Help me structure a painting competition!

[decoyops]

Salute! Brothers & Sisters!

So this is the deal: I live in Cape Town. South Africa. We have a small 40k community in the country (about 80 active players). This coming May we have one of the biggest, if not the biggest tourney in the country. This tourney specifically places a big emphasis on the hobby side of 40k as well, as such we always look forward to some awesome new painted armies and minis.

At last years tourney I set up a painting competition, because I love the hobby and I hoped it would spur others on to produce some really cool minis either to show off or play with (or both). I got local hobby shops to sponsor a few prizes. All in all, the combined prize pool racked up to a little over $200. This was more prize support than the gaming tournament.


There were 5 Categories; The entry fee for entering a model was $2

• Single Mini
• Squad (minimum of 3 models)
• Vehicle
• Monstrous Creature
• Kitbash/conversion.

These were guidelines and rules for last year's painting competition.

• There will be a 1st, 2nd & 3rd place for every category.​
• You are welcome to enter any model, be it from Fantasy, Warmachine or any gaming system.
• You are allowed to enter any amount of models and into any category, however, you can only win one standing in any category (this will prevent artists from sweeping categories with multiple models)
• All models must have been painted by you. Not friends, or other painting commission individuals. If a model is entered that has been painted by someone else it will count as being entered under their name.
• Lastly, all model submissions must have been painted from 2013 November until present.

----------------------------

Now, the problem with this was… that not a lot of people entered. Despite there being a decent amount of lead up time to the comp amd also weekly or bi-weekly reminders about the competition. There were about 36 odd players in the tourney, and there were about 16 entries all round (3 of those entries came from outside of the tournament)…. meaning, EVEN if someone entered in some of the categories they could’ve won, just by submitting. I feel there is a general “my-painting-is-not-good-enough” attitude with the players so therefore they don’t even feel like entering in the first place.

How would you go about structuring a painting comp? How are painting competitions structured in the tournaments scenes where you all are from?

So here are just brain farts:

• This year, I don’t think there will be 3 placements per categories. I don’t even know which categories there will be.
• I was thinking of splitting it up into more of a , novice, intermediate and advanced brackets… my hope is that players will not be apprehensive to enter their minis.
• Advice on drawing more people in, and building an event peeps can look forward to annually.
• Do away with the entry fee and get more sponsors.
• What kind of prizes would you like to see if you entered a painting competition

Cheers! Any and all input would be appreciated.

 

[MAXXxxx]

Hi, from my experience from GD-Hungary:

- get rid of the "must be painted in the last year" part. Instead: "must not have entered before". This helps by allowing people who want to enter, but their armies are older. The con is that the first year's result won't be totally realistic. The pro: more entries--> more people even in following years, from year 2 the problem with the MANY old paintings is corrected
- get rid of the conversion category, just have a conversion extra, selected from the other categories.
- to be honest 16 entries on first year is not that bad
- splitting of novice-advanced may help in first year, but it's a really bad way to structure things imho. What I have against it:
- where does someone enter, who is unknown to your community, never went to competitions before, but has 20+ years of experience and really good paintings?
- makes people lazy, especially if as proposed here (winning novices automatically go to the next level next year --> at most in 2 years you are back to sq1.)
- max 3 models / category? helps with people painting for more categories a bit (also later can help with judges sanity )

- prizes: I wouldn't really have them. Those who didn't win will feel bad because they don't have the figures, those who won will feel bad because it's not usable in their armies. Better to go with small statues (even self-sculpted - resin casted ones) or simply award/diploma (in this case entry fee can be 0), better use the 'prize-money' for marketing / other events (tombola).


- get some friends who enter with a lot of models it can motivate others. In 2009 I entered in 12 of 13 categories in Hungary (I was mostly unknown), won in 10. Next year the number of entries doubled. (in H. now it's a steady 180-200 entries / year with 3-4 entries in the pro categories and
15-20 in the normal ones)
- it will take time. The organisers in H. said, that in the first few GDH (around 2001-2002) they had about 10 entries total, mostly from friends (hell, 1st was attended by a about 10 people, all from the same club ), in 2007-2008 it began to change and reached about 80-90 entries, then my stupid year , since 2012 or so we're stuck at around 200 (but the quality rised a lot even if it is still below what it could be).
I think last year someone tried to make a 2nd competition in the summer, 1st event = about 20-30 entries (and this event was known by those who attend the other), I think if they do it again this year they can double it, so time... to get it known.

----
And totally unrelated to organization, but somehow you must convince people that it's worth to enter, because they paint better than they think they do. They (actually we ) may be a lot worse than say... Arsies, but what are the chances of him attending

 

[Bailey03]

MAXXxxx has some good advice but I'll throw in my two cents. I agree with getting rid of the 'must be painted in the last year.' Using 'must not have been entered before' is an option, though you should specify whether that means not entered in your contest or in any contest. Since you're trying to get more entries, I would accept entries that have been in other contests. Another option is to say 'must not have won before,' (again either referring to your contest only or won any competition) this would allow people who were close to try again this year.

Yes, getting rid of the entry fee (even though it is very low) should help inspire more people to enter. That way they've got nothing to lose.

If possible, structure the competition in such as way that people can still use their figures in both the tournament and the painting competition. Not sure that's feasible, but it would help. That way they wouldn't have to decide whether to use their figure in the tourney or the painting competition. Also, you or some friends could walk around the tournament players, checking out the armies, and saying things like 'hey, that's a really cool/nice looking figure. You should enter it in the painting competition.' See if you can convince more players to enter.

Something else to consider is the system of judging. An alternative to the common 1st, 2nd, 3rd style is the open judging system. In this system all entries are judging against a set standard. A panel of judges score the entries and based on that score they're award a gold, silver, or bronze metal (or certificate of merit). So instead of single gold medal, every entry that meets the gold standard gets a gold medal. That way every entry gets recognized and can inspire a more friendly feel to the competition. And that way people who don't feel they can win still have a reason to enter. You can still have a best in show and award the prizes to that entry, the rest get some sort of medal. Here's an example of how the scoring could work... say you have 3 judges, each scores the model 1-4 with 4 being the best. If the total score is 11-12, the model gets a gold, 8-10 is silver, 5-7 is bronze, and 3-4 is a certificate of merit. I'm not sure if this will necessarily get more entries, it's just something to think about.

 

[Webmonkey]

If this is an all day event,... try holding an on-site painting competition. Set aside, let's say 4 hours or so,.. from 8 to 12, or 10 to 2pm or some such. And let people who are just wandering the convention sign up and join. And at the end of the four hours enter all of the models into their own "fast painted" catagory and the winner gets whatever prize. You could even break it down into 2 hr sessions and run a few different competitions throughout the day.

This would require an investment in paint, brushes, and minis,... but would be fun, especially for beginners,.. and may spur them on to actually join the real competitions next year.

Just a random thought,... take it or leave it as you like.

 

[Dragonsreach]

I'd suggest going away from 1st, 2nd and 3rd place and use Open Standard of judging that way if a category has only 1 entry and it's not "that good" you can honestly say nothing achieved X standard therefore unable to award instead of having a poor representation.