Wanted help understanding miniatures ratings

painting

New member
I'm a total new person to this so forgive me please. But lots of the minis for rating appear to be very good to me but have a low rating like 5.5. I guess it's because I don't know what to look for but something like this:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/246438

(don't know anything about it or the person that did it)

The average for this one is five. I wanted to know what to look for. Why is this a five? Is it all just subjective?

http://www.coolminiornot.com/246443

This one got 1.9 higher but that one seems to me to be better. is it because of the sculpture itself?

Thanks.
 

skeeve

Member
Being a supporter here, I can also see the scores given by registered users. This, for me is better indication because, more often then not, registered users are "uninterested" in a specific rating a specific miniature is getting. In you particular example Miniature #1 is 5.5 average and 5.4 registered users average, miniature #2 is 6.9 average and 4.5 registered users average. Miniature #1 painted by, most likely a person. Miniature #2 is painted by, most likely a business (and in fact is on sale). There is also things like "loyal followers" that tends to rate things higher and loyal haters that tend to rate things lower. That being said, realistically ratings above 8 and bellow 5 means something, the middle however is more subjective.
 
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BPI

New member
Subjective certainly comes into it but first compare the bases on your 2 examples, one is modeled & one isn't. Is the photo background complimentary & unobtrusive to the mini? Has the painter managed to fit the whole mini into frame or randomly decided to crop bits off? Can we, at least, see an in focus front & rear shot of the model? If a human style face, with both eyes painted, is there a front shot that shows where the character is looking? (any time shots appear that are angled just showing one eye per frame, I assume the painter has screwed up & it's cockeyed). Is the manufacturer, genre, title information correct & correctly spelled?
Just a couple of thoughts of things that influence my voting before checking the paint/sculpt, etc. to determine a score.
Cheers, B.
 

Einion

New member
Simplest reason: tough crowd! There's also: fanboy influence, sniping, score inflation, CMON not CPON (it's Cool Mini Or Not, not Cool Paintjob Or Not) and a few other things to take into account.

When the search is back up I can point you to some older threads with more discussion on the topic.

Einion
 

dogfacedboy uk1

New member
Simplest reason: tough crowd! There's also: fanboy influence, sniping, score inflation, CMON not CPON (it's Cool Mini Or Not, not Cool Paintjob Or Not) and a few other things to take into account.

When the search is back up I can point you to some older threads with more discussion on the topic.

Einion

Surely though everything should be taken into consideration - sculpt and paintjob, basing - every aspect determines whether or not it is a "cool mini" does it not? I take every aspect into account, sculpt, painting, basing, extra efforts made (conversions, special effects etc) and the photo quality when i place a vote.

Given your example I think the first one has a better paintjob than the second, the second is a better model, but not greatly so and has much better basing but the paintjob didn't do it for me. I would give both a 6.

dfb
 
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BarstoolProphet

New member
Oh yeeeeaaaahhhhh... we can vote on minis, here. I completely forgot about that aspect of the site.
Of course, with my camera curse, if I'm not posting new pictures, I'm not thinking about that aspect of things.
But, seriously.
It's been pretty well covered, above, but don't let the scoring be your be-all, end-all on your minis.
Yes, it's wonderful to improve your skills, but there are far too many factors (positive and negative) that influence such things.
Your best bet for genuine improvement and great feedback from this site is in the WIP and Discuss Submissions sections of these forums.
Read along, post your work, and get real, honest feedback about what you need to work on, and what just really works.
Yes, sometimes it will seem harsh, particularly if you've posted a piece that you feel is totally awesome, and the feedback comes back less to your liking than you'd wanted, but that's a risk you take.
And just reading comments on other people's stuff is also helpful.
 

Einion

New member
Surely though everything should be taken into consideration - sculpt and paintjob, basing - every aspect determines whether or not it is a "cool mini" does it not?
Yep, that's mostly covered under 'mini' versus just judging the paintwork (where theoretically there might be no base at all). Plus I did say "and a few other things" to cover everything else :rotfl:

Generally I take all the same stuff as you into account when voting BTW, although I try not to let the quality of the photo (especially slightly less-good ones) influence the number. Sometimes really good, sharp, photos don't actually help the poster :doh:

Einion
 
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