Y’all are harsh

Turtlehand

Turtlehand

New member
I didn’t think that my minis were great by any stretch of the imagination but... they can’t be that bad. 2.8, 2.9, jeez I don’t think I’ve doled out a single 1 rating no matter how bad it is. IMHO 1s and 2s should be reserved for no effort, like I squirted paint out if the bottle directly onto the mini and did nothing else. Apparently folks in here are suuuuper critical. I’ve been painting for 2 years I can’t be that bad : ( feeling a lil but hurt about it.
 
Zab

Zab

New member
ah you got some trolls, don't sweat it. Turn off the scores and just use it as a place to store your completed projects and track your progress over time. Start a wip thread and come hang with the cool kids who don't give a crap about the numbers and will help you grow and learn and enjoy the hobby :brushlick:
 
Turtlehand

Turtlehand

New member
Thanks man lol. I’ll just use it as inspiration to do better, didn’t know you could turn off scores! I just might... I mostly just thought the numbers were comically low for how much GD work I put into these... oh well!
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

Active member
Zab has the best advice. In my eyes your color usage Such as patterns, shading, highlights, and blending are in thE 6 range to me (a couple of the barbarians are much weaker though with sloppy looking paint management and I'd say closer to 4).

Completing the bases helps you, but watch out for mold lines. They always distract from a mini being "cool" nd generally lead to deducts. I also suspect that multi views of the mini submitted in a collage helps with score (note that multiple views submitted as different submissions generally irritates me and each additional submission copy suffers a deduct from me.

Like Zab said, ignore the score and join the wips. You seem to have a decent grasp of this hobby and a little feedback and practice would probably be beneficial.
 
MAXXxxx

MAXXxxx

Well-known member
yep, we are harsh. But it could help you improve more if given constructive criticism on the specific figures.

with the exception of the naga (I'd rate that one higher) the average looks okish to me. (and no not voted on them yet)
 
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Dragonsreach

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
I’ve taken a look at the scoring and while you have been the target of some unduly harsh scores, your average is about what I’d expect.
I have to point out that some of your pieces are what I would term “beginner level” , which is not a bad thing as we’re here to give advice and encouragement.

The thing to remember is that the ‘bar’ has been set pretty damn high with some of the pieces on here, even putting professional painters who’ve written books and done demonstration and box art for Both GW and Foundry in the situation of not achieving higher than 8’s.

Don’t be discouraged, start a W.I.P. thread take the advice on board and paint. Remember this is like Golf the only person you have to better is yourself.
 
yxalitis

yxalitis

New member
I disagree that the scores are "harsh"

One of the issues I have with posting completed models on other sites, like Facebook groups etc, is that you get the same response regardless of how "good" your work is.

On Facebook I get a bunch of likes, love hearts, an "Exclaimed" emojis.

OK, I get that no one wants to "offend" anyone's work, but no one learns from "Wow, that's AWESOME!!!11!!!

We learn by constructive criticism and honest feedback, the "Everyone one's a WINNER" generation we are not, yet I see that everywhere.

Here at Coolminiornot, when posting a miniature you will get an HONEST score, I've never had higher than a 7 for my work, and when you see what gets 9 or 10, you see why...!

My work...a 6.4
http://www.coolminiornot.com/433616
Someone else's 9.4 work:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/360892?browseid=6887850
My 7.0 Mammoth
http://www.coolminiornot.com/417123
A 9.0 Mammoth from someone else:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/364202?browseid=6887857

THAT pushes me to try harder, to get better, to learn new techniques.

Why are we so scared of that these days?

Now, to be sure there are aberrations, I see some "8's" that clearly aren't that good, and some "6's" that are much better...

I personally think my Zhull is better than my dragon, but the scores are opposite...

But overall you get a pretty honest appraisal.
 
B

bullfrog

New member
I also think your scores are around what I’d expect. Yxalitis has pretty much said it. No one will learn if honest scores and critiques aren’t given. I’d like to think that most people here ARE honest. However you still get the usual trolls. Most come from a mentoring point of view when giving critiques. It still doesn’t sting any less when you don’t hear what you want to but use that to push your learning and technique.

Personally, I’m one of those people who mark harshly in other’s eyes. In my eyes I feel justified as it’s my honest opinion. I don’t mark up or down according to who you are. In fact I try not to look at names or the current score before I decide on my own. I think many figures are scored too high because people don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. That’s always a fine line you have to walk between an honest score and not wanting to crush someone’s spirit. I don’t want to be the reason somebody never picks up a paintbrush again so if I give a low score I try to comment and leave constructive feedback. I can’t give a mini that is below par a 5 or 6. Look at 8 and 9 scored minis. They are only a few points higher. It doesn’t make sense. I also rarely ever give a score of 10 as that implies perfection and that’s hard to achieve. 10’s seem to be doled out like lollies sometimes.

I deduct scores for minis that aren’t prepared properly. Mould lines and gaps in joins are a pet peeve but I also understand that some can be easily missed. I’m getting irked by multiple multiple posts of the same mini. I’m glad I’m not the only one. Base your mini or comment about the reason you haven’t.

The idea of this site is to constantly improve via feedback. I echo the idea of posting in the W.I.P forum instead. Everyone there is friendly and really wants to help others improve. Just keep painting.
 
Zomnivore

Zomnivore

New member
Your stuff is very beginner level but I don't think I see anything I would rate a 1 or a 2, there's nothing that looks like you slopped paint on it, or anything. That said, I don't know how to measure what average is on this site so you might be getting rated lower then average just because the talent pool is really high here.
 
K

KelRiever

New member
I agree it’s too harsh but with public judging you have to accept people don’t always know what they are looking at. I myself was going to post s bunch of miniatures just to have fun but it’s a scoring site so I decided to cut back. My photos aren’t the best, I’m not shopping them and I don’t want to spend the time.

Its just a site. If everyone who painted needed to get an 8+ on each of their painted minis to keep on with this hobby, all the miniature companies would go belly up :). So trust that your vendor doesn’t want you to care about your score either, not anyone who wants the hobby to continue ;)

Good news is there’s always something to look at on the website!
 
J

jedellion

New member
The snag is, the standard here is so exceptionally high, I mean look at some of the truly awesome pieces in the gallery. If that is a 9.something then that means a six is still really, really good. part of the issue might be people iunderstanding the scale. What does a '1' look like for instance?
 
K

KelRiever

New member
Honestly, people talk about exceptionally high standards as always a good thing, and often it is (not against jedellion or anyone in particular, a general comment). But frankly the standard here has grown to the point of becoming useless, and I've lurked for many years so I'm talking from that personal point of experience. I'd rather say it's grown to become harmful.

You can rate higher and still be critical. And you can offer constructive criticism, given that anyone going through the time to submit anything at all cares about the hobby. Instead, it's as if people have agreed that the best 4 models should occupy rating slots 6-9 and everything else is a 5 or less. Then, they rate low without any useful commentary (hyperbole but you get the point).

Cynicism isn't the same as constructive criticsm. Being hard on ratings is very different from being destructive. And this is art, not math, yet seems to have fallen into the pitfall that all groupthink art does...where people look at a high rated model and then believe everthing should look like that. Technique be damned, creativity be damned.

Again, though, it's a better place imo for looking through the galleries of what people have done. I really wish CMON would obliterate the rating system entirely. To me, people should have moved beyond scoring art, anyway.
 
J

jedellion

New member
That's my point exactly. When the standard is that high it makes grading almost meaningless. You're being measured against a very high standard. I work in education. In educastional terms if the best here was A+ then most of us, myself included would be lucky to scrape a D. So really having a numerical scale becomes a stick to bash most painters over, and the guys who can really push things are the ones getting decent grades. But that number then almost escuses you from actually writing some critique that would help people improve. In my opinion, the numbers don;t help and can actually hurt the hobby here a sit will put people off posting. My latest two are hovering on 6.2 and I'd dsay that was probably fair, but it doesn't really tell me much about things I need to improve.
 
MAXXxxx

MAXXxxx

Well-known member
while I agree that the scoring could (or should) be abolished, but I disagree with the "level is too high, so it's meaningless" part. It's as if you aim for the "all participants get a prize" model, instead of trying to get better and better with each painted figure.

off:
to Jedellion's 2 minis:
- Wraithlord:
it's not a 6, for me between 7 and 8. The transitions look good (with a distinct quickly airbrushed feel), the starry-sky theme is also nice.
What is a problem is a photo (something I'm struggling with myself), the base (pretty plain, super for gaming, less so for individual closeup images), there are some mispaintings (but I don't think you's notice them, so not a real problem)
and to be honest the color-scheme is not the best either. The blue-purple-gold-red lacks a good contrasting color. Although the blue-gold could work, but lot of the purple makes it not as apparent as it could be.

- Nagash:
Again not a 6 imho, I think it's better than the wraithlord, so I'd give a straight 8.
Transitions are again good with less of the AB feeling. I think even it's a bit rougher it's better.Color scheme works here more (blue-red-yellow(bone parts). The base is pretty much a gaming base here too. And while a bit overexposed (on the spirits) the photo is much better too. There is one gap around the base that was missed.
What could be improved for a better score (9-10): you could push the shadows of the spirit part under the figure a bit darker to make more contrast. The base. The OSL could be cleaned up a bit (source pure white or close to it)

... I only noticed with Nagash: it only has 4 votes for now. So it can easily go to the 8+ range with more votes.
 
K

KelRiever

New member
I don't know how you got to all participants get a prize model from what I said since I was mentioning that we're at the other extreme here. I literally am saying the opposite. The CMON scoring isn't even average, its off the chart harsh. If we were in the everyone gets a prize model, then when I searched for miniatures with a score of 10, then I would get, well, ANY results.

CMON isn't at fault for anything other than trying to score art. Which, frankly, someone was going to do. And I suppose it was the perfect thing when the site started. All I'm saying is even if it won't go away, I wish it would. And more to the point, I am very glad that CMON has moved past to producing miniature and games. These things are very productive and encourage the miniature hobby. Scoring low without leaving any kind of feedback and the damage that does is far more offset when CMON puts out a new and successful kickstarter. Frankly, I want to see more 4 and 5s who are painting 80-100 minis a year and really adding to this hobby in way that gets less recognition in general. And to the guy painting one amazing miniature a year? Don't worry we know you are good without a score (and a troll turning your 10 miniature into a 9.1) :) Plus even a 10 can always get comments on improvement, though I won't be giving them because I'll be too busy admiring them :D

Max I get what you are saying too. There's always room for improvement, and hopefully everyone participates in that
 
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J

jedellion

New member
MAXXxxx said:
to Jedellion's 2 minis:
- Wraithlord:
it's not a 6, for me between 7 and 8. The transitions look good (with a distinct quickly airbrushed feel), the starry-sky theme is also nice.
What is a problem is a photo (something I'm struggling with myself), the base (pretty plain, super for gaming, less so for individual closeup images), there are some mispaintings (but I don't think you's notice them, so not a real problem)
and to be honest the color-scheme is not the best either. The blue-purple-gold-red lacks a good contrasting color. Although the blue-gold could work, but lot of the purple makes it not as apparent as it could be.

- Nagash:
Again not a 6 imho, I think it's better than the wraithlord, so I'd give a straight 8.
Transitions are again good with less of the AB feeling. I think even it's a bit rougher it's better.Color scheme works here more (blue-red-yellow(bone parts). The base is pretty much a gaming base here too. And while a bit overexposed (on the spirits) the photo is much better too. There is one gap around the base that was missed.
What could be improved for a better score (9-10): you could push the shadows of the spirit part under the figure a bit darker to make more contrast. The base. The OSL could be cleaned up a bit (source pure white or close to it)

... I only noticed with Nagash: it only has 4 votes for now. So it can easily go to the 8+ range with more votes.
Click to expand...

Wow, well thank you. I was genuinly not canvassing for reviews, but I am very grateful you did and you were most generous. I agree 100% with all you said, my photography is awful. I need to work on that especially as I am earning good pocket money from commissions these days. As for the bases, these were for use in tabletop games so no wooden bases etc. These are my 'gold' tabletop standard so not the best I can do, but the best I would bother to do for pieces that are going to be used in battle games. I'd do a lot more work on presentation and bases for a competition piece.

But all you said is very fair and that is the sort of criticism painters need, not just a number that tells me little other than you liked it... a lot... so so,, not much etc.

Thank you and I agree with you totally.
 
J

jedellion

New member
That's very interesting! I must admit the hoby has moved on tremendously in the last 20-30 years.

Incidentally Dragonsreach, your face is very familiar. I'm from the NW, pretty sure I've seen you over many a year at Triples, Northern Militaire's etc.
 
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