How do you decide on your vote?

[Dark Seraphim]

What is your incentive for voting? I mean, how do you descide on a 1 or a 5 or a 10 ?

Here is roughly how I descide:

1-4: Rarely vote this low, but if I do, it\'s either because of some horrible colour choice, bad conversion work or poorly executed colouring like drybrushing . This happens very rarely!
5: Tabletop quality, basic colouring, maybe a few highlights, but nothing major, looks great on a distance.
6: Better highlights, consistancy in the colouring or good conversion work.
7-9: Same as 6 just better and better, bases start to count for me here too.
10: And the big 1 0, of course for that unique piece that is frikkin awesome!

How do you vote?

 

[sebrushworth]

I rarely vote any more, and have a pretty intuitive feel for what to give a mini when I do vote but the main factors are smoothness, contrast, colour choices, use of light and shadow and the base. Other nice touches like freehand, battle damage etc can also play a part.

 

[Tony Manero]

1: flat colours, zero highlightings, blurry pics and so on

2-4 drybrushed and so on

5: tabletop

6-7: over tabletop, better highlightings small freehands

8: oxidation works on metals or good NMM, complex freehands

9: excellent colour choices and very catching mood

10: the excellence.

 

[GreenOne]

1-2: Feel like a sniper.. or insulted that this has been posted. If there is no way to tell anything or the job is grossly incomplete with no metion of it being WIP.
3- It\'s just a bad job overall
4- Something is wrong with it
5- It\'s bad but he\'s trying hard, making it\'s way out of the noob zone ( Like mine^^).

Other votes I usually refer to current score and increment or decrement a bit depending on the points I like, dislike.
7-8 are for great technical jobs, 9 if it has a lot of WOW or something special, and is flawless. I only give ten if I fall off my chair or something like that, but if we could give decimals too, I\'d give a lot of 9.9

 

[Drake Farstrider]

I just vote on feel, IE: do I like the mini, is the paint job cool, is it based, any freehand.. I usually find that I am within a point of the actuall score. I also keep the score hidden so I am not influenced by what everyone else thinks.

 

[Naukhel]

1: Never used it.
2: Never used it.
3: Obviously incomplete, blotchy, poorly done.
4: As 3, but with improvements.
5: Table top quality stuff. Anything titled \'Another mini\', and anything that\'s just an \'alternate angle\' of another piece.
6-10: Varying degrees of impressiveness.

 

[dauber22]

The site has gotten so dang slow, I rarely vote anymore - with the exception of things from \"Discuss Submission\" forum. I always try to vote on those.
I could give you a long, drawn-out, detailed explanation of how I vote, but its really pretty simple. Within a relatively short period of time, I\'ve got a pretty good feel for how I\'m going to vote on a piece. Then I look a little closer and increment or decriment from my original \"feel\" vote.
I rarely vote below a 4. Having seen a lot of stuff on gaming tables, I feel it\'s pretty hard to get much below tabletop (5) for me. 10 knocks me outta my chair, like GreenOne said. All the rest are inbetween somewhere.

 

[funnymouth]

Originally posted by Dark Seraphim
1-4:... it\'s either because of some horrible colour choice...

you, my friend, are a thorn in my side. i would never vote a mini below tt because i didnt like the colors. it must have technical flaws, not aesthetic flaws. a based mini, with paint on it, and some semblance of brush control of brush control will get a 5. as long as its tidy it doesnt even need to be hilighted!

 

[hakoMike]

I wish I could say my voting was as systematically objective as some of yours seems to be.

Some days I deal out 5\'s and 6\'s like crazy. Some days I am generous with 8\'s and 9\'s.

Totally \'aesthetic of the moment\' driven.

 

[GreenOne]

you, my friend, are a thorn in my side. i would never vote a mini below tt because i didnt like the colors. it must have technical flaws, not aesthetic flaws

Color choice is what makes of break a mini, I think BAD color choice are not a subjective matter, but about being educated has to how the eye works with the brain. If you know just a little bit about color, you can make subjective decisions that will be less liked by some, without coming up with BAD schemes.

The Tabletop 5 is really quite a joke, most gamers I know would be happy with way less and would not know they\'re missing anything, and 3-4 are often attributed to minis that would fit really nicely between a flock-covered rolling hill and a pile of dice...

 

[funnymouth]

Originally posted by GreenOne
Color choice is what makes of break a mini, I think BAD color choice are not a subjective matter, but about being educated has to how the eye works with the brain.

true, to a point. first off, i hardly think anything in the tt range is going to be made or broken by color choice. for anything in that level im more concerned with execution of techniques. for 6+ ill let color choice come in to it, but even then i try to keep its influence on my vote to a minimum - id prefer to judge it based on its other qualities. does a superbly painted mini (9) only diserve an 8 bacause i don t like neon green on my minis? even if it is excellently painted? IMHO no - and it certainly does not deserve a score below tt. i am usually so wary of judging a mini on color choice because people rag on my minis all the time because they dont like the colors - well i say \"go ahead and f*** right off.\" those are the colors that i liked for the minis, its part of my style. in this regard i consider myself uncompromising and infallible. something can be technically perfect and still lack anything of intrest. that \"special something\" when i vote is character, uniqueness, and originality - perfect color theory is often at odds with these qualities. also - what we consider to be eye pleasing color combinations changes through time, while there are some universal truths, most are not. remember the 80s?

edit: i think GOOD color choice can bump a score up, however.
edit#2: more often than not i find that criticisms based on color are the result of some precoceived notion of what something SHOULD look like (a _____ shouldnt be _____).

 

[Avelorn]

There has been a debate on what table-top means before. I don\'t take it literary as I don\'t take the pretend that you\'re a golden-demon stuff literary as well. The fine thing about this site is that no opinion is wrong, it\'s just about general consensus, snipers included.

I vote very individually. I go by feeling but often carefully scrutinise the mini before placing the final score.

One thing I do though is that if a mini is rated for example 8.3 and I would want it to go up to 8.4 I could vote a 9 instead of an 8. while if it was at 8.5 I\'d might vote an 8. Sometimes I vote twice as well to get .5 scores. Shame there aren\'t decimals with voting, then I\'d vote exact! I am also not afraid to put out 10\'s as some seem to be. I think that it goes all from 9.5 to a perfect 10. I don\'t think there are many perfect 10\'s out there.. not for me anyway.

 

[dauber22]

Good God, Funnymouth...

... I think I agree with you lollollollollollollol

 

[funnymouth]

omg! dauber agrees with me, ben affleck is starring as captain james tiberius kirk, and marmosets ogre has dropped below 8! the apocalypse IS coming! lol

 

[Avelorn]

Don\'t forget the \"Snakes on a plane\" movie!!

 

[krom1415]

For me voting is a very serious business, as I know how hard it is for me to finish a mini, I guess everyone else has the same problem. I use my standard of 7 to 7.5 with the occasional, enlightened burst of 8+, as my yard stick.
After voting on 9000 I must admit that, unfinished minis, wips, greens, non based minis, 35,000 (slight exageration here) photos of the same mini, do tend to get voted lower than finished minis. As I thought we were voting on finished minis, suitable for the golden demon awards.

Hope this helps.
P.S. I do like the sculpted greens, but why cant they be painted!!!! like Banshee\'s recent amazing 10+ example!

 

[Dark Seraphim]

Funnymouth

Originally posted by funnymouth

Originally posted by Dark Seraphim
1-4:... it\'s either because of some horrible colour choice...

you, my friend, are a thorn in my side. i would never vote a mini below tt because i didnt like the colors. it must have technical flaws, not aesthetic flaws. a based mini, with paint on it, and some semblance of brush control of brush control will get a 5. as long as its tidy it doesnt even need to be hilighted!

Can\'t see how I\'m a thorn in your side...

Anyways, horrible colour choice would be green, pink, screaming yellow on a marine, at places where it doesn\'t belong!

No, it\'s not as you think when someone says that; How a mini should be painted, but it is seen from an astetic point of view, some colours just don\'t mix very well!

Great to hear how people actually vote, and I agree, the site is sloooooow! I sometimes just click open ALOT of minis and wait for them to load while watching TV

 

[GreenOne]

I usually skip the greens as I don\'t think my opinion is worth anything here... unfinished stuff and crappy pics get low votes.
I especially get angry at multiple submissions when I want inspiration, go to check out the ttl7 and see five submission of the same piece... or when I\'m on random voting and fall on \"My GD Chaos Champion (Back shot)\" and I haven\'t seen the front. No comment no links to the other pics In which case I might let myself go to some \"mild-sniping\" :moon:

@Funnymouth: You\'re totally right here^^
When I rate a color scheme, I rate for colors that go well together, highlight and shadow tones that fit with the basecoat and so on... If the neon green fits, that\'s alright.
I would not lower my vote because \"I would have it green instead of blue.\" or \"Pegasi are supposed to be brown.\" ( Remember that one?) which in this case would be both subjective and narrow-minded.

 

[funnymouth]

Originally posted by Dark Seraphim

Anyways, horrible colour choice would be green, pink, screaming yellow on a marine, at places where it doesn\'t belong!

lol, well - its not a marine, but i think it satisfies the other criteria: elise ( the score on this one seems fine to me, perhaps a few tenths low )

the greens thing is interesting. i vote on them - but its hard to evaluate - esp when someone has posted greens, and the paint. i like it, but it can be tough to come up with a score in some cases.
i cant stand conversion or wip shots (unless accompanied by a finished pic), and i will often skip them or rate them down.

 

[RedSevenBlue]

1-4: Crap I would see in a GW store painted by some 5 year old kid who doesn\'t even know how to play...or paint, usually very blobby, about 2 colors.
5: usually something a tad worse than my dreadnought.
6-7: above my dreadnought\'s looks and painting, about as good as my terminators. (not posted yet)
8-9: very good. usually when I say wow.
10: is given when it makes me say HOLY CRAP!