Dreamhack Winter 2005 Preview

Name: Gainward Celtic case
Theme: Celtic / Tribal
Materials: Silverstone TJ05
Build Time: 30 hours


OK, now things are getting really serious. The boys at Gainward will be exhibiting at Dreamhack and asked me to make them a demo case. After a few phonecalls to various sponsors, a dream specification was assembled:

• Intel Extreme Edition processor
• 2GB Adata memory
• Epox 5NVA+ SLI motherboard
• Creative X-Fi soundcard, and of course
• Two Gainward 7800 GTX Golden Sample cards in SLI.

The system will run F.E.A.R. at the Gainward booth. No pressure then. None whatsoever...




This sexy, black beast is the Silverstone TJ05. The gloss finish on this is really nice - it will almost be a shame to engrave it to bits. Almost...



Lots of Google research later and I found awesome Russain tattoo website, The Hieroglyph where I found this super cool design. Once again, printed out (on four sheets of A4 no less) and taped into place ready for engraving.



As always, I started by outlining the entire panel. Then starting at the bottom, working my way from side to side, and then up each dragon. This took quite some time, but I can't afford to make any mistakes, so time is all I have to work with. Here is the completed side panel - do I really need to say just how cool this turned out? Credit where credit is due - those Russians sure know their art! You can click for bigger photos. Needless to say, I'm really pleased with the result.




The front of the case needs some art, so more searching produced this design, again by The Hieroglyph. I removed the drivebay door to work on it more easily. Here you can see the Stage 1 outlining, and the finished result.

With the right-hand side and front taken care of, it was time to move to the left, feature side panel...



The plan for this panel is to window-mod it and continue the cool Celtic theme around the edge. My original intention was to use the same dragons, scaled down and place them in opposite corners.



As you can see, I changed my mind by the time I worked my way up to the top left corner. I will show you why...



Every case has a plain, square window these days so I wanted to create something unique. Project Synapse demonstrated how you could tie the design of a panel into the window space, so I masked the entire panel (to prevent scratches) and went mad with the jigsaw. I was quite nervous how it would look, but when I peeled off all the masking tape, I knew I had made the right decision.



Here is a couple of pics with the plexi in place. Nice case, but no prizes for guessing who's building a home studio for Christmas! Dodgy reflections aside, I'm really happy with the result and I hope my sponsors, Colorcase, Gainward, Intel, Creative and Adata will be too.