I need some feedback

[Lurch]

My main motivation coming to this site and posting is to get better. To be the best artist I can become.
Lately however, according to my latest minis, I seem to be falling backwards.
It\'s a phenomena I just cannot fathom.
I posted 8 new figures on the 14th. My top mini before was 7.7 Quite a few of my newer minis are barely breaking 6.
Now I\'m not complaining about the votes themselves ( .....ok.... yeah maybe a little bit, but I know I am biased)
And I know they are at or are near 50 votes apiece and the vote level CAN and probably WILL change.
The ones I posted in August went throught the same drop in level I guess but were still in the 6.5-7.5 range.

However the kicker is when I watched The Flesh Eater I spent over 30 hours on, and is in my opinion the best work I have EVER done, go from 7.5 last night, to a 7.1 this morning when I woke up. It is really disheartening....

My point is I MUST be doing something wrong and without one comment I am at a loss to explain what that might be.

I know they arent 9s or 10s but I dont understand why they arent at least 7\'s.
A little help please?
http://www.coolminiornot.com/browse.php?submitter=Lurch
The first 8 are the ones I submitted on the 14th.

If you could, please leave me some feedback as to why these are barely 6\'s when compaired to my 7.5-7.7\'s I posted in June/July
I\'d be very grateful.
Thanks

 

[yrret]

Bases, darklining and highlighting

Howdy.
I think in order to get the sprinkling of 8s that you need to stay in the 7s, you need to have some base work in there. There are a lot of people I think that will never vote over 6 or 7 if there is not some display base to put it out of the \"Gaming\" category.
36436 has a nice base and consistent darklining and is hanging in there.
36441 is a little inconsistent in the darklining. The shoulder pad looks top notch, but the arms are missing some definition. The stripe on the loincloth is a little wobbly, and could use an outline. The flesh on the chest and the arms don\'t quite match. The base is pretty plain.
36442 base is very plain. You even mention in the comment that it is for gaming, so you will get gaming scores. I think you need to have a very finished looking weapon on minis that are focused on such a big weapon. More highlighting, and really popping details.
Well, that is my nit-picky stuff. Nice solid painting though.

 

[Fizl]

If this helps, this is the things I noticed. The figures that have scored around seven have some quite obvious highlighting. Now I\'m not saying that your figures that are scoring at the low end of six haven\'t been highlighted (cos I\'m sure they have), but I think it has been too subtle for the camera to pick up. For example your flesh eaters armour has a very obvious colour gradient on the green. Kaylars red armour looks quite flat 9although I bet it has a fair few layers!). The same for Maugan as alot of the black on him looks very flat and the red mask of the executioner fellow.

If you look at your Elminster figure you\'ll see that the highlights on his robe are very obvious, and I think they have helped bring his score up.

I hope this has helped, but if you have any more questions PM me.

Shaz

(Who hopes to borrow a digital camera soon so she can finally post a figure and show that her highlights don\'t show either!)

 

[Trevor]

Firstly the voting on CMON is becoming harsher. You have to be better just to stand still.
I had a look at your minis and this batch isn\'t quite as good as some of your earlier stuff, but the pictures are worse and that can\'t be helping you.

I think if you want to get higher scores you need to go for much stronger highlighting. Something that looks excessive in real life can look awesome in a photo. Also you need to go for striking minis, a wizard in a pointy hat doesn\'t really cut it on the \"wow!\" factor.

I guess the real question is, do you want to improve your painting or your CMON score? The two aren\'t always the same.

 

[Lurch]

Still, it is unfortunate that we have all become jaded enough to judge \"up and comers\" more harshly than, say 6 months ago.
While I have been here awhile to understand how the voting has evolved and understand the factors involved, some of the \"newbies\" to both the hobby and the site may not.
I think it is really discouraging to a new artist to get low 5\'s and 4\'s for minis that rated high 5\'s and 6\'s just 6 months ago.
Maybe when we look at a mini for voting we should keep that in mind.

And without a single comment these people have no way of knowing how to improve.

Anybody other than me still doing the \"one comment a day\" idea we all said we would follow? ???

 

[Trevor]

I will always try to vote on minis with less than 50 votes, and if I\'m giving a 5-7 I will laways try and give some constructive comments, and explain why its so low (often bad picture). Higher votes will usually get a compliment and then a (sometimes) harsh criticism. If I\'ve voted a 8-10 I feel the painter can cope with criticism and it should help keep them on their toes.

As for your photography, I think its fine, its just not showing off the highlights. I find that a flash makes the highlights come out more (too much in some cases), but it may help you. Perhaps if you experiment with different zooms, and lighting and then post some piucs and get some feedback on which people think are best (because tastes vary).
You want the pic big enough so people can see the detail but not so big that it reveals every little mistake (that you can\'t see with the eye).
One thing that photos and CMONers seem to like is severe highlights, its clear that you can do great NMM and thus highlights but your stuff tends towards the more subtle (which I actually prefer). I would be very interested to see what happens if you try doing some more severe highlights.

Finally don\'t be disheartened, your not getting worse, not every mini hits that spot, sometimes you do every technical thing right, but the mini just lacks that special spark.

 

[Mengu]

I think your flesh eater suffers from three things, picture, color, and too much paint. I\'ll elaborate... The picture is too small for as large a model as this is. I think if you really have 30 hours into this one, you should show it off better with a larger pic.

The colors are too close to each other, and nothing stands out. I have a similar problem too usually. But I have for instance learned not to use green and blue next to each other. It\'s almost impossible to make it work, unless you take the green to a lime, and the blue to almost a blue-violet. Another color problem is that there are no dark or light colors. All tones used are mid tones.

When I say too much paint, I don\'t mean to say your paints aren\'t thin enough. It seems you tried to \"fix\" your blends a bit too much, and they don\'t look quite as clean as they would otherwise. I have the same problem there too. I think it is important to try and get the blens right the first time to get that super clean look. I\'m sure it comes with practice, but I\'m not there yet, so I\'ll let someone else comment on that one.

My favorite parts are the headand the skirt.

And if this makes you feel any better, looking at your earlier and current stuff, it definitely looks like you\'re getting better. I must say there are some fluke high scores in your older stuff that may be putting you off. For instance, IMHO, all your current stuff is better than your Shanys the Shadow, but I don\'t expect you\'ll be getting a score higher than 7.7 for any of it. I give that simply to the inaccuracy of voting on CMoN.

 

[U4-Welcome]

I find that a flash makes the highlights come out more (too much in some cases), but it may help you.

Flash ? Doesn\'t about every photo tutorial out there strongly emphasize that you shouldn\'t use it ?
As fort highlights : when I have taken a pic, I\'ll edit it for levels using photoshop. The point here is not just to use auto-levels : it\'s to use levels, contrast, and brightness UNTIL the pic looks exactly like the mini sitting next to you on your desk. That means the pic isn\'t over until the highlights are suitably brought out. That way I never have the problem of highlights not showing. Maybe when you edit your pics you\'re simply stopping too soon...

I\'ve found that on CMON, pictures are of utmost importance (\"duh\", I hear you saying). As in : a badly-painted mini WILL get votes and comments if the pic is crisp-clean ; a 6-7 mini won\'t, even if it really is an 8, if the pic is one of the following :
a. too small
b. fuzzy
c. grainy
Consequently, decent photography skills (it\'s just a matter of finding the method that works for you) are a prerequisite here. Maybe you should try spending an afternoon or two just taking pics of one of your minis and making them look like the real thing. :innocent:

 

[Tuubje]

Originally posted by U4-Welcome
Consequently, decent photography skills (it\'s just a matter of finding the method that works for you) are a prerequisite here. Maybe you should try spending an afternoon or two just taking pics of one of your minis and making them look like the real thing. :innocent:

That\'s because the photo is the only thing we have here to vote on a mini, you can\'t pick it up and give it a closer look