ReaperCon Painting Contest

[paintminion]

Glad it's helping! I'm trying to bring all aspects of my open System experience into this and hopefully you guys will benefit by understanding better what you want to enter and where you want to enter it.

 

Remember that you are not entering individual models, you are setting up a display of your best work...whatever is ready for display. You get one award per category. So say that I'm entering my 18" garage kit Cylene, my Angel of Radiance (oops, gotta ask Anne about that), a Dark Sword dragon, a Privateer press puppy battlegroup, and a few female warroris. All of them, stock figures, are going into one display of my stuff for the Painters Category. Judges will decide my best piece, I'll be judged, get my award if merited by my scores, and that's that.

 

Now, will people paint up large figures? Well....why were they painting Large Figures before? Only because of a category?! Painting Units only because of a category?! I would hope it's more than that! But MMSI is primarily larger figures to begin with - they are not gamers but artists of museum quality miniatures...54 is their base size really with 72s and 90s and busts. To them, our little people are so small they'd go bonkers trying to paint them--and yet some still do...size doesn't matter. ;-) So what will happen here in our gamer convention competition? I honestly don't know, but I would expect people to still paint what they love and want to show it off. How many whole armies did people paint for the painting competition? You can still paint your unit and put it in your display, and maybe the judges will choose your "group" as your best painted pieces, or just the unit leader or warcaster, or whatever.

 

Gus, I wouldn't fret over it, but get working on what YOU love and want to get painted. Then bring it and show it off.

[Jabberwocky]

Next question - having not been to a painting competition judged like this, but I have to imagine that there are far fewer large models, and even fewer troops, entered, especially in the Painter category, than you would see at a show with separate categories for Large and Troop. Is that true, and if so, should there be separate categories, so that we can encourage entries of those 2 things?

 

I wondered about this as well. I think Anne mentioned in an earlier post there would be the fewer formal categories, but within each category they are considering other special awards for other "subcategories" honoring those that choose to support Reaper--i.e., perhaps a Warlord unit award or large figure. Pure speculation on my part, but that was the sense I got (with the understanding this was only being considered at this point).

[Vaitalla]

Sue is, of course, exactly right in her summary of why Ordnance gets its own category. Thanks Sue (and George, and Kris) for stepping up to the plate in my absence--I had a very busy Saturday and spent my Sunday sick, so this is my first chance to dive back in and here you guys have answered all the questions already!

 

Now...re: large figures and units. I am entirely with Sue on this. WHY did people enter these categories before? Is it because they loved painting these models or because they wanted a better chance to win in a category perceived as "weak" with not many entries to compete against? I'll tell you now, in the shows using this system which I have attended, I have seen only a handful of units. Sometimes a "Wargamer" award or subcategory has been offered to encourage this kind of work. If we do anything it will NOT be opening up a new category--as stated before, this only has the effect of creating more weak categories, and I'll tell you that with only five or six entries in the Unit category every year I definitely count it as weak! Instead, we will most likely create a special award, a unique medal perhaps, to be awarded to best Warlord Unit, most likely accompanied by a Reaper gift certificate; perhaps we may also award a certificate for battle groups from other games.

 

So, to answer the question again, I think that we will get a unit or two and we will get large models, and that there will be fewer entries of those types than before, but that the ones which ARE entered will be better quality. This does not bother me one bit. Reaper has always been mostly about the 25-28mm heroic figure, and because of that I expect to see an awful lot of them at our show! I also, though, expect some things we really haven't seen a lot of before: the 54mm and larger models, and also busts. As Sue said, this is the range that most of the modelers at the MMSI Chicago Show and the World Expo work with. The sculptor has a lot more room to work with on these and so does the painter, often with truly phenomenal results!

 

One thing about the special awards that I like, by the way...we do not HAVE to give them out. That's right, we could get four people entering Warlord units and not give out the medal. Why? For the same reason we decided not to make Unit a category any more. If we get four units which are not up to medal standards, it would be a slap in the face to other entrants who worked hard on their models to just give away an award--and a special award at that--to a substandard piece, just to give out a medal. So in order for a special award to be given, the judges must feel that there IS a piece of that type which warrants the award! It is all about motivating people to do their best work, and to improve in order to go home with a mess of awards.

 

--Anne

[Vaitalla]

Re: Names, Anonymous vs. Public :

 

Jury is still out on this one. I personally am in favor of going public, with all entrants having their names right on the little card that goes in front of their figure. For one thing, as someone brought up, it makes it easier for you to find that painter and ask 'em how they did something! For another, it eliminates a level of secrecy and makes the element of competition more of an open, friendly rivalry. Yes, Sue and I and many more of our friends and potential judges have been judging each others' work for years, and for some reason we're all still friends! I personally put my brain in objective mode and pretend that any given model was painted by someone I don't know at all. If I suspect I'm losing touch with my objectivity then I stop and make myself re-examine the piece. I've always felt that as a judge I need to be able to give valid, constructive answers if any entrant comes up to me after the show with a question about their own or someone else's figure and why they were rated as they were!

 

Now, the only thing stopping me from just saying "let's go public" is the Best in Show judging. As everyone knows, this is publicly done; every entrant in the competition gets to cast their vote! Can I trust all of them to be objective, too? Or are we in danger of seeing a "popularity contest" if names go public? I would love to hear all of your thoughts on this.

 

--Anne

[kristof65]

Personally, I think you're more likely to see people vote against people they don't like, rather than for people they do like. FREX, let's say I was voting for a Best in Show in a contest that had Marike, Sue, Anne, Flynn, Kris - whom I've met at least once in person and am friendly towards; MattMcl whom I know and game with and Joe Blow, a hypothetical guy I don't like.

 

If all peices are 100% equal, yeah, I might be more inclined to vote for Matt, because I know him. But the likelyhood of 7 pieces being 100% equal is remote - I'm probably going to choose a piece based on a more emotional response, regardless of who painted it - wow, I really like that topless fairy, I'm going to vote for it - oh wow, should have known is was a ____ piece.

 

The more likely scenario, though, is that Joe Blow paints an outstanding piece that is truly worthy of BiS, but I vote for someone else because I think he's an arrogant SoB.

 

I really wouldn't worry about it being a popularity contest - while there may be some people there who are more popular than others, the vast majority of you whom I've met are more likely to vote for the best peice rather than the person. I would, however, worry more about it being biased against certain people - are there people in the community who manage to offend people, and as such, are more likely to be voted against, even though their work is worthy?

 

From what I've witnessed here on the boards, and at my single RCon, I don't think so. The worst scenario I can think of is someone showing up at RCon, and being so much of a jerk that they alienate everyone there, and thus lose out at a shot for BiS.

[paintminion]

Anonymous vs Public also has a practical side.

 

--How will we be sure which minis displayed belong to the same person while we're judging and viewing? We need to have all their stuff in one place and as we judge at MMSI, it's the assistant's job to make sure the judge's are looking at the painter's entire display and don't forget one extra figure off to the side. Or be able to separate this is one painter here, and this is the next painter here.

--If judges want to move something, how will they find out if the painter has a display in another category and what those peices are, to judge if a piece should be moved? The repercussions of anonymity is that you'll need extra folks at judgement time who's entire job is making sure all pieces are judged in the correct groupings. Nightmare it seems to me.

--And as I said, if public, then people will know who to talk to about something cool they've seen.

--no need for sticky numbers on an entry, or any quibble about who belongs to which mini for security purposes.

 

As for BIS, MMSI has entrants each getting one single vote, and Judges get 2 votes. It weights the decision more towards those people that truly had to study what is out there and gauge it's dominance against the whole. MMSI has never been dissapointed in it's BIS chosen this way, as far as I know. Judges all talk to each other and find out who people are looking at and it's how a lot of time is spent outside of the normal judging..."who are you considering in your area?" and we show each other and comment and discuss. Even if ReaperCon chooses not to do it this way, I also think we should trust in the system more, that we're all modeling enthusiasts who know something supercool when we see it and want to reward it no matter who it's by.

 

MMSI's system of filling out the cards with painters name, title/model, manufacturer, and then checking if it is stock, converted or scratchbuilt...on the back of the card we are to list in detail what is converted, how we changed it. This is so the judges, especially in Open, can determine quickly what was the work of the modeler and what wasn't and know if they wish to move something to Open or not. But so can people just looking--oh, this is a stock figure from Andrea, called RamesesII Cool! Hey, this is a converted Dryad from Reaper...what did they change? Flip the card and see. They scratchbuilt this bust based on a picture of their grandfather in uniform, how sweet! In the MMSI paperwork system, the card is right there for everyone to know the quick info of a piece.

 

But again, ReaperCon does not have to do it MMSI's way, or Word Expo's way...they can come up with whatever works for their goals and particular demands. I'm just happy to see Anne getting help working through it all and not trying to work it all out by herself! We need these questions to know why and how this is all going to work.

 

Meanwhile, I've finished the first model I'll be displaying. ;-)

[cutebutpsycho]

I would say to keep the names hidden until after the BIS judging. Maybe have them on papers folded in half with a piece of tape sealing them or in a small envelope. This way, one can vote for BIS without seeing the name. I know that many people connect the dots before any reveal, but it would at least preserve some semblance of anonymity. While the 'pro' judges may be able to be objective, I don't know that the same can be said for every single attendee.

[kristof65]

While the 'pro' judges may be able to be objective, I don't know that the same can be said for every single attendee.

True - all of us may not be objective. But I feel that objectivity will be bent more against people they don't like, rather than towards the ones they do. Obviously I can't speak for everyone else, but between the Denver painting community, my previous RCon and the forum here, I've made some friends. Enough friends that I would have to be objective about choosing between their work - if only to justify my choice to myself. I feel pretty confident that most of us who attend RCon are in the same boat - there are too many people we like there to choose just because someone is a friend.

 

Plus, if someone has multiple pieces, even if people are voting for their friend's piece, the vote may likely be spread out among their multiple pieces.

 

OTOH, I can defnitely see a situation where two people whom don't like each other simply don't vote for each other's pieces. If Bob doesn't like Jon, he's probably not going to consider Jon's entry for BiS. Unless there are a couple of people showing up who are despised by a large number of people there, I don't see how those dislike's tip the balance much. The only scenario I realistically see happening is someone showing up and being a complete jerk the entire weekend, so much so to the point that no one votes for their piece, despite it being BiS material.

 

 

Now, the vote could be tipped if people started campaigning other attendees to vote for them for BiS. Since that's not in the spirit of the competition, I hope that most entrants wouldn't even try it, and those who did would have their efforts largely ignored.

[Mengu]

Now, the only thing stopping me from just saying "let's go public" is the Best in Show judging. As everyone knows, this is publicly done; every entrant in the competition gets to cast their vote! Can I trust all of them to be objective, too? Or are we in danger of seeing a "popularity contest" if names go public? I would love to hear all of your thoughts on this.

 

I think the popularity contest aspect is unavoidable. In order to pick the best in show, people would check out the cases for Derek, Marike, Jeremie, and maybe a few others, and would be likely to pick one of them, not that they don't deserve it, but because of the name attached to the piece. Rhonda's single entry sitting next to Jeremie's 20 entries might easily get overlooked by many, despite potentially being more deserving of a best in show.

 

Not saying it'll happen this way, but it's possible.

 

I'm a big fan of secrecy when it comes to anonymity of contest entries for most any contest where entries are placed. A name can easily influence a judge (consciously or subconsciously) to push an entry up or down, whenever it's a close call.

 

Having said all that, this format is something completely new (to me, and to ReaperCon). It will have a fairly different atmosphere. I think it would be ok to try non-anonymous entries this year, and see what kind of results we get. If it works well, it can be adopted as a standard. If it doesn't, it can be fixed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[kristof65]

I'm a big fan of secrecy when it comes to anonymity of contest entries for most any contest where entries are placed. A name can easily influence a judge (consciously or subconsciously) to push an entry up or down, whenever it's a close call.

 

I would usually agree, but in the RCon atmosphere, I think it would most likely be a false sense of anonyminity. Like CBP said, a lot of us will be able to connect the dots and word of who a particularly outstanding piece belongs to will spread quickly. IMO, that false sense of anonominity could give an unfair advantage to those pieces whose creator's name becomes known. - IE, that piece is good, but I know this one was done by Marike (or Jen, or whomever) and I don't know who did that one, so I'm going to vote for the one I know..

 

Having said all that, this format is something completely new (to me, and to ReaperCon). It will have a fairly different atmosphere. I think it would be ok to try non-anonymous entries this year, and see what kind of results we get. If it works well, it can be adopted as a standard. If it doesn't, it can be fixed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Agreed.

[EdPugh]

Now, the vote could be tipped if people started campaigning other attendees to vote for them for BiS. Since that's not in the spirit of the competition, I hope that most entrants wouldn't even try it, and those who did would have their efforts largely ignored.

 

I will discourage campaigning and actually overtly stop it if I feel someone crosses a line.

 

Does this mean the offending party will get shot at dawn? No, but we have made models guilty of a crime(s) walk the plank into a molten pot before...

 

It is not a political or agenda function and pieces stand on their own.

 

 

 

That said, I already know that I will get all of the votes anyway because of my charming, sensitive and engaging personality~

[Vaitalla]

Does that mean that the "Ed's Choice" award will go to the miniature with the most charming, sensitive and engaging personality, too?

 

--Anne

[kristof65]

I've gotten a couple of PMs from people about this regarding my take that any popularity aspect to the competition would be toward people not voting for someone rather than the most popular person winning BiS. I'd like to take a moment to clarify that I think that's the absolute worst case scenario of someone's popularity affecting the vote. First of all, my comments are solely concerning the public vote for a Best in Show - I'm trusting Anne to do what she thinks is best for her "pro" judges - she knows them, and has selected them for a variety of reasons, objectivity surely being one of them. Now, back to a public best in show vote:

 

This isn't a purely subjective vote, like prom king/queen would be. There is something objective to actually vote on - a miniature/diorama/etc - and because of that, most people will be fairly objective and base the majority of their decision, if not all, on the piece itself. If two or more pieces happen to be equal in technical excellence, then yes, people will begin to move towards more subjective things to base their vote on, but it's more likely to be things like subject matter, colors used, etc, than who painted it.

 

If I somehow managed to paint a piece to the same exacting level of excellence as Anne or Marike, I'm not worried about losing to them because no one knows me, while everyone knows them - I would be much more worried that theirs will win because more people like succubi than spaceships.

 

OTOH, if I came in and start bragging to everyone one that I painted a BiS worthy piece, then throw a public hissy fit because I "only" scored a silver while my piece was obviously so much superior to Anne, Marike and the rest of you, why should I win? That's poor sportsmanship on my part, and if my actions influence people to not vote for me, that's my fault, isn't it?

 

So while some people won't or even can't be objective, there will be enough people who are to make the influence of the non-objective voters mean very little - unless its because someone has done something to tick the community off, in which case they probably don't deserve BiS anyway (IMO).

 

While I'm normally for anonyminity in something like this, I think RCon and the community are too small for it to make a real difference - at best we get a psuedo-anonyminity, where the only truly anonymous pieces are the ones submitted by people who manage to paint their stuff in complete isolation and not show it off. And come on, how many of us can truly keep our works anonymous? We build and paint them to show them off. I don't think it's until you get to something the size of Gen Con that anonyminity starts to work well. In a way, I think that psuedo-anonyminity would be worse than none at all.

[kristof65]

I will discourage campaigning and actually overtly stop it if I feel someone crosses a line.

I pretty much figured that would be the case. Good to hear you say it though.

[kristof65]

Does that mean that the "Ed's Choice" award will go to the miniature with the most charming, sensitive and engaging personality, too?

So in order to win, we have to paint a mini that looks like Ed?