rocketandroll
New member
Ok, forewarning, this is going to be a (lengthy) politically difficult subject which is likely to result in some people disliking me... I\'m gonna take that risk because I think this is a subject that needs to be discussed openly.
I\'m going to talk hypothetically for now for reasons that will hopefully become obvious.
So... we\'ve all read the smallprint haven\'t we... the bit that says that the judge\'s decision is final and that, by entering your mini in their competition, they can basically do what they want (change what category it is entered in, ignore it, award it every award under the sun, anything in between) without you having any comeback.
We must all graciously accept the judges decisions, mumble quietly under our breath but never, ever speak out and cry foul, or speak of injustice for fear of everyone calling it sour grapes and labelling us a bad looser.
By suggesting we should have won... we are also suggesting someone else should have lost... and that is a no-no.
I am happy to openly admit that I have got back into mini painting to win a golden demon... it was something I dreamed of as a kid, and now, as an adult, I finally feel I\'ve learnt and worked to develop the skills that will hopefully allow me to achieve that dream. Sure, I love the process of painting as much as the next guy, but I am also competitive and paint my minis to enter competitions and try and win.
If we didn\'t all want to win, want to see the look of appreciation on the faces of our peers when they see our work, feel the joy of success when we are rewarded for our sweat and tears... then Golden Demon (and it\'s like) wouldn\'t continue, and wouldn\'t grow... in fact, this very site would not exist.
Having said all that, I am also someone who I believe is gracious in FAIR defeat... if I have been beaten by something that is even just arguably better than what I have achieved, I simply want to learn where I went wrong and correct it... but you have to have made a mistake to be able to learn from it.
I also like to know what I\'m working towards, I don\'t think I\'m the only person who likes to know the rules. I am happy to put the work in, to learn, to develop my skills, but I need to know what the target is, what level I need to reach to achieve my goal.
If you know a goal is achievable, you are happy to put the work in to get there...
Obviously with something art related, where who wins and who looses can\'t be \'proven\' by any kind of measurement or impartial observation, it gets harder... but I\'d like to think that I, like most of the competition painters on this forum, have a reasonable grasp of where we sit in the hierarchy of skill... we are of course always biased to favour our own work, if for no other reason than working on something for weeks or months makes it almost impossible to be impartial or objective about the finished result... but I think it\'s safe to say if we had painted a \'9.2\' model (for the sake of using a common frame of reference) and it was sat next to a 5.5 model, we\'d be able to tell the difference... and vice versa, if we were responsible for the 5.5, we\'d have the humility to admit the 9.2 was better.
So.... bearing all of that in mind... lets enter a hypothetical scenario...
You are shooting to get a demon as a long-term goal in your life... you study the winners across all the countries for a few years while you develop your skills... you get some reasonable ratings on CMON and get top ten in a couple of categories on your first try... you begin to believe that your goal is within reach.
Knowing your skills, you pick a category in a GD comp which you feel, based on past winners, you have a chance in.
You select a model... a large model. You spend two months designing custom brass etch components for the model, converting it, assembling it paying close attention to details, trying to ensure there are no mistakes, pushing yourself to achieve a higher standard. You then spend six solid weeks (for arguments sake lets say six hours a day average) painting that model to the best of your ability. You invest three months of your time making something which represents the very best you can do and you are overjoyed with it when it\'s completed.
Other painters you know (taking bias into account) also tell you they are sure it\'s above the standard of a lot of the winners in the same category in recent years... your confidence is boosted.
You travel to the competition and, on arrival, you enter your model.
There is however an argument. Having selected the category you feel you stand a chance in carefully, and invested a quarter of a year in that decision, you are told it has to go in a different (much harder) category due to a technicality. You have thankfully brought with you a print-out of the competition rules from the competition organiser\'s own website, which you hand over. There is some \'heated discussion\' which eventually involves ALL of the judges for the competition, and reluctantly they agree to allow you to enter the category you had aimed for.
You later discover that a large number of very good models which you should have been competing against have also been changed into the much harder category and you begin to feel a little bad for them because they weren\'t able to fight their corner and prove what the rules said.
You evaluate the other entries in your category... strangely, due to another obscure technicality a whole load of minis which are extremely different from yours have also been put into your category, minis which would be very hard to judge against yours as they are extremely different subjects (can you compare heavy tanks and small single figures life for like for the same prize?) Despite this you, and others at the competition, including people who you have only just met and should therefore be relatively impartial, tell you yours looks to be possibly the best model in the category... you are overjoyed and excited... you see lots of other painters taking photos of your entry and again are filled with pride because of what you have achieved.
You watch the judging begin... there are six or seven judges. One of them takes your model out of the cabinet (it is at or just above eye level and hard to see at all whilst in the cabinet) and have a quick look over it. The other judges go round over the next few hours and take six or seven other minis out of the cabinet and spend some time looking closely at them and discussing them... but they don\'t look at yours. It isn\'t taken out of the cabinet again... the judges don\'t look at it again... you are a little confused.... only one out of seven of them has even seen it?
Finally... you get the results... in the category they award five prizes... gold, silver and bronze plus two \'honourable mentions\'... you are awarded nothing.
In a state of disbelief you go back to look closely at the miniatures that have won... you are further shocked to find that, whilst they are well painted, there are major modelling mistakes in at least two of them... massively obvious mould lines... things stuck together with blobs of greenstuff which has been painted over but not hidden... stuff which you had been led to believe would stop a model even making it through first cut.
At some point there is a level where, despite knowing you can\'t be truly objective you have to be able to have the guts to say... I believe that my model was quite a long way better than all of the ones that got awards, mine was not even looked at or properly judged... what is going on?
You have to try and rationalise it to yourself... you can\'t try and \'learn from it\' by improving your own skill to match the level of what beat you because, in the eyes of you, and a number of impartial observers, you have already surpassed that level... how can you move forwards?
It is then suggested to you by one of the impartial observers that perhaps, judges don\'t like being argued with and being told they are wrong... and just perhaps if they feel a model is not meant to be in a certain category... they won\'t judge it in that category.
It\'s a hypothesis... but taking into account what you observed... it is the only rational one.
So... what do you do?
Do you accept an unfair defeat quietly for risk of the \'bad loser\' label? Do you quietly skulk off and accept that despite having reached the mark that was set for you, you were denied the prize? Or do you speak out and take a risk?
It is unfortunately the losers who end up being the ones with the greatest reason to point out inaccuracies and inconsistencies in a competition... but I\'d like to think that as a winner, we\'d still have been asking these questions publicly because of all of the other people who lost out because they were put in the wrong category... in our \'hypothetical\' scenario.
So.... am I wrong to speak out on such a risky subject? Are the judges, and their decisions, untouchable?
Must we always be gracious in defeat irrelevant of our own, and other people\'s view that we lost for the wrong reasons?
Is the mini community as a whole happy to accept this?
If they are... is that because the greatest respect, and therefore the greatest influence belongs with the winners, and they are less likely to argue a decision which has benefited them in the past rather than speak out for the person who was wronged in order for them to achieve their success? Or because as a winner we genuinely don\'t see these problems?
Just where do you draw the line?
Ben
I\'m going to talk hypothetically for now for reasons that will hopefully become obvious.
So... we\'ve all read the smallprint haven\'t we... the bit that says that the judge\'s decision is final and that, by entering your mini in their competition, they can basically do what they want (change what category it is entered in, ignore it, award it every award under the sun, anything in between) without you having any comeback.
We must all graciously accept the judges decisions, mumble quietly under our breath but never, ever speak out and cry foul, or speak of injustice for fear of everyone calling it sour grapes and labelling us a bad looser.
By suggesting we should have won... we are also suggesting someone else should have lost... and that is a no-no.
I am happy to openly admit that I have got back into mini painting to win a golden demon... it was something I dreamed of as a kid, and now, as an adult, I finally feel I\'ve learnt and worked to develop the skills that will hopefully allow me to achieve that dream. Sure, I love the process of painting as much as the next guy, but I am also competitive and paint my minis to enter competitions and try and win.
If we didn\'t all want to win, want to see the look of appreciation on the faces of our peers when they see our work, feel the joy of success when we are rewarded for our sweat and tears... then Golden Demon (and it\'s like) wouldn\'t continue, and wouldn\'t grow... in fact, this very site would not exist.
Having said all that, I am also someone who I believe is gracious in FAIR defeat... if I have been beaten by something that is even just arguably better than what I have achieved, I simply want to learn where I went wrong and correct it... but you have to have made a mistake to be able to learn from it.
I also like to know what I\'m working towards, I don\'t think I\'m the only person who likes to know the rules. I am happy to put the work in, to learn, to develop my skills, but I need to know what the target is, what level I need to reach to achieve my goal.
If you know a goal is achievable, you are happy to put the work in to get there...
Obviously with something art related, where who wins and who looses can\'t be \'proven\' by any kind of measurement or impartial observation, it gets harder... but I\'d like to think that I, like most of the competition painters on this forum, have a reasonable grasp of where we sit in the hierarchy of skill... we are of course always biased to favour our own work, if for no other reason than working on something for weeks or months makes it almost impossible to be impartial or objective about the finished result... but I think it\'s safe to say if we had painted a \'9.2\' model (for the sake of using a common frame of reference) and it was sat next to a 5.5 model, we\'d be able to tell the difference... and vice versa, if we were responsible for the 5.5, we\'d have the humility to admit the 9.2 was better.
So.... bearing all of that in mind... lets enter a hypothetical scenario...
You are shooting to get a demon as a long-term goal in your life... you study the winners across all the countries for a few years while you develop your skills... you get some reasonable ratings on CMON and get top ten in a couple of categories on your first try... you begin to believe that your goal is within reach.
Knowing your skills, you pick a category in a GD comp which you feel, based on past winners, you have a chance in.
You select a model... a large model. You spend two months designing custom brass etch components for the model, converting it, assembling it paying close attention to details, trying to ensure there are no mistakes, pushing yourself to achieve a higher standard. You then spend six solid weeks (for arguments sake lets say six hours a day average) painting that model to the best of your ability. You invest three months of your time making something which represents the very best you can do and you are overjoyed with it when it\'s completed.
Other painters you know (taking bias into account) also tell you they are sure it\'s above the standard of a lot of the winners in the same category in recent years... your confidence is boosted.
You travel to the competition and, on arrival, you enter your model.
There is however an argument. Having selected the category you feel you stand a chance in carefully, and invested a quarter of a year in that decision, you are told it has to go in a different (much harder) category due to a technicality. You have thankfully brought with you a print-out of the competition rules from the competition organiser\'s own website, which you hand over. There is some \'heated discussion\' which eventually involves ALL of the judges for the competition, and reluctantly they agree to allow you to enter the category you had aimed for.
You later discover that a large number of very good models which you should have been competing against have also been changed into the much harder category and you begin to feel a little bad for them because they weren\'t able to fight their corner and prove what the rules said.
You evaluate the other entries in your category... strangely, due to another obscure technicality a whole load of minis which are extremely different from yours have also been put into your category, minis which would be very hard to judge against yours as they are extremely different subjects (can you compare heavy tanks and small single figures life for like for the same prize?) Despite this you, and others at the competition, including people who you have only just met and should therefore be relatively impartial, tell you yours looks to be possibly the best model in the category... you are overjoyed and excited... you see lots of other painters taking photos of your entry and again are filled with pride because of what you have achieved.
You watch the judging begin... there are six or seven judges. One of them takes your model out of the cabinet (it is at or just above eye level and hard to see at all whilst in the cabinet) and have a quick look over it. The other judges go round over the next few hours and take six or seven other minis out of the cabinet and spend some time looking closely at them and discussing them... but they don\'t look at yours. It isn\'t taken out of the cabinet again... the judges don\'t look at it again... you are a little confused.... only one out of seven of them has even seen it?
Finally... you get the results... in the category they award five prizes... gold, silver and bronze plus two \'honourable mentions\'... you are awarded nothing.
In a state of disbelief you go back to look closely at the miniatures that have won... you are further shocked to find that, whilst they are well painted, there are major modelling mistakes in at least two of them... massively obvious mould lines... things stuck together with blobs of greenstuff which has been painted over but not hidden... stuff which you had been led to believe would stop a model even making it through first cut.
At some point there is a level where, despite knowing you can\'t be truly objective you have to be able to have the guts to say... I believe that my model was quite a long way better than all of the ones that got awards, mine was not even looked at or properly judged... what is going on?
You have to try and rationalise it to yourself... you can\'t try and \'learn from it\' by improving your own skill to match the level of what beat you because, in the eyes of you, and a number of impartial observers, you have already surpassed that level... how can you move forwards?
It is then suggested to you by one of the impartial observers that perhaps, judges don\'t like being argued with and being told they are wrong... and just perhaps if they feel a model is not meant to be in a certain category... they won\'t judge it in that category.
It\'s a hypothesis... but taking into account what you observed... it is the only rational one.
So... what do you do?
Do you accept an unfair defeat quietly for risk of the \'bad loser\' label? Do you quietly skulk off and accept that despite having reached the mark that was set for you, you were denied the prize? Or do you speak out and take a risk?
It is unfortunately the losers who end up being the ones with the greatest reason to point out inaccuracies and inconsistencies in a competition... but I\'d like to think that as a winner, we\'d still have been asking these questions publicly because of all of the other people who lost out because they were put in the wrong category... in our \'hypothetical\' scenario.
So.... am I wrong to speak out on such a risky subject? Are the judges, and their decisions, untouchable?
Must we always be gracious in defeat irrelevant of our own, and other people\'s view that we lost for the wrong reasons?
Is the mini community as a whole happy to accept this?
If they are... is that because the greatest respect, and therefore the greatest influence belongs with the winners, and they are less likely to argue a decision which has benefited them in the past rather than speak out for the person who was wronged in order for them to achieve their success? Or because as a winner we genuinely don\'t see these problems?
Just where do you draw the line?
Ben
