And they gave themselves fourhundred 10s..

[Gypsy]

Don\'t know if anyone has mentioned this before but has anyone ever looked at the Top Ten Terrain pieces lately?
I mean, come on, look at it:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/top/c/Terrain

There\'s a guy named Mark with two of his models in the Top Ten but both of them are clearly overrated as you can see.
Just found it curious, his buddies must have been tossing out 10s for hours on end.
He claims to have nothing to do with it. Yeah, sure. How pathetic can you get?

Off to bed.

 

[darthfoley]

I think they\'re both nice pieces of work. I wouldn\'t have voted a 10 on them, but I don\'t think an 8 is out of line, as many of the commenters seem to. *shrug*

 

[Gypsy]

But they are at 9.6 and 9.3. ...well...the house is an 8 at the most and that watchtower never more 7.5.

Didn\'t I want to go to bed? It\'s this forum. It forced me to go against my better judgement. Argh.

 

[darthfoley]

Clearly some people disagree.

Personally, I think the less I say about scores today the better I\'ll feel.

 

[t_haye2]

well, i\'m happy, i got sniped on my marine twice already! hahaha! It must be good...I don;t care about the scores really...

 

[finn17]

I am glad I went to look.

I quite like the Dwarven thingy, but it is not 9+ in my books. The watch tower is a solid 7, perhaps 7.5.

The real reason I am glad I went for a gander is that Robius guy/gal!!! Now there is real talent. I would pay good money for his pieces..:flip:

 

[spike_92]

i know! that is pure talent. especially the shelob\'s lair! (offtopic). Ok well that mark guy\\gurl definitly has a superiority complex but u shouldn\'t go bald about it.

 

[Trevor]

Actually I think some of the Robius stuff is overated.

I\'m pretty sure I voted 10 on the forge, its ALL scratchbuilt, and has some great details.

I consider myself something of a terrain expert, I know what is easy to do and what is not. My pet peeve is stuff done with Hirst moulds or similar, anyone can make a decent looking tower or whatever with those things, where is the talent in that?

 

[Trevor]

Oh, yeah the watchtower is overated, especially as its just a copy of the GW one.

Its still great work, but not really a 9.

 

[Smoth]

actually I was not impressed at all. Personaly me, I want to know why ManorhouseWorkshop is rated so low. I love the terrain these people produce. Easily 9s and 10s IMO.

 

[sivousplay]

I consider myself something of a terrain expert, I know what is easy to do and what is not. My pet peeve is stuff done with Hirst moulds or similar, anyone can make a decent looking tower or whatever with those things, where is the talent in that?

I\'d have to disagree pretty big-time here ... being a rather large advocate of the Hirst Arts stuff.

I hate to presume anything about someone else\'s argument, but I\'m guessing that you find HA stuff lacks talent because the pieces are pre-formed w/out needing to sculpt/cut them? And, that as a result you only have to focus on the design of the entity as opposed to the cutting of materials? I won\'t bore you w/ details of using HA stuff, but there\'s a ton of labor ... it\'s different labor than cutting sheets of plastic/foam/wood, but I\'ve done both and neither is any easier. At some level all materials that we use are pre-formed in one fashion or another ... heck even static grass is preformed.

I think the real talent with buildings/terrain/etc is not the assemblage of materials, but in the composition and the painting to make them realistic. It\'s about form/color etc. ... Christopher Wren didn\'t have to know how to quarry rock, or how to smooth rock, etc.. He focused on the form and science of the structure.

You should try the Hirst stuff sometime ... to build a large, beautiful structure takes 100s of hours and all sorts of skills.

jim

 

[DennisMech]

I\'ve been wanting to complain about this...

these two terrain peices in the top of the week list I find extremely overrated. Is it just Robius\'s name that gets him these scores?

http://www.coolminiornot.com/60276

http://www.coolminiornot.com/60275

Though I disagree with Gypsy (sorry e-sister ), I really like both of Mark\'s peices, though mostly the smithy. I can\'t say the Rohan tower is that original, but it is well executed.

 

[Gypsy]

Never said anything against the pieces. They\'re nice, they\'re well executed but that\'s it. Nothing spectacular about them that I\'d believe over 400 people would rate them a 10 compared to what kind of terrain pieces are posted on this site.
And this is not a complaint post about the voting system because I\'m not in the Top Ten or anything (I don\'t even have any terrain stuff posted). Just saying that I think it\'s pathetic if people go on such ways just to get recognition. False recognition at that.

And yes, my little step e-brother, those two Robius models seem a bit overrated as well. Really must be his name. Or not. Whatever.

Need. Coffee.

 

[Trevor]

Jim

I\'d have to disagree pretty big-time here ... being a rather large advocate of the Hirst Arts stuff.

Good points. The Hirst Arts stuff is great, and you can do some awesome stuff with it, but I think a lot of people do some pretty basic stuff with them and get scored highly because the blocks are so good.
To me its like someone getting an 8 for the sculpt rather than the paint job. But then thats part of CMON.

 

[Trevor]

Having a look through the top scoring terrain it does seem a bit weird. Certainly manorhouse seem to be taking a hit, but that could just be because they are a company.

 

[finn17]

I\'ll tell you what....

Originally posted by Trevor
I think a lot of people do some pretty basic stuff with them and get scored highly because the blocks are so good.

I am heavily into Hirst at the moment and IMO its quite an art getting blocks at all. Each one is individually cast and levelled and you have all the associated problems of bubbles, getting the mixture right, levelling the mould at just the right time, and then assembling the damn things into something that doesn\'t look like a piece of modern art by Homer Simpson

It\'s a slight stretch, I know but it\'s almost like saying that people should be grinding up their own pigments rather than buying those nice ready mixed paints....

Hirst blocks or pots of paint...they are just the raw materials it\'s what you do (or don\'t do) with them that counts.

 

[Trevor]

OK, OK!

I concede, using Hirst Arts blocks isn\'t a cop out. But I\'m still gonna score someone who can do this Cathedral pretty much just from blue foam higher.

 

[supervike]

Yes, I have seen things made with HirstArts blocks that still look like \'crap\'.

I agree with your assessment Finn. It seems to be an artform in itself to even cast the blocks, let alone put them into some sort of coherent design (although, still just theory as I haven\'t bought any molds yet!)

It looks extremely satisfying to me to be able to completely build a little castle, from planning, to casting, to erection (teehee)...

on to the real point of the thread...

Apparently \'mark\' is no longer in the top ten. Having said that, I voted a 9 for his Dwarf Smithy and an 8 for the Rohan Tower.

I think the voting has more to do with the placement of his mini, than the real score....

Let me explain. Let\'s say he posts the terrain, and it does well and gets some higher scores, maybe even has a few of his friends vote on it (just assuming).

At that point, I feel many people vote because of the \'posted score\' as opposed to what they think it is worth. (I think everyone should use the \'hide score\' feature) Then, it just kind of feed off of itself, makes the top ten, where even more people are swayed by its position, thus voting even higher....

Of course the converse of this argument is that some people, seeing the posted score, feel that it is their duty to \'score down\' to adjust the score to a more realistic level. Either way, I think the \'posted score\' is a major culprit in cases like this.

The posted score sways votes, therefore must be completely evil....

 

[Trevor]

And now it has 8 ROBIUS pics! Some of which are good, others are rather poor, especially compared to the aforementioned Manorhouse stuff, or Necromundicon stuff.

I mean look at the quality (or lack of) in the drybrushing on the pallisades for that that ork tower thing... Well I guess its a matter of personal preference...

 

[sivousplay]

I would agree that the manorhouse stuff is the best stuff I\'ve seen. I entered a painting contest in Italy (via snail mail) and one of the guys who runs Manor House liked my entry well enough that he sent me a piece of their terrain. It\'s very cool resin stuff that they\'ve taken a great deal of care to create. It\'s pretty pricey stuff, but then so are the HA molds.

Trevor ... sorry everyone ganged up on you about the HA stuff.

And, I do think that some of the recent ROBIUS stuff was over-rated, but there are plenty of times when someone has a block of work that people like, they get the benefit of the doubt on some of their lesser pieces because people have come to believe they are very good at what they do. Not necessarily the best/fmost fair way for things to work out, but then nobody ever accused the CMON voting system of being fair.

jim