What is CSO?

CamoSpecs Online (CSO) is a volunteer organization dedicated to displaying high-quality images of miniatures from the Classic Battletech canon material. CSO is an official website sanctioned by the Battletech game developers, and is often tasked to help promote the miniatures aspect of the game. Work from the CSO team is frequently used for illustrations in
rulebooks and promotional material, and such work is produced under the auspices of a legally binding Non-Disclosure Agreement between each contributing Artist and Catalyst Games.

Member artists have the privilege of contributing images of miniatures to the CSO website, participating in special projects requested by Catalyst, and even helping to develop new paint schemes for the Classic Battletech universe. As representatives of Catalyst (and thus Wizkids Games, owners of the rights to Battletech), artists have the responsibility to present themselves to the community in a professional manner, and to work with other CSO artists as part of a coordinated team. In addition, each artist is responsible for checking the quality of his/her own work as well as the work of other CSO artists to ensure that the presented material is high-quality and consistent with the published canon.

New artists can join the CSO stable by submitting an application package as described below. Current artists will review the work and vote on its suitability. If the new artist passes the vote, the CSO Director can approve the new artist for acceptance to the team.

Interested in Applying for the Team?

If you would like to join the stable of artists, here are a few rules to help you accomplish that:

1. You must send in pictures of five (and five only) different miniatures in five different paint schemes. The different paint schemes should be diverse enough to show a range of talent to the panel. Try not to use schemes that are too similar to each other.
   
2. One of the paint schemes must be one that isn't already represented in Camo Specs Online (CSO). Here is a list of units that are not currently represented on CSO. Unrepresented Unit List Please note that it must be a canon paint scheme; its description must be from a canon source and cannot be created by you.
   
3. Only canon schemes will be considered. Make sure that they all have been written up in a book, or are found on CSO. CSO Gallery
   
4. No unseen miniatures please. An explanation and a list can be found Here. Also, if you would like to modify a mini to represent a published canon variant, do not use parts from other gaming manufacturers' minis. Only use parts from Iron Wind Metals. The miniature must also be relevant to the current CBT timeline, as that is the site's focus for now. In other words, many Dark Age era designs are not yet available. Finally, a miniature of any combat vehicle of the BattleTech universe can be used for your submissions, including 'Mechs, vehicles, fighters and infantry.
   
5. The miniatures must be correctly assembled. Reference the Technical Read-Out books or this web site as a guide. Mechlist
   
6. The miniatures must be based. Exceptions can be made for oversized 'Mechs or for vehicles that do not fit on a normal hex base.
   
7. The miniatures must be pictured with some sort of terrain as the background.
   
8. The pictures must clearly show the mini in focus and avoid excess lighting or shadows (please see Sounguru's Photo how-to for reference). Please make sure that the pictures you send are an appropriate size (max of 600 x 600 pixels). Files that are too large (over 100k) will not be considered due to space availability.
   
9. Please name the files you send in with corresponding unit and mini name. For instance: 'wolfdragoonarcher.jpg'
   
10. Send along a simple text document stating which unit the mini belongs to and what source you used to paint the scheme.

Your submission must be up to the standards set forth by the miniatures already posted. It will be voted on by a panel that includes the painters that are already part of Camospecs.

If accepted, your submission entries will be used on this site. Because of this, the following items, while not requirements, should be strongly considered to help make a successful entry:

1. In order to keep the panel as unbiased as possible, please try to send pictures of minis that have not been posted on other web sites.
   
2. Try to adhere to logical unit composition. Don't use the latest Clan 'Mech for an Inner Sphere unit or vice versa. The Faction Lists in the Combat Operations book, Random Unit Tables and unit descriptions in the Field Manuals and Deployment information in Technical Readouts are good sources of information.
   
3. Unit insignia. If you place unit insignia on your mini, make sure to do a bit of research to make sure it is positioned properly. This information can usually be found in the Field Manual that contains the unit's information.

Thats it. Paint your miniatures. Take pictures of them. Put them all into a single zip file and submit them to submit [at] camospecs [dot] com

Please be aware that many first submissions are rejected. We encourage you to utilize the comments generated by the review process, and submit again. Most of CSO's current artists had to re-submit at least once, sometimes more often than that, so you'd be in good company!

We look forward to your submissions!