posts need to be taken care of, some dead links have to be located and fixed. But we hope that with your help (which is so much easier now) we can do it and our forum will become an even nicer place for us all to hang around.

So if you haven’t done it yet, pay us a visit at the miniature forum, take a look around and see how things are organized now. Do you like the new order of sections? Do you think the whole place is more enjoyable now? Do you feel anything should be improved to make it the kind of forum you want to spend time on?

Share your comments, they’re the best source of insight and inspiration we can get, because we want you – miniature painters – to enjoy the place!