Originally posted by reverend
There is nothing in this world that annoys me more than a bad loser.
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that they would whinge behind a thinly veiled \'made up\' diatribe that can be summed up with \"I lost - I can\'t take it\" as its core message. If miniature painting is such a huge issue in his life, fair play to him. Still doesn\'t stop him from being a very poor loser, does it? ???
Ok, hopefully I\'m allowed to at least defend myself against this sort of thing...
I strongly object to being called a bad looser. Please feel free to go back and check and see if I\'ve posted any kind of comments questioning judging standards or fairness after any of the other competitions I\'ve entered over the past few years, most of which I have not won anything in.
The reason for that, and I\'m happy to explain it again, is that this is not about being beaten by a better model... as I said, I know where I sit in the hierarchy of painters in the international competition scene (at the bottom end

but I am trying my hardest to learn from the best and improve what I do. I have entered GD\'s and other competitions in the past, lost, and come out of it smiling because I saw what beat my entries and they were awesome.
I\'m guessing there may be a failure of empathy going on here and I guess, for anyone who hasn\'t laboured on a single model for 150 - 200hrs for the specific reason that it is to be entered in a specific category of a specific competition it may be hard to understand the emotional committment that takes and the the desire, not to \'win\', but to have that effort recognised by nothing more than fair judging and a set of rules which are laid out and then adhered to by everyone involved.
I kind of feel I may be banging my head against a wall here trying to explain myself however if anyone wants to pm me and/or e-mail me I\'m happy to explain myself in much more detail and let you judge for yourself if I am a bad looser or a fair competitor who is merely sticking his head above the parrapet to flag up a flaw in the system.
I Wonder, Rev, had I posted that exact same story, but ended by stating that I\'d won a demon at the competition in question and was questioning the system on someone elses behalf because I felt THEY had been wronged... then how would you feel about me? Would I then be a \'bad winner\' for saying exactly the same things and flagging up exactly the same problems?
Anyway, I don\'t want this to degenerate into a flame war, so far there\'s been lots of really well considered responses and helpful suggestions made and I thank everyone for that.
All the best
Ben