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So I was just busy looking over coolminiornot and I noticed a growing trend. Often I would see people voting up stuff that well looked horrible. Now by no means do a think this is the standard let me say that first and foremost, and their are a TON of amazing painter on sites much like that that deserve the great scores they get. That said and I know on the DCM we have discussed this, but I have even seen this here on dakka. What runs through a persons mind just to hit a one or a two and downplay a model that would be a 6 or a 7. Now for me my rating is as follows 0=unpainted even if converted. 1-3 is often the newer painters or painters who you just think they straped a paintbrush to the end of a ruller and slapped it around. 4 and 5 is table top that for me is a minimum of 1 to 2 layers, maybe more but a good clean foundation that they can later drawn upon. 6-7 is above standard, good grasp of the brush, maybe some cool conversions advanced brush work, starting to push into actual blending and other fun tech. 8-10 well this to me is the amster area that honestly changes from person to person. I may give a model a 9 while another gives it a 8 because they didn't like one thing or another. Those though you know that person has talent!!

Honestly though I have seen a lot of models lately scoring 6's were they should of had a 3 by my standards... What are your standards fellow dakkites, and have you seen things like this lately?

While those sites do show off the best of the best and are great sources of inspiration there are some things that bother me. One is the rampant elitism and the comments telling you how it should have been done. There is also the classic scenario where people will gang up on someone who gave a legit and good comment on something, something that the mob can't stomach or wants to hear about their favourite artist.

I think my standards are about the same as OP. I've felt that some of my models have been voted down unfairly, but I also recognize that pink isn't for everybody.

BrookM wrote:While those sites do show off the best of the best and are great sources of inspiration there are some things that bother me. One is the rampant elitism and the comments telling you how it should have been done. There is also the classic scenario where people will gang up on someone who gave a legit and good comment on something, something that the mob can't stomach or wants to hear about their favourite artist.

hrmm I seldom read the comments so I will have to go back on that and look at those, but you make a good point overall I think. Also I do agree that pink is seldom loved by many, but when done well it looks amazing!

I have enough problems with inconsistent voting on my stuff here, much less trying to find a site where that's the sole purpose.

You need to have a thick skin to put stuff up. You also have to realize that there are several factors that go into your figure besides how you paint.

1) Painter recognition. If people know you, you will get .5 to 1.0 of love. several painters have fanbois too. Nothing below a 9.0 or 10.0 from those guys.

2) Model regonition. GW stuff, especially newer stuff gets love. About .5. PP stuff does OK. Rackham stuff in the heydey did very well. If you have an off manufacturer you will be given a lower score unless the paint job is a blow away 9/10.

3) does the model follow what people expect it to look like? Go too far off the beaten path, even with a good paint job and you will get voted down b/c you didn't paint your sister of battle's toe nail the proper color.

4) Model quality. You can have the best paint job but if the model is shinizzle you will be downgraded by 1.0 to 2.0 pts.

5) Photo quality. Worth about 2pts. Shotty photos will get you voted down quick. No background, poor use of depth (blurry weapon syndrom), white balance (color shows yellow or blue) will all get you voted down.

6) Dingo voters. There are people that just go through and click 0 or 1 for everything. There are very good painters that are quite "snobby". reserving 8/9/10 for only show stop work. I think I paint well but have been told face to face that I am far from the "pros". I tend to agree.

So why post on a share site?
You are looking for feedback. You are looking to see how you stack up. Generally over 100 votes you get a good idea of the mini.

I generally paint to a table top standard. If I can come in at a 7 or 8 I'm happy given the time investment I make. 15 hours would be the max end of time I spend on a figure of large creature size. Those that spend 40+ hours painting, god bless em. They deserve the 9s and 10s.

But... the best reason to post on CMON or other sites is that you can link to your auctions. I sell infrequently but if I put an ebay link to a figure I painted, the ebay hits I get go from 100/200 to well into 2000 range on GW figs w/ the most recent codex/AB release.

I see the same thing with my gallery entries that Aduro sees with his, but I've never given much credit to the scores. My system of voting is pretty consistent to the OP's, but I think my lower range is a bit more strict - 5 being a 3-color table top standard that's clean and crisp.

I try to stay away from model voting sites unless I'm looking for a certain model or a conversion idea, possibly a color scheme. When I do visit, I generally ignore the ratings and browse for what I'm interested in.

I give them 2 out of 5 stars.

I'm still bemused that a sprue photo I put up got 6/10!

jgemrich wrote:6) Dingo voters. There are people that just go through and click 0 or 1 for everything.

This.

A lot of sites with image voting (Dakka included) have rampant issues with this where terribly painted models will stay on the front page of a gallery for weeks with a top score, while models that look immensely superior are shoved in the corner with 1's, 2's or 3's. It's quite obvious at that point that the owner of the crappy-looking stuff is responsible, but without some form of displaying who voted what on a picture, it'll continue to be a major problem with sites that use anonymous voting. Until such a problem is adressed, it's going to always be a thorn in a site's side.

For a beginner hobbyist and new member, this sort of behavior can severely dampen their opinions of their own work,. Enough so that they lose interest in it and give up because they think their work sucks.

For an experienced hobbyist and new member, this can be very insulting, and they might decide not to post any more of their display pieces because of the childishness of some gallery users.

0 or 10 bombing also has a negative effect on a site's reputation when nothing is done to prevent it, and news tends to spread like wildfire on the interwebz.

jgemrich wrote:I generally paint to a table top standard. If I can come in at a 7 or 8 I'm happy given the time investment I make. 15 hours would be the max end of time I spend on a figure of large creature size. Those that spend 40+ hours painting, god bless em. They deserve the 9s and 10s.

Exactly. I average a 6/6.5 on the first round of votes for most of my stuff. If I manage to produce an 8.5 or 9 piece, then that's great. Inspires me to keep pushing my abilities harder.

And then I see an image of the same piece from another angle with a 2 or a 2.5 and it just annoys me because some immature user wanted their stuff to stay up longer, or some down-the-nose arrogant jerk gives something an abysmal score because "Eww, a mould line on that gun! Hello score of 1, and that's only because you did manage to put paint on it"

If I see a display model that looks truly amazing, it's getting a 9 at the very least. Usually a 10. If I see a terrible tabletop model that needs a storm of work, I'll try and gauge my vote based on how bad the paintjob is, rather than insignifigant things like mould lines or basing (Neither of these are really important on table minis IMO, just a nice touch to adress). I'll then add a comment with my vote, detailing areas that I think the painter could return to, and methods to help improve in the future.


To those that -do- vote fairly, you're why voting sites exist. So that real hobbyists can share their work and expect honest feedback. To those that do bomb everything, I hope your conscience, if it exists, will some day speak up and you might listen.

Just thought I would point out I wasn't implying me in this just something that made me think. I have to agree that a lot of people treat it like facebook friends. The more friends I have the more cyber popular I am, in this case people with badwork want I guess in my umble opinon to feel that they are better then they really are. Some odd form of validation maybe? I am really enjoying hearing peoples thoughts on this so please keep them comming good or bad.

I agree with the OP, there are some reoccuring problems with rating models like this. Quite a few I am experiencing myself (I would never claim to be the greatest painter but compared to models that I have actualy seen I know I am resonably good so am a bit dissapointed with a 4) . I know that the rating you give a model is based on personal opinions but I think too many people just think "Don't like the colours has to be a 3" without looking at the skill required to paint it.

Photo quality is another major problem. Whether your background is pure white really doesn't show how good a model is. I know from experience that bad photos can also reduce your score. I have a 2 digital cameras, one only takes blurry photos of anything model sized and the other is completely opposite, it picks up details that you can't see even when you hold the model up close. Also these websites often scale up photos and if this is done wrong it really doesn't help the model to look good.

On the few occasions I have been on the CMON I have seen models which I think look great but some people are voting them 2 or 3 because they think that the model has been painted the "Wrong" way.

Firstly people need to keep an open mind and rate something by the end result not what methods were used and secondly they need to think before they vote and have a scale like the OP.

Unfortunately to many peole intentional vote low because they tnink having a high score makes them a better painter, more popular ect..

Well, I've found the standards of the various sites to be wildly different. On Dakka, "Last of the Time Lords" scores 8.89, on CMON it's worth only a 7.9 and on my local scale modelling gallery, a mere 2.98/5. Naturally, in my opinion, only the latter is in any way honest, I'm at my best a "6" on the painting scale, and my rank and file are 4s on a good day.

It not just the scores that matter, there a feedback (comments) section, I for one would appreciate some feed back, I Know I'm not at Pro status, but any helpful, and sometimes not so helpful comments all assist in the development and learning process.
I for one use a similar scoring system to Empchild

Empchild wrote:0=unpainted even if converted. 1-3 is often the newer painters or painters who you just think they straped a paintbrush to the end of a ruller and slapped it around. 4 and 5 is table top that for me is a minimum of 1 to 2 layers, maybe more but a good clean foundation that they can later drawn upon. 6-7 is above standard, good grasp of the brush, maybe some cool conversions advanced brush work, starting to push into actual blending and other fun tech. 8-10 well this to me is the amster area that honestly changes from person to person. I may give a model a 9 while another gives it a 8 because they didn't like one thing or another.

One pet hate is the obvious self scoring, 9-10's for low level work.

I stopped going to coolminiornot because of all of the popups. My firefox will block them, but getting the annoying messages all of the time bugged me.

After reading this thread, I gave coolminiornot another chance.

I then got the Antivirus Live malware attack on my computer. After 2 hours of getting rid of that, I have one comment:

feth Coolminiornot.

They need to fix their gak.

CMON would be fine if people knew how the feth to categorize their entries. You know how many imperial guard and space marines are listed under fantasy?