Does anybody paint anymore?

[GreenOne]

Hi Y\'all
I will try not to make this sound like a rant, although it kinda is...
Since I restarted visiting the site, I\'ve been going on a lot of voting streaks, to pick up with the amazing stuff that people submit here.
When I do so I go wishing that I\'ll see many greatly painted mini to inspire and impress me; and I kinda feel it\'s not the same anymore.
Sculpting seems to have become very popular, so much that I see a lot more \'scratchbuilt\' \'greens\' an converted mini; many of which are obviously awesome pieces, but they\'re mostly not painted.
This kind of defeats the purpose to me because I\'m not a sculptor, so I feel uneasy to rate them, and since they\'re unpainted, it\'s a lot less pretty and inspiring to the lowly painter that I am...

Add to that the many newcomers that go posting any blob of paint that they come up with, with often awfully taken pictures (Nothing against newbs, I\'m still one in many aspect but the ratio is a bit upsetting lately.), and the many thing that are simply not minis...
I can go throught 40-50 pictures without seeing one decently painted mini and I feel the process is a bit of a waste of time.

Is anyone else feeling that way?
Got any leads as to what is going on?
Will the voting streaks ever be what they used to?
Should I quit complaining now?
Your views on this would be appreciated.

 

[KatieG]

Well, this is Cool Mini or Not, not Cool Paintjob or Not. It comes with the territory. You could always exclude one of the following categories when you browse: Greens or Scratchbuilt, but unfortunately you can\'t do both.

The funny thing is I opened up the front page to check the settings to see if you really could do that, and the first two minis I ran into were pretty good ones, I\'d give both at least a 7. Still, the reality of it is, there\'s a lot more 3-6 range miniatures out there than there are 8-9 so you\'re going to see a lot more of the former than the latter.

Also, why would you feel uneasy rating the greens and scratchbuilts? After all, do you think it\'s cool, or not? I vote on sculpts all the time even though I couldn\'t sculpt to save my life. And we vote on them all the time by deciding which ones to buy

 

[GreenOne]

Yeah, but if I exclude scratchbuilt I take the risk of missing some of the nicest finished demon entries
It\'s hard to vote for sculpts because I can\'t see them as a finished piece, especially when the materials used are still visible, plus I can\'t assess the work that went into them. And many are 40k\'ish vehicles/contraptions which is a domain I know little about. Likewise for converted minis that puzzle me as to what I am voting on.
I\'d be tempted to rate unpainted minis lower than they deserve, and if I just skip them they\'ll come back again and again.

 

[crazyboyae1]

the way I find cool minis that inspire is just go on top last 7 days, and top artists. this way i dont have to see crappy minis. every once in a while ill go look at the futures of the painting world, the mostly terible gallery minis. lol
i also know who produces good minis and look at thier minis.
you know, not always good enough to be on top 7 days but good if you can look past pictures.

 

[ScottRadom]

Hey, you can always set the filter for 5 and up, or 6 and up figs.

They\'re a few really active posters, and I know I try to put up as much as I can nowadays, though I would hardly call my own work inspiring.

I reccomend just keeping it up. Can\'t expect to be blown away every day. What can you do? I\'d keep an eye on certain submitters you like and then checking their galleries out.

Hope the funk dissipates quick for ya!

 

[jdmchaos]

If i was you i would just try to skip the unfinished ones some how.as a painter and a beginning sculpter i would rather someone skip mine than give it a 5or6.it can take a person lots of time to finish a piece and to give it a bad number is not cool.it seems to me the bigger problem is peoplenot giving credit on something cause they are not well known.i see alot of 7-8 on one mini and then when a better mini pops up its got a 6.somethings wrong with that.

 

[Davyboy74]

Is this a \'rant\' thread? ok then:

All i can suggest to you is to NOT go on \'voting streaks\' as you WILL end up wasting time looking at mostly \'table-top\' stuff, just browse the gallery & look at subs that you think you might like. Look at the name of the sub, the manufacturer, is it your fav space marine chapter or anything else that might float your particular boat?. Look at the score, see if they have comments or not (they tend to be the best ones i think)

And yes, you should stop complaining (its never got me anywhere so i doubt you will be any different)

So, thats my view (you did ask)

Personally, im out of this hobby for now. Ive gone back to military/aircraft modelling (god knows why i left it to do this stuff in the first place, fancied a change i guess)

Deleted all my mini posts, have asked the site admins to delete my account but that has been COMPLETELY ignored so i tried to get banned by being offensive (still didnt work, i just got a slap on the wrists...ooh matron!)

Happy days eh?

Im still here though, gotta love some of the art on display (and it IS art! Painted pieces or sculpts, its still \'mini\' as the site name suggests)

 

[Jericho]

This is going to sound harsh, but I don\'t bother browsing randomly anymore. I poke around the forums, check out WIP\'s and the Submission Discussion threads mostly.

<edit> Just so I don\'t sound like an ass, I wanted to say that I have 15,000+ votes cast on the site from my account. When the site had about 14,000 total images I had voted on every single one of them. As the site got more popular, and I got much much busier with University, I simply couldn\'t keep up anymore. Not enough time in the day for everything, and it wasn\'t a realistic option to sift through dozens of images to find one really shiny one every day. </edit>

I have no interest in buying a press-moulded mass-produced model from Scibor or Micro Arts or the other studios who pump put mediocre paintjobs and post a dozen auctions a week. No imagination at all, pretty uninspiring.

Obviously the Top Last 7 Days page is worth checking out, even if the title is incredibly misleading by now

The best part about the forums is the actual discussion of painting. It\'s hard to have a conversation in the Comments field of a mini submission!

 

[GreenOne]

Then again, top last 7 days and even top ten shows a big proportion of unpainted sculpts, this really shows where the interest is lately.. guess I\'m just not keeping up with the trend

Even the discuss submission and WIP forums don\'t get nearly as much action as it did last time I was around; a lot less new stuff, and fewer comments.
Maybe with the upcoming christmas time people are busy with other things, or maybe the top guns are preparing to some upcoming GD and secretely cooking up something really amazing, yeah, let\'s wish for that.

Anyway since it\'s spawning some interesting comments I don\'t consider it hollow complaining; neither is it really a rant, I love this site and it\'s crowd, it\'s been my companion everytime I was into painting, just been left on my appetite lately.
Maybe what I should do is contribute to the solution by finishing and posting some semi-decent stuff of my own... guess I\'ll get to it

 

[PegaZus]

I\'m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, just hit the next button and don\'t worry about trying to vote on it. But on the other, I could see how it might get annoying.

Frankly, I\'m a bit disappointed at how many sci-fi/fantasy figures there are. Not nearly enough vehicles, historicals, and other such. I\'ve got a Babylon 5 ship that I keep meaning to start as a WIP (I\'m counting that as a vehicle, and not strictly sci-fi). I got to the primer part before realizing I need to drill out the engines some. So I\'m not helping matters at all.

Still, after a bit of pondering, I think it\'s nice to see the sculpts. Sort of beats the YASSM (Yet Another Standard Space Marine). I\'ll think about how I\'d paint it myself before hitting the vote button. My version of the Have A Plan To Kill Everyone.

 

[Hinton]

I haven\'t picked up a brush in about two months - and not because I don\'t want to. Between my day job and writing I just haven\'t had the time, even though there are some things I really want to paint and a couple of ideas that I\'d like to try and put together.

As far as sculpts in the galleries, also haven\'t had time for browsing. I suppose there are always trends; they\'ll get really popular for a while, fade back a little and then return to the fore after a bit.

There was a time a couple years ago where it seemed like every other submission had some kind of OSL; then NMM was popping up all over the place. Guess sculpts are popular right now.

 

[cybersquig]

sorry ladies and gents, some of us can sculpt as well as paint. That\'s a skill in itself, and you should no more rate a green/scratchbuilt model down as I should rate yours down because it\'s not converted.

Times move on.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by GreenOne
Hi Y\'all
I will try not to make this sound like a rant, although it kinda is...
Since I restarted visiting the site, I\'ve been going on a lot of voting streaks, to pick up with the amazing stuff that people submit here.
When I do so I go wishing that I\'ll see many greatly painted mini to inspire and impress me; and I kinda feel it\'s not the same anymore.
Sculpting seems to have become very popular, so much that I see a lot more \'scratchbuilt\' \'greens\' an converted mini; many of which are obviously awesome pieces, but they\'re mostly not painted.
This kind of defeats the purpose to me because I\'m not a sculptor, so I feel uneasy to rate them, and since they\'re unpainted, it\'s a lot less pretty and inspiring to the lowly painter that I am...

Add to that the many newcomers that go posting any blob of paint that they come up with, with often awfully taken pictures (Nothing against newbs, I\'m still one in many aspect but the ratio is a bit upsetting lately.), and the many thing that are simply not minis...
I can go throught 40-50 pictures without seeing one decently painted mini and I feel the process is a bit of a waste of time.

Is anyone else feeling that way? Nope!
Got any leads as to what is going on? Coolminiornot is extremely popular
Will the voting streaks ever be what they used to? What were they exactly?
Should I quit complaining now? Yeah
Your views on this would be appreciated.

All my responses above are extremely Tongue in Cheek.

As Katie G has pointed out this is COOLMINIORNOT not Coolpaintjob or Cool Photo.
Yep we get poor photos, Yep we get poor Paintjobs and yes we get lots of Sculptures.
The main thing is, this is an all encompassing site and caters for every taste. So yes there are lots of Space Marines and lots of Orks.
I\'m not going to sit here and say that every submission onto this site should have to meet a certain criteria or what would be the point of the voting system (Don\'t even go there! ).
The point I\'m trying to make is that everyone who submits images here will either think they are the greatest thing since the slicing of bread, are wanting to get feedback, or like so many of us employing our natural desire to \"Show Off\".

 

[Infidel Castro]

Davyboy74 - digging the Inspiral Carpets avatar

 

[GreenOne]

@Squig: Didn\'t want to insult any sculptor here, I have only respect and admiration for that skill, after all without them what would the painters do...

@DragonsMike: Thank you for not shredding me to pieces :innocent:

 

[Davyboy74]

Originally posted by reverend
Davyboy74 - digging the Inspiral Carpets avatar

Ive always had the cow as avatar,although it was the 2-d version untill a drink-fuelled evenening last weekend :drunk:

 

[Aliengod3]

I paint when I have time to. I am just getting out of school for christmas break so I should have some free time to paint up some minis that I hope will be inspirational.

 

[Infidel Castro]

Originally posted by Davyboy74

Originally posted by reverend
Davyboy74 - digging the Inspiral Carpets avatar

Ive always had the cow as avatar,although it was the 2-d version untill a drink-fuelled evenening last weekend :drunk:

Never really noticed it before - but I\'m taking my hat off to you!:beer:

 

[Shawn R. L.]

I haven\'t painted much for the past 6-8 months. Sculpting caught my fancy for now. The muse simply moved on and who am I to argue?

 

[jahminis]

@shawn:you\'ve sculpted some cool stuff this year, so i\'m happy you\'re followin\' the muse...

@greenone:i like to browse the gallery everyday, but i set the filter to 7 or above...9 out of 10 times, when i look at a mini that\'s a 6.5, i realize why i set the filter to 7...
i don\'t think that votin\' is as important as gettin\' inspired...
when it comes to sculpts, i rarely vote, but i\'m usually inspired(i consider the what i do to be paint by numbers, so all credit goes to the sculptors)...
i paint almost everyday, and for the last 5 years i\'ve been told what to paint(the pitfall of paintin\' for a livin\'), so i buy the latest hot mini for myself, and it sits around waitin\' for some love for years...at least here i get to see what different painters try on the minis i daydream of paintin\'...
i don\'t vote on something unless i think it\'s a 7 or higher...i feel like a jerk if i critique a bad painter, or a mini i don\'t like..i don\'t have any problem givin\' a critique to a good painter though, as our ego\'s are big enough to handle it:twisted:...

cheers
jah