Vaaish does battletech...

[Vaaish]

and a quick tutorial on how it was painted:
http://www.twolandscreative.com/life/90 ... g-tutorial

[mangozac]

Great tutorial - it's nice to see the actual technique you use!

[Munkey Joe]

wow those look sharp all together..... good job!

[Vaaish]

so, again, Coolmini has failed to show even a minute semblance of intelligence in voting. Yesterday I posted the image of the victor up on the site and today the rating dropped rather severely after it went live. Now the group shot of the other three mechs is holding at a 7.0 which is somewhat acceptable, however the Victor which is much better in terms of contrast, highlighting, and color balance yet within hours of posting it the rating dropped below 7 and was continuing to fall. Basically, this means most people on the site find this model barely above tabletop level of painting since I started the rating at an 8. This is completely absurd given the rating that models that truly ARE tabletop level receive. Now I may be a bit biased and I may be overestimating my capabilities here, but I'd like to think that this:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/286492?browseid=511293
or this:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/282980?browseid=511293
aren't up to the same level as the victor yet both are scoring nearly the same. Now what's even more frustrating is that NO ONE bothers to explain WHY they gave the rating they did. Ok ranting over.

[mangozac]

There there Vaaish, let it out. Surely you knew better than to trust your hard work at the mercy of random internet denizens?

Seriously though, I can understand it must be pretty frustrating. Maybe I should give you poll access so you can have RA members vote on your minis

[paulson games]

It's a really simple explaination...

People are blinded from looking at all the ugly battletech mechs and by the time they get to yours they can't see what buttons they are pressing

The ones you linked to are an average of 6.6 which I don't think they really deserve as they should be around 5-ish , if yours is an 8 you are well ahead of them. The highest any battletech stuff is rated is a 9.1. I wouldn't fret the ratings too much, people on C'mon are retarded. As far as a I can tell and they seem to vote well for a select group of named painters and GW models, everyone else gets hater-aide poured all over their votes.

I think the name says it all CMON as though it were short for "come on! wtfl!!!

[Vaaish]

Thanks, but my victor was being rated at around a 6.6 just like those two I linked to. If it had been an eight this rant wouldn't have been written. Now, normally I could care less about what rating I get since I think I'm fairly well qualified to judge technical skill and aesthetic value (I do have a degree in graphic design, and I'm two classes shy of a masters in the same field). The problem I run into is when it comes to miniature painting services. I don't accept a whole lot of commissions, but part of what drives the price is the rating your work gets on CMON. People who rate high, 8 or better, are automatically included in the CMON book if they want to submit high res photos which is a nice bit of press and rating that high means people are more willing to accept reasonable charges for the time spent.

For instance, one person I've seen progress significantly in his work is Winterdyne. Lately he's been trying for a GD. Now, he hasn't gotten one yet, but he has picked up finalist pins for several of his pieces. If you check his painting services, he's routinely able to charge something like $100 USD for painting a character. Part of what lets him do that is people pulling up his work on CMON and saying, oh, he's pretty high rated so he must be worth the cost.

For my part, getting rated below a 7 means that people expect sweatshop prices for the work regardless of the quality in the photos. That's why it's frustrating to see a model like the victor get rated so low, especially when no one bothers to explain why they rated what the did. I don't know if they just don't like the design of the mech, hated the photo, or genuinely thought that it was painted to a low standard.

[paulson games]

I think it may be suffering from the pro-GW bias that is rampant on the site. The vast majority of people on there are entirely GW focused and when it comes to other lines they just click a lower rating and don't take the time to actually review the painting skill.

The painting on them is very subtile and I think that people are skimming over it fast and not really taking it in, stuff I've posted usually does poorly when it's first posted bit it does climb a bit after a few days as the vote evens out.

I've also been of the opinion that if you put the model up with two differant painter names, one being a nobody name and one being their inner cicrle painters that the nobody name would be rated much lower despite being the exact same picture. There's definately some favorites being played on there.

Scibor for example has a distinct following that consistantly throw 10's athis vote even when the pieces don't deserve it. Not that I can paint with 1/10th his skill but some of his pieces aren't always up to snuff yet they all get rated the same by his cheerleaders. I've seen soem of his greens with huge thumb prints on them getting almost solid 10's as his fanboys eat up even his worst models.

The votes suffer when people aren't familiar with the models, a large portion of the voter base has no idea what had been done to clean up that plastic figure. Battletech players have a better insight but there are a lot of bad models for Battletech. No matter how well they get painted the models just plain suck, but that's just part of the game. Even within the battletech crowd there's a bit of bias you'll get a much better reception with a marauder or a warhammer than with any other mech for some reason.

I understand wanting to sport a good rating for the commission work, but IMO the best thing you can do is have your own gallery and let the customer decide for themself. Personally I think your work is awesome and I'd rate it much higher than a lot of competing services. I dislike a lot of the carbon copy Eavy Metal wannabies clones you se with so many of them.

[blind pig]

[paulson games]

In his spare time Silky "Player Hater of the Year" Johnson prowls CMON






For those that haven't seen the greatest Chapelle skit ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKXwj7ZrHIc

[Seb]

I long ago gave up on CMON for pretty much all the reason you cited. Also, I pretty much stopped painting for cash in 2004 when for some reason if you didn't have several Demons, you weren't worth a dime.

Supportive sub-rant over, I really enjoyed reading through your process on the blog. Good insight into a more meticulous method than mine.

- Seb

[Vaaish]

After a grueling two weeks and a total failure on Saturday to get the darker tan to the correct shade because I forgot what I'd used for the undercoat on the earlier lance members for that area, I've finally finished out the last two members of my Wolf's Dragoons Epsilon Company I'm mostly happy with the result outside of the darker tan on the shoulders of the Warhammer. With this complete I'm ready to move on to my first Clan Star. I've been fiddling around a lot with BV in forming these lances and my end goal is to have four Inner Sphere lances of equal BV and two Clan stars each equal in BV to two of the IS lances.

What that means is that facing these two will be this:
Black Hawk S
Black Hawk S
Mad Cat C
Mad Cat C
Daishi Prime

Since I've got the models for that (with some rather severe rebuilding on the mad cats and one black hawk from the citytech stuff.

Following that I plan to do these for the last two IS lances:
Lance 3: Waiting, Black Widows
Rifleman 4D
Warhammer 7A
Marauder 3D
Marauder 3D

Lance 4, Waiting, Eridani Light Horses
Shadow Hawk 2K
Rifleman 4D
Thunderbolt 5Sb
Awesome 9M

And facing off against that is the Clan Prime lance:
Fenris Prime
Ryoken Prime
Vulture Prime
Loki Prime
Warhawk Prime

Basically I just need to purchase the Awesome, Tbolt, Vulture, and Loki to have all the mech's onhand. Anyway, I'm getting pretty far off topic, so here's the pics of the Archer Wolf and Warhammer 7A as well as a full lance shot.

[paulson games]

These are looking great, very hard to tell that they are the plastic versions as they look much sharper than some of the metal versions do.

I really like the line work on teh models, is that simply from inking or did you blackline those areas?

Is warhammer the resin one I sent?

[Vaaish]

Thanks! I usually start out with a shadow base on the models and build up, but blending usually causes the recesses for the lines to get covered up so I end up black lining them. I find that washes and inks work better earlier in the process since they don't always create the intended result and need cleanup. Glazing works better later in the process since it's far more targeted.

Yep, the Warhammer is the first of the ones you sent A large chunk of them are slated for the Black Widows company mechs with the two marauders, a warhammer and a rifleman.

[horizon]

Hey Vaaish,

(I'll get back on that mail...)


regarding your painting skills: I've seen you improve over the years and I think your current standard is pretty high. Your skill increase-curve has been steeper then mine, I have to admit.
Your level at epic-scale is tremendous and the larger scale stuff is also levelling up.

Coolmini has always been weird, getting higher votes for submissions you think are lower then other submissions of your own.
My own ratings go from 6.1 to 7.4. From 7 images. Highest being this:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/284372

Enough about me. Expect me back at GothiComp '12

Great mechs!