Modders-Inc.com 2017 US Case Modding Championship at Quakecon 2017
The good, the great, and the spectacular of the case modding world
Quakecon 2017 happened in the confines of the Gaylord Texan, a hotel/conference center/resort in Grapevine, Texas. It is espoused as “3 days of peace, love and rockets!”, but the other side of this most amazing event…. are the mods! Quakecon has quickly become a Mecca for the case modder! Modders-Inc has been hosting the case modding contest for the past several years and a 2 years ago we renamed the contest to the US Case Modding Championship. 3 classes dominate this landscape, the classic case mod, the scratch build, and the id/Bethesda themed case mod (which can be either scratch or a case mod). Competition this year brought exemplary mods, and the cream certainly rose to the top.
Below, I will break down the top three entries of each class, and give you a glimpse into the judging of the mods… except for the id/Bethesda mod category. There was only one entry there, but it will receive the same coverage, because “yes”, it was just that good!
Case Mods, Case Mods… where for art thou my Case Mods?
When you mod a computer case, it is best to start with a cohesive theme.
Our 3rd place mod was based on twitch. Yes…. that “twitch”!!! And it was built by Nick Lopez
Purple and white color theme throughout the case, with excellent lighting. Not overly bright, not too dim. The liquid cooling piping was parallel and clean, straight and symmetrical. Of note, this machine’s pipe layout was unique in how it attached from the video card to the CPU/VRM monoblock heatsink. The G.Skill TridentZ
RGB DIMM’s were also LED color matched to the internals. Individually sleeved, color matching power cables and a video card backplate with the twitch logo tied it all together. All wrapped in InWin skin…
The 2nd place case mod, no lie, was smmmmokin!!!!!!
Dragon Spawn by Adam Owen was a …wait, who?!?!? Yes, “that” Adam Owen. Adam has competed in this shindig several times in the past, and always is a force to be reckoned with. This year’s entry is no exception. Based around a GamerStorm case chassis, it has dragon that is wrapped around the cooling reservoir, Adam managed to snake lights up the dragon head to make its eyes glow, and then opted to make a home made glycerin based fog machine that blew out the dragon’s mouth! 
The top and front of the case were 3D printed to depict a “lava flowing under a hardened crust” effect. 3D printing was also used for the dragon and some internal shrouds to cover cabling. The three buttons on the side controlled lighting effects as well as the fore mentioned smoke from the dragon. Corsair LED memory, and a GamerStorm Captain AIO CPU cooler broke the red monotony up and added a simple, yet vibrant contrast to the red that saturated the case.
1st place – The Gunslinger, by Dave Cathey
Based off of the Dark Tower story and recently released movie, Dave Cathey channeled his inner champion to create this unique melding of cool Coolermaster case design, with old west flare and an “old world” electronics spin. Not steampunk… that is too stylized. The case has a “clean” side, and a “dirty” side. Clean side is the revolver, white opaque cooling, white sleeved power cables, and a leather wrapped motherboard tray. Ohhhh yeah…. don’t forget about the Horn of Eld up there… 
Back side of the case is a great example of weathering, airbrushing and aging:
The outside of the case almost had a spray on bedliner feel, with a rose cut through the top of the case and the reservoir mounted to the front, attached by leather wraps:
