Well, I've been posting stuff on Coolmini lately minis that I banged out quickly - not my best work, but in my mind, good enough to play with.
Well, I found that people were voting me less than 5 (usually just under 5). I couldn't understand it... was it some sort of snobbery, was it the haters out in force, was it people being malicious? etc.... There was no way my stuff that I posted could not be distinguished on the tabletop battlefield (as less than 5).
Well, I started looking at the voting scores on Coolmini and noticed that now, a 4/10 is considered "tabletop quality." A "5" now is "not bad" and a "6" is pretty good, etc. I screen saved people's scores and came up with this table:
2/10 - Awful
3/10 - Not Good
4/10 - Tabletop Quality
5/10 - Not Bad
6/10 - Pretty Good
7/10 - Great Job
8/10 - Excellent
9/10 - Amazing
In the last couple of years, Coolminiornot.com must have changed their scoring structure to take into account the increasing standard on the website. Lots of professional painters and skilled amateurs are posting and they are raising the bar, it seems. Stuff posted 8, 9 years ago as a "8" if voted today would be a "5" or "6" level now a days. A weird case of deflation.
This means that in 5, 10 years, a 3/10 will likely be considered tabletop quality.
Anyways, what I thought was anonymous maliciousness was just people voting by the new standard.
I feel much better now.
I agree that models are judged more harshly on that site now, but there's more to it than that. I've also found that prejudice factors greatly into the voting based on what the model is, rather than how it's painted.
ReplyDeleteFor example, standard Warhammer 40K units (no matter how well painted) never get high scores, unless they are special figures. Also I've noticed that unusual models or scantly-clad female models tend to rank higher than their painting should dictate.
James, definitely. I agree with all your observations as well. It's not just 40K but classic figures of fantasy (dwarves, etc) around dungeon crawls also don't get respect. I get the feeling that people are bored with generic fantasy.
ReplyDeleteThen, early on I sometimes got the feeling that there was some snobbery or cliqueshness, though elusive to see. I guess if I hung around the coolmini forum long enough I could see a bit of it.