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Having two races represented in my gallery (orks and space marines), it continues to surprise me how high the painting scores are for many of my orks as compared with my best marines.

I try to do a good job on all my figures of course, but there is absolutely no comparison in the amount of time or care that goes into the building or painting of the two groups. My orks are nicely done, but I'm really just using the same basic techniques I've been using for over a decade... paint neatly, paint the molded details... little bit of very simple free hand, some washing and highlighting. My marines on the other hand usually take many days per figure, have multiple layers of thinned out paint & washes with very carefully placed highlighting, are carefully blended (well, the best I can do at the moment anyway) as opposed to the orks which aren't blended at all. Each marine is highly converted and very carefully thought out. So, my marines are much more complex as models and utilize many advanced techniques... yet consistently score lower than many of my orks which take comparatively very little time or effort to produce.

I've got a few theories...

- It may be that I am a "natural" ork painter & just have a feel for them.
- It may be that because with my orks I'm using methods I've been using for ages, I'm very comfortable with them and have more "mastery" of them then all the new techniques I'm using on the marines, so the net effect is better.
- It may be that the bar for painting marines is set so insanely high by the top painters that it's just harder to score higher in comparison.
- It may be that people have different expectations for different races, so they score more generously with certain races than others.
- It may be that it is just easier to make an ork figure look good. Or perhaps, harder to make something that looks human look good as we are all intimately aware of the form.

I'm sure there are other possibilities... these are just the ones off the top of my pointy head. I'm not upset about this, I know better than to assign too much importance to the painting ratings... but I am curious. Wondering if anyone else had noticed that it was easier to get better scores with certain races over others.

A quick look at your marines, and I see a lot that seem a bit gunky - paint too thick or something. This may be true of the orks too, but it doesn't show, because they have fewer flat surfaces. This one in particular comes to mind: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/100683-Face%20detail.html?m=2

The scheme on the orks is also more appealing/eye catching/snazzier than the marines, which may leave some viewers feeling they are just more dull.

Orks are very easy to get great results with - they are perfect for drybrushing and washing, and these techniques, while simple, make getting a visually good look with orks a little easier. Effort usually isn't counted for or against the final product though - it's all about how it looks.

All that said, please don't get hung up on scores - the internet and photography has done some great things for mini painting in the last few years, that's apparent, but it's also led to a lot of people feeling there's this almost impossibly high standard for a normal mini.

I'm not quite sure what the answer is to be honest. I know that I'm finding painting marines much harder than guard as the eye expects crisp, clean highlights on the smooth power armour; whereas cloth and flak armour hides a lot of this in the folds of cloth, belts, buckles and pouches. Orks/guard look great after just adding a wash over the model; marines on the other hand... don't. There's something about the power armour that needs very subtle highlighting... or over the top *OHMYGODTHAT'SSHINY* highlighting. that you see on some models.

Which marines in particular are you concerned about? I'm guessing the Doom Eagles are much older than your yellow Mantis warriors as you can see a dramatic change in style and quality between the two forces, my my comments form now on only refer to the Mantis warriors...

Having looked through your gallery (I'll go back and vote on things shortly) I think part of the problem may lie in the fact that the orky stuff stands out really well in the zoomed out pictures; whereas the marine stuff needs to be zoomed in on to see the effort that you've put into it; especially on the Mantis snipers and the comparison between your old/new style of painting the mantis warriors.

Heck, just go look at the difference in scores that minis score here compared to say, CMON. The standard here is considerably lower in general (no offence) due to the cross-section of gamers here, yet favourite (artists,models,races etc) will score alot higher in general.

The same thing happens over there too of course, but not on the level I see here.

Gitslplitter - DON'T pay attention to the scores! They're just opinions, and are as valid as anyones. The one that counts is your own. Dont be fooled by getting 10's if you know you can do better. Same goes if a mini gets a load of 1's, and you know it's not that bad. It's just thier opinion, nothing more.

Laugh at thier misconceptions, appreciate thier opinions (good or bad), draw what you can from it, and most importantly... just enjoy yerself.

I haven't analyzed the scoring on Dakka, but there are many strange factors that affect the CMON score.

For example, GW minis tend to get more votes, and tend to get a slightly higher average than equal quality from other manufacturers.

Also, larger minis tend to get voted higher (mostly because they look more detailed when the pics of large or small minis are the same size).

Sometimes you'll find that voters are rating your photography skills, and other times they'll overlook poor photography.

Altogether, photo voting for minis isn't very exact.


And for painting space marines- in some ways it is more difficult than minis loaded out with detail, but in some ways they're easier too. You've probably got a better handle of the techniques you use for your orks, but someone else will probably have a better handle on the marine techniques and have trouble with the greenskins.

Actually Jokorey, those were painted by my 9-year old son! But you're right... and he's working on improving his technique. The ones I'm more concerned with are those in the "Mantis Warrior" folder.

But in essence, I'm not necessarily fishing for critiques of my painting... I know I have a lot of work to do there. It's just the seeming ease with which I get decent painting scores with my orks compared with how tough it is to get good scores with the marines that has me wondering. Your points are well taken though... orks are just very easy to make look good.

@endtrans: Good points too... and honestly, there are times when I look at my MW snipers (the yellow guys) and think... "Gods that was a lot of work... are these really worth it?" Hell, most of the time you cant even see the 5-7 layers of shading on the plates... it just kind of looks yellow. But like an idiot I dive right back into the next one... just can't help myself.

Edit...

It is funny how people score... and totally random as there is no set "standards". I got a real laugh out of someone to made a nice comment about one of my models, then gave it a "5" painting score. Heck, I give a 5 if they manage to actually cover up all the primer with other colors! Anyway, it was worth a chuckle... and the comment was genuine so that's what I took seriously. Since I have blogs for each "line" of figures... I get plenty of good, helpful feedback. I just thought the disparity in scores was a bit odd so I thought I'd pick the collective brains of other dakkaites.

I know that highlighting feeling. You spend ages subtly adding highlight after highlight... all of which you can't see, and all of a sudden you get one that is visible and it looks really obvious and unsubtle... Why did I start Marines again?

Gitsplitta, I do think votes on dakka can be really biased by favouritism regarding model types/factions.

My fantasy stuff gets absolutely slated compared to the 40k models, even with ones I know look worse and have worse paint jobs used. There is no set standard on Dakka which is also irritating. On one hand you have 10 year olds who really love Demons voting 9's and 10's on tabletop standard greater demons, and on the other you have people who would vote tabletop as a 3 and what I would consider very good as a 6..

I find it really hard to look at scoring here and get a decent idea of how well the model is painted/sculpted as there are no bases for voters to go on, and everything seems to be scored based on if have that model and think its JUST SO AWESOME, or by peeps with really varying ideas of what tabletop standard is.

Your models seem very similar ( not including your sons ) so I don't really see a good reason for why the scores are so varied bar the dodgy voting in general.

I find the scores seem to very based upon content. My poor Ultramarines seem to get scored awfully low at times, whereas the Imperial Guard has more support. There is definitely a bias in general against the Smurfs, but I have found a love for the poor vanilla marines.

I don't think the scores necessarily reflect too much unless they are on the extreme ends. If you have a score under 3.0 for anything, I'd say it is not good and anything over 8.0 is probably a really good paint job. Photography does affect things as well and this is one area I've been working to improve.

lol, you guys are complaining about the types of votes you're getting. i've got a gallery of my armies and i think i have maybe 5 or 6 votes total across 15+ pictures. at least you're getting votes! ( my other gallerys for the battle reports have voting turned off so no votes there )

Actually it's not complaining about the voting... it's more of a discussion of the psychology of voting. At least that was my intent.

LOVE the old land raider by-the-way... have one of those myself!

thanks. my BA army of about 5000+pts only has a single figure that is less than 10 years old. the old style land raider definitely raises a few eyebrows when i put it on the table (usually folllowed by a question about its legality in 40k games).

as for the voting, i just figured i'd point out why the glass is half full even if some armies are getting lower average scores...

Hmm interesting discussion here.

Being fairly new to Dakka and posting up a few of my Chaos Marines I cant really say if its biased or not. (Havnt got many votes)

But i do remember reading something along the lines of what to vote models. Was something like 1-3 was for actually getting paint onto the model,4-6 was for tabletop quality and 7+ was for really well done paintjobs.

Its clear my Chaos Marines would fall into the 1-3 section, due to mold lines, thick paint, and even uncompleted models! That was a good few years ago tho, but hope to get some better stuff started on monday