Do u vote the paint/basing/sculpt work or do u have the mini itself in count?

[Mergram]

Hi u all!

Ok, after a lot of votes I have seen that some minis which seem very well painted have low scores because the mini itself is ugly.
I\'ve been thinking about it and I\'m sure that I would probably put a higher score to a beautiful mini than to an ugly mini, although the paint skills were more or less the same.
So when I vote I have that in mind and when I see an ugly mini I stop my mouse and keep watching it for the real paint skills of the artist...
I feel that many voters here don\'t vote only the paint skills (or basing/sculpting skills in cases), which I feel is not fair for some good painters...

Ok, what do u think?
What do u do when u vote?
Do u think that the mini has to be in count before voting?

I think it shouldn\'t....

Cheerio,
Mergram

 

[finn17]

You can\'t ignore the sculpt...

I appreciate what you are saying, but the quality of the sculpt will always contribute to the final score. If a talented scuptor has produced a complex mini with all sorts of accents and nuances that can be bought out by a talented painter and a painter does indeed make the most of the job it is likely to score more than a chunky old lead figure even if it was painted by Michaelangelo himself.
As painters we are limited by the minis we paint, you can\'t bring out character, detail or accents that aren\'t there.
There is an old saying, \'you can\'t make a silk-purse out of a sow\'s ear\'.

 

[Mergram]

Ok, I agree up to a point... A really ugly mini w/o any details cant be a 10 or even an 8. But some really low scores in 3-4 range r there because of the quality of the mini and I feel they could be 5-6 and to those minis I was talking about with my post

 

[vincegamer]

Without the paint it is still a mini, so the sculpt is and I think should be part of the score.
This is coming from someone who has been told he \"tortures\" himself by painting ugly old sculpts. I consider myself a pretty good painter and my scores are below my skill level in part because I insist on painting up 25-year-old pieces of led.

Think of it this way, we are not merely pushing our ability to apply color, we are also pushing out ability to identify grace and symetry and balance, which we do in part by selecting color and hue and in part by selecting pose and form.

Is it \"fair\"? If by fair you mean everyone is on an even playing field, then no. People who have the money to buy newer and more elaborate minis have an advantage in score over those who don\'t.
The only way to avoid the sculpt influencing the vote is to have everyone paint the same mini. Joining the CMON competition is possibly the only way to know how your skills in just painting stack up.... Or you could paint a space marinelol

 

[JonG]

I tend to take a holistic approach to voting. I.e. I take the figure as a whole and think - yeah that\'s a cool mini, or not as the case may be.

So yes, I look at paintjob (execution and colour choice), basing, sculpt, plus maybe up the vote slightly for a bit of humour or interesting idea. An unfinished base probably knocks a point off for me.

I tend not to vote if the mini is unpainted - e.g. a raw conversion - or it is unfinished or not 28mm as I find it hard to compare to others.

You can certainly play the voting game here I think. For example, a Rackham sculpt is often worth an additional 0.5 or more. Also larger scale figurines are often worth a bit more.

 

[paleotaur]

There is a problem with that system though. Everyone knows that a Rackham mini is worth moree, (although I have seen some awful things done to them, mostly goblins for some reason) Anyway, if everyone knows that then they don\'t have to \"recognize beaty grace and symetry\" just pick up a Rackham mini and paint it instead of way to an a Reaper, GW, or other mini that is just as well sculpted. Sometimes I will actually vote higher if I see someone do amazing things with a mini I never gave much thought to. Just my .02.

 

[Impernouncable]

I definitely take into account the entire presentation. This includes everything from the paintjob through any conversions which may be present, down to the quality of the photo.

It could be argued that I am rating the photo rather than the figure, but as I don\'t have the actual figure itself in front of me I must do it that way.

 

[Errex]

My vote is for the whole package...

But even then, the bulk of the score goes to the paintjob, then the sculpt, and then the base. Sometimes, even if one of the mentioned points is lacking, as long as the other ones are solid, the score remains above the 6.

 

[Flashman14]

I\'m in the whole presentation camp!

 

[vincegamer]

whole presentation?

You mean you even consider the half-empty paint bottles and armless space marines loitering in the background?

 

[supervike]

the whole shbang

I feel that everything is equally important. I think many talented painters have done wonders with poorly sculpted minis and vice versa. Many great painted and sculpted minis suffer from lousy photos.

Having said that, I notice I also tend to vote for some intangibles...

I sometimes vote a point higher just for a great concept, even if it wasn\'t executed perfectly.

I also vote higher when the mini has character. I don\'t know exactly why, but that seems to be just as important to me as good base work.

 

[paleotaur]

In similar vein, do you ever vote a mini, not on your score alone, but in an attempt to \"push\" the score to what you think it ought to be?

Ex. You see a great looking mini, not fantastic, but you would give it an eight. Now, some dweebs have given it 2\'s because it\'s a female space marine or some such rubbish, dropping it down to a 5. 7 or something. Do you a) Give it the 8 as your actual judgement, or b) give it a 10 to try and get it back up closer to what you feel the overall score should be?

This goes along with the amount the current score for a given mini affects the voting on it, along with other factors such as \" topless mini\'s score higher\" etc...

Day\'amn I can ramble on can\'t I? lol

 

[Mergram]

More thoughts...

Ok, I have read all what u posted, guys and I think maybe I should vote on the whole thing... Mini, painting skills, basing, sculpt, etc, etc. Because this is at last \'cool mini or not\' ???

Answering Paleotaur question:
\'In similar vein, do you ever vote a mini, not on your score alone, but in an attempt to \"push\" the score to what you think it ought to be?\'

I have to say that I have done that some times, but I only increase the score +1, so for example if I feel the mini deserves a 7 but it has an score of 5.5 I would vote probably 8. But I dont care very much when I see that it has more than 100 votes because mine won\'t affect really much :|~

 

[barkel]

a little farther

I go a step farther than that \'sometimes.\'

There are some artists on this forum who paint ugly minis or minis slim on the detail side. I\'ve noticed that they tend to rake in some seriously low scores. So, after seeing the same couple of names occur with lower scores I decided to look their names up and view their minis. When I took a good long look at the artists\' work I noticed that they had some considerable skill. On top of that, they were progressing in skill as artists. There was actually one mini of a dwarf that had precious little detail and it scored around 3 or 4. When I took a closer look at it to see exactly the lengths the artist had gone to give this horrible sculpt some life I gave it a 7. Not out of pity, I don\'t do that. I did it because I thought the painter did more with the mini than the sculptor had allowed. I still could not give it higher, because the sculpt was pretty bad. But I think few other people had considered exactly how much the painter had elevated the mini.

On the other hand, if I see someone paint a good I-kore/GW/Rackham piece poorly, I\'ll count them off for it.

So sometimes I judge with the painter in mind. If they are improving I\'ll give them an extra point to encourage the effort.

But this goes both ways as well. If I see an artist who usually gets a 9 or a 10 put out a shoddy mini I\'m gonna be harder on that painter.

On the average, though, I try to be very fair with my judging. My median score is a 7. I very rarely give a 4 and even more rarely give a 10.

barkel

ps. To answer the actual question asked, I vote on sculpt, painting, base, scenery, basically everything I see... or don\'t see.

 

[GraveRobber]

I tend to...

I tend to try and be as non biased as I can when voting, alot of these figures people have spent alot of time and patience with.

When voting or on the quality of the paint job,most of the time it is very subjective.

I do not realy look at the actualy mold of the figure,rather I tend to judge them on how nice the paint job looks and if it is well done, including flash lines being removed and things like that...bases...ect.

Even if something is a perfect NMM I still dont judge it on that, as much as that style is nice, metallics can look just as nice.

If I had a choice,I would vote the highest on realism though, or as realistic as possible for something that scale.

 

[Trevor]

I vote overall on the mini taking mini, conversion, painting, base etc all into account, then give an overall score.

 

[frenchkid]

I always vote taking into acount the whole thing and not just the paintjob so that means that I\'m also influenced by the mini\'s sculpt. For an exemple I\'ll have more trouble giving a higher note to a nurgle mini then to a nice looking mini.

Has for voting higher to raise the score, I was tempted a few times but I didn\'t do it ( I swear!!) because I belive in the long run the mini will come out were it should be.

 

[Chrispy]

Here\'s a little example that sums it up for me: Phillpe\'s Vash the Stampede Bust looked really well executed, plus I really liked the subject matter, so that gave him a 9. I origanally thought that it was pretty big, and work on those surfaces are esier, so I didn\'t wanna go higher. However, I got my copy of the bust and I come to find out it\'s about the hieght of my hand! That bumped it up one more because the thing is so small and some areas would be hard to get to, and the whole thing is glued in place as is.. I would have given him more orignally because if you face the bust sideways, his closed eye looks like he\'s in deep concentration about his guns.

So there you have it: the mini, pose, and subject matter factor in, but mostly the paint job is about 70%-80% of what I grade.

PS Make more Trigun minis!

 

[frenchkid]

Vash the stampede Mini!!!!!!
Where ??? I must get one !! I just love that guy !!
btw do you guys know of anyplace i could by manga minis? cuz I\'ve seen a lot of plastic minis for mangas but they\'re always horribly painted. Same goes with computer games, did you see those horrible diablo II figurines :|~ They would look better if my brother had painted them
and that\'s saying somthing

 

[Chrispy]

If you\'re talking about the Anime Garage kits, which are a bit bigger than normal minis, Ebay is you\'re best bet. I got one for around $20, and they\'re normally $40! Many of these are people from Japan, Thailand and such and over there they are alot more popular. Vash had a couple statues and such made, but unfortunatly they are all out of production .. even the action figures are hard to find now, and Vash is just so popular all the auctions sell like hotcakes!

I\'dalso suggest looking online under some search engines such as google for turning up some stores that might have them. That, or make your own! Tuffskull made his own Vash figure And the Inquisitor Covenat fig is a good start for basing a conversion on!

Though I have the bust, It is a limited run so I\'m afraid of painting it....