[unofficial weekender] Competitions

[sundancer 44790xp 1]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

https://www.ontabletop.com/forums/topic/introduce-yourselves-new-member-thread/

https://www.ontabletop.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil. This includes no philosophy, no home computer culture wars.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is The Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

If you fancy to see some nice WIP pictures go to the WAYPN thread https://www.ontabletop.com/forums/topic/what-are-you-painting-now-2025-edition/

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Question of the week:

• Have you ever taken part in any larger painting or building competition? If so how did you prepare and what was the overall feeling and outcome?

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 44790xp 1]

Pledge: stop waiting around and get stuff done. (hahaha, I almost believe it myself)

Answer: No, never have (not counting our local little PaintComp here)

I must admit this time around the question is intentionally extra cheeky because Bandai is holding a painting competition for the upcoming Gundam Assemble game. You have until August 17th to register for a chance to get a free sprue to enter the competition. So if they pick you (it’s a lottery IIRC) you get send one sprue for GA and you need to use exactly that sprue for the competition. Registration is a bit weird because you also need a Bandai ID and the homepages are “different”. XD

Links for the registration are as follows:

US Link https://global.bandai-hobby.net/en-us/site/gundam-assemble/paint/paint-contest2026/

UK and EU Link: https://global.bandai-hobby.net/en-others/site/gundam-assemble/paint/paint-contest2026/

If you are outside the US, UK or EU then this competition is not for you. Sadly. I did apply for this and I’m waiting impatiently for the draw.

Also, have some flocking good music:

[limburger 22572xp 1]

With the exception of the challenges that OTT has posted … nope, never.
There are far too many depressingly super talented folk out there for me to consider doing it.
I barely get anything done without the added stress of a deadline.

There’s a new grade for these kits :

Music

Want to see something crazy ?

[pagan8th 15327xp 1]

Pledge… That’s a brand of furniture polish isn’t it?

Nope. Never entered a painting, or building contest.

 

[grantinvanman 10448xp 2]

Pledge: thin some of my collection this week, I have enough stuff to make stores cry.

Competitions: I once pulled a LOTR Cave Troll out of an army, and entered a Golden Demon with it. I got second place. That was kind of funny.

I think I put about 45 hours into painting it, but it was literally just one part of my Moria goblins army. Long sold, along with my trophy – who buys a random GD trophy? People, I guess.

[danlee 22938xp 2]

Pledge: More heroe’s 3 minis (current batch very nearly done) and then painting competition entry.

 

• Have you ever taken part in any larger painting or building competition? If so how did you prepare and what was the overall feeling and outcome? – I did a Golden Daemon entry once, but it was mainly because at the time it allowed you earlier entry into Games Day. My paint job really wasn’t up to competition level.

[zoidpinhead 13028xp 1]

Pledge:  Get everything for my Kings of War army built and undercoated this weekend and then try to get the painting finished next week.

Answer:  I haven’t entered any competitions outside of those here at OTT.

Competition painting is beyond what I think of as my hobby.  Ultimately, all of my collecting, building and painting results in an army that can wargame.  I doubt most painting competition entries do much more than sit in a cabinet and given they have taken hundreds of hours that’s fair enough, they are beautiful.  The same goes for scale modelling and Gunpla.  They are all fine and I’ll watch content about them for some ideas, hints and tips but they aren’t my hobby.  Now there is going to be a Gundam miniatures game perhaps I’ll pay it a bit more attention.

[limburger 22572xp 2]

I made the mistake of looking at the cost for RAM and comparing it to what I had paid when I build my current PC.
2 x 32 GB is currently listed as 1149 Euro …
I originally got it for 249 Euro (ordered on 12 september 2025 )

Can you say *ouch* ?
Definitely glad I got 64GB at that time …

The SSD is slightly less insane (it only doubled in price …)
//
So glad our hobby is more stable and less insane.

[grantinvanman 10448xp 2]

RAM is off the charts thanks to AI.

[limburger 22572xp 1]

nah … it’s not AI, it’s pure greed.
They know they can sell it for quadruple the price to companies that are planning to do things with it, so they allow them to pre-order things.
Meanwhile folk who actually want to use it can’t get it at regular prices.

To turn it into an analog that is slightly on-topic:

It’s like OTT and a few other youtubers ordering all the GW production for the next 5 years because they want to make a gigantic table and GW no longer selling to customers.
Is it realistic that OTT would ever complete those tables ?
Nope, but the prospect of selling everything with zero effort for a long while makes GW do it anyway.

I’ve found some fun use for ‘AI’ :  a radio DJ that doesn’t suck …
It’s part of the upcoming release for Music Assistant. The beta has it and it is hilarious if you give it the right crappy persona.

https://www.music-assistant.io/

[danlee 22938xp 1]

I don’t post about this project every week, as it would probably be a bit samey, but for anyone interested in the board game Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, I have a ongoing campaign story that you can find here:

 

Aeon Trespass Odyssey

 

 

[grantinvanman 10448xp 1]

@limburger

[limburger 22572xp 1]

and again : greed.
They know they can get more from promised sales than they could get from actual sales to regular customers, because they don’t have to produce anything at all (a lot of the data centers are still in the pre-planning phase).
If you look into the whole AI finance thing you’ll find a big ol’ circle jerk.

AI engines are running on consumer hardware.
Once that bubble starts to pop (and it will … Ollama is a thing) … that super expensive exclusive hardware will be useless.
(and the AI companies buying all planned production is there to ensure this democratization does not happen … yet … as it would kill their business model). Heck … DeepSeek had an impact because they managed to reduce the footprint of the LLM that the big boys had been using. Part of the problem is that limited resources does drive inventions.

Keep in mind that the servers that Google is using are pretty standard. They realised that cheap easy to replace hardware beats specialised designs once you get enough of it running.
‘AI’ hardware will hit that same tradeoff pretty soon.
We already have the engines that hand off tasks to other ‘AI’ …
I wouldn’t be too surprised if someone out there managed to create a multi-raspberry pi set up that could run the same thing as a single GPU monster does at the moment.

Tech evolves.
This shortage is artificial and therefor doomed to end.
Heck … it already forced MS to lower the minimum RAM limits for Windows 11.
It’s funny what shortages can do to things when you can’t just tell people to throw more hardware at a problem.

[grantinvanman 10448xp 1]

[sundancer 44790xp 1]

Monday morning.

Coffee.

16°C is a nice temperature to ride your bicycle. 🙂

And yes: Say no to clankers!

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