how do you get awards?

There's really only one 'award' that you can earn on the site, and that is a medal from The Order of The Golden Rivet. (which is just a fancy name for User of the Month)

Every month Jim (the webmaster) opens a thread where users can nominate two people for the award. (you usually nominate someone because they were helpful, got you some reference pictures, etc.)
Five people are nominated every month. Then, the users can vote on who they think deserves the award.

There's another type of 'award': Campaign ribbons. You'll get these for participating in some modelbuilding campaigns hosted here on the site. (ie. someone picks a theme, and everyone builds something from that theme in a certain time period)
Click on the 'campaigns' button on the left side of the screen to find out more.

The major campaign coming up is the "Operation Barbossa" build... :-)

YodaMan

Welcome aboard!!

What do you mostly build??

yeah I build armor, planes and warhammer.