How do I improve my CMON votes?

[kakita]

Hi, this is my first time posting in the CMON forums, so I hope you guys can help me figure out what\'s wrong and learn from there.

It seems that CMON is quite a strict audience for minis sometime, but that\'s a good thing. I want to see what\'s wrong and improve after all. But now I\'m not sure how to proceed, as I feel that I have been improving over the past year, and yet have not seen any improvement in my CMON scores.

For example, maybe I could refer these two models.

This entry of the Butcher has been entered over a year ago, as compared to this entry of a Khadoran Mechanik just yesterday. I believe that I have improved since then (albeit maybe not as much as I\'d hoped), but according to the ratings, I haven\'t. At first I thought that my low scores were due to shoddy photography. However, I have just built a light tent set up, have gotten a backdrop, lighting, etc etc, and the photographs are as good as they\'re going to get, and yet I don\'t see any changes.

Is there something that I am missing out on, or is the rating that I am getting for my models accurate? If so, how should I continue improving my painting? If you have anything to share, it\'d be much appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[Highbulp Billy]

Looking at them I\'d say they\'re both pretty good but the second does show a definite improvement. When I checked, you only had 6 votes showing on the mechanik so it\'s a bit early to say what the score will level out at - it takes about 50 votes to settle. I\'d say that the highlighting and colour choices are very good but you may want to work on some glazing to smooth the blends a little and add a bit of depth to the colours especially on the skin. The photo quality is good, nice clear shots.

I\'d say try not to get hung up on the scores and use the WIP section to get feedback on your painting as go especially when trying new techniques as this will help you see your models and painting through other people\'s eyes.

Most importantly, enjoy your painting and keep at it :beer:

 

[ujio]

exactly what the guy above said.

have some patience with the scores, it takes some time and many more votes.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by kakita
I believe that I have improved since then (albeit maybe not as much as I\'d hoped), but according to the ratings, I haven\'t.

Don\'t take it personally.
The levels of painting displayed on this site ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. Take some comfort in knowing that you are nowhere near the latter.

While at the moment your scores for the Mechanik are only showing a low number of votes, as has been said give it some time.

Personally I prefer the Butcher which seems to show better control over the flesh tones. The Mechanik could use some careful glazes of the fleshes base tone to mute and smooth the muscle shadow.

 

[Einion]

How do I improve my CMON votes?
The very best way to do this is to be active (and very popular) on another site - German or French in particular it seems - and then when you post anything tell your mates you\'re posting something new to CMON and it\'ll get x5 the votes it would naturally get, most of which will be unnaturally high lol

Cynicism aside, don\'t take the scoring necessarily as any reflection of how good your own work is. Sometimes it IS right on the money, other times it\'s not. This could be down to the photos themselves, or merely a matter of differences of taste. Practice lots; post your work here in Discuss Submissions for direct feedback; read articles and guides to painting; post in-progress stuff in Work in Progress and Project logs for any specific tips you might want and practice, practice, practice some more.

And practice your photography too - good photos can make OK paintwork look better than bad photos of good paintwork! I\'ve judged at shows, which gives you the chance to get a really good look at some entries, and it\'s very common to see photos of something online or in magazines afterwards - something you admired in the flesh - where they don\'t look anything like as good. This is even with professionals taking the photos often!

Einion

 

[Elly3438]

I agree DR, some glazes and washes to blend in the flesh and also the pants would definitely help. Just use some controlled glazes to blend in those highlights... Otherwise, I see a big improvement in the metals and the red.

Don\'t take the scores personally, as long as you see improvement and you like your stuff, that\'s all that really matters. Ahhh the arts and subjectivity :bouncy:

 

[TKNY]

Agree with Einion -almost every low score is due to a bad photo; people simply can\'t see the work.

Don\'t give too much heed to the votes, they don\'t mean much. Focus more on the comments and crits you receive in the forums. That holds the most value and will help you improve.

 

[Gilvan Blight]

There is more being judged then just your paint job. You have to remember that as well. The site is cool mini or not, not rate my painting. The overall miniature is getting voted on. Things like who made the mini, if it\'s male or female, if you coverted or not have a lot to do with the scores as well. In general on CMON Space Marines tend to rate a point or two higher then all Warmachine minis just due to the fact there are more 40K players and fans then Warmachine fans.

This also applies for minis from the same manufacturer. I personally find your first guy a much cooler mini. With that red armour and big axe, it\'s much cooler then some guy with a ratchet (or whatever that is), even if the guy with the ratchet is painted better.

The last thing to consider is the fact that scores seem to be dropping as time goes on. It used to be that a mini that was painted and based with no shading would score an average of 4 or 5, and even a drybrushed mini with a base would get a 5 to 5.5. Now you need to have a smooth well blended mini just to get that 5. There\'s a whole other thread on why this is the case, and I won\'t get into it here, but the scores have definately gotten harsher over the years.

 

[spooktalker]

Gilvan makes some excellent points that I\'ll second. The crowd at cmon gets tougher as the bar is continually raised by better and better figs on the top end. Since 10.0 represents the best possible, what was once easily a 10 will now often only get a 9, and that trickles down.

Also, the choice of figure and base count for a lot. I\'m not a fan of figs standing on big rocks for no reason, but it\'s pretty much a fact that standing on a big rock will up your score. And character models will usually fair much better than rank and file.

However, with rank and file, it totally helps to take a group shot of like figs. For instance, the mechanic would greatly benefit from having the other members of his squad with him, painted to the same standard. Try it out by assembling a unit, battle group or warpack and seeing what happens.

I agree with you that your photography is much better in the new pic, and the blue background is a nice presentation technique. The painting looks better on the mech to me as well, so I can see your point there. Hard to say how good presentation affects painting scores. Some people will only vote based on what they can actually tell from the pic, and then I suspect some people give a less good pic the \"benefit of the doubt\" and vote based on how they guess the fig will look in person. But to break into the 8s, you really need to have everything.

If you really want to improve your score, I would focus on trying to get a good score on specific figures, rather than trying to raise your score overall. Your overall rank is based on several figures\' scores, not on the total average of your figures\' scores. On your next warcaster/warlock fig, try setting out from the beginning to break the 8.0 threshold, and consider basing, effects, technique, photography, etc, each in turn. Imo, you definitely show the skill to get you there.

One really specific point for me about your figs is that the figs as a whole look really good, but the eyes bring them down a notch. I think a lot of us as we click through voting give each miniature only a few seconds to register. If any one thing stands out as a weakness, that can drag the score down. With your figs, the eyes seem too bright (use light grey or tan and never pure white for the eyes), and the pupils are often different sizes from eye to eye. I always use magnification when I paint eyes and use the following technique. I use thin paint with retarder, and a Winsor an Newton series 7 #0 brush. I paint the whole eye black, then Vallejo Model Color Light Grey. Then I stipple the pupil in with several dots of black forming a larger circle. With each dot I apply, I step back and make sure it\'s in the right place, and decide whether it needs to be enlarged.

Overall though, I think you can get the scores you want if you set your mind to it and aren\'t afraid to engage with niggling details. That\'s what cmon is all about!

 

[matty1001]

To improve your votes just get loads of Polish mates! :beer:

 

[spooktalker]

One further thought I had, is related to the idea that something can stand out and bring the score down. A strong focal point showing off a painting strength will easily up your score. For instance, a glowing weapon, a face that you\'ve spent a little extra time with, some detail or item that stands out with a contrasting color, or maybe it\'s just overall highlights that really pop. Try imagining what you want your audience to notice first about your fig.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Originally posted by spooktalker
...However, with rank and file, it totally helps to take a group shot of like figs. For instance, the mechanic would greatly benefit from having the other members of his squad with him, painted to the same standard. Try it out by assembling a unit, battle group or warpack and seeing what happens...

I totally agree with this. I did a test with some Wolfen fangs I\'d painted and the individual shots here did noticeably worse than the \"group shots\" here and here.

Originally posted by spooktalker
One really specific point for me about your figs is that the figs as a whole look really good, but the eyes bring them down a notch. I think a lot of us as we click through voting give each miniature only a few seconds to register. If any one thing stands out as a weakness, that can drag the score down. With your figs, the eyes seem too bright (use light grey or tan and never pure white for the eyes), and the pupils are often different sizes from eye to eye. I always use magnification when I paint eyes and use the following technique. I use thin paint with retarder, and a Winsor an Newton series 7 #0 brush. I paint the whole eye black, then Vallejo Model Color Light Grey. Then I stipple the pupil in with several dots of black forming a larger circle. With each dot I apply, I step back and make sure it\'s in the right place, and decide whether it needs to be enlarged.

This is another good point. I think people tend to look at the face first, and our inbuilt facial recognition skills sound alarm bells if something looks \"off\". This is why I always make quite an effort with eyes, and I suspect that it\'s helped my scores on more than one occasion. I also know for a fact that it can hurt your scores- I painted a lion figure with very pale yellow eyes and no pupils, and I got the impression it put people off. Although it might have been the fact that he was also blue and purple...

Originally posted by spooktalker
Overall though, I think you can get the scores you want if you set your mind to it and aren\'t afraid to engage with niggling details. That\'s what cmon is all about!

Yep! :beer:

 

[kakita]

Thanks guys. It\'s encouraging to find out that it\'s not due to me stagnating at one skill level, but to the vagaries of the internet. I guess I\'m just being mildy paranoid.

Good point about the painting though. I see that I need to work on getting my transitions to be a lot more subtle. I\'ll also have to work on my eyes. Man those eyes are tough to do.

Thanks for all your comments and support again. I\'ll have to work on my painting harder next time.

Cheers.

 

[pez5767]

I feel your pain Kakita. Though I haven\'t been posting my models for a full year here, I have struggled to understand why a particular model gets a particular score. I think the advice regarding model selection was valid here. The more heroic models usually score better than the gritty models. Totally preference. Keep in mind you have to play to the crowd a bit here... or at least be aware that it\'s the \'mob\' that\'s doing the voting.

I think in a great many respects your second model shows a great deal of improvement. The blends on the pants are much better than anything on the butcher model, and the arms look pretty good. The face (eyes) are a bit intense, but those will improve with time like anything else.

Long story longer... you have some great stuff here, don\'t let the bastards get you down.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by kakita
I guess I\'m just being mildy paranoid.

Nothing wrong with a bit of paranoia, sometimes they ARE out to get you *looks over shoulder*

Originally posted by kakita
Man those eyes are tough to do.

Yep. Good sculpts help a lot with this. I paint eyes last but it\'s a good idea to paint them before you do the face - if you screw up it\'s easy to paint over the whole eye with more white/off-white and try again, without worrying about messing up the entire face.

Einion

 

[generulpoleaxe]

Originally posted by matty1001
To improve your votes just get loads of Polish mates! :beer:

lollollol

 

[Hygmer]

Paint NMM.

No matter how ugly NMM you paint, it will always raise your score on Coolminiornot.

 

[matty1001]

Originally posted by Hygmer
Paint NMM.

No matter how ugly NMM you paint, it will always raise your score on Coolminiornot.

And I thought I was cynical.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Hygmer
Paint NMM.

No matter how ugly NMM you paint, it will always raise your score on Coolminiornot.

I don\'t think that holds! It might have a few years ago when NMM was a bit more of a \"new thing\" and it was generally perceived as more advanced than metallics. Nowadays I don\'t think there\'s much difference. NMM is just one of many things in a vast array of techniques and methods.

 

[Aliengod3]

Coolmini is very subjective. some people may vote your mini down simply because they are jealous that you paint better than them. There is one mini by Razza, a high elf, in which his score is ~9.7. Everyone voted it a ten pratically and there was one person that post a comment who gave a a 7 saying it was not amazing. Rediculous!

Point being not everyone will like your work. Use the score as a guide to understanding what type of mini people perceive it to be. If you are receiveing 7\'s and low 8\'s that means that most people see it as a strong and successful tabletop quality mini.

High 8\'s and 9\'s are normally minis that are for display, competition, or painted by perfectionists who want all their minis to be a high quality.