 |
Best of Show Tacticon (Denver CO)
Silver Medal, Painter Division, Reaper Con (Denton TX)
Red Box Games; Myrianna of Aelfheim |
Breaking out the scoring or How your models are judged at
the Reaper Con MSP Open
This will be a series of four posts each concentrating on a
different entry category. These scoring “rules” are based on the MMSI painting
competition in Chicago and variants of this system are used on an international
basis. Michael Proctor and I took a good hard look at the rules a number of
years ago and introduced a few tweaks to the system to better represent what
we, as judges, are looking for when scoring your entry at Reaper Con. The basis
for all of these is still the MMSI rules and there is not a whole lot of
difference between the emphasis of the components in each division. One thing
to keep in mind is that manufacturer awards do not necessarily use the MSP Open
system. Those winners are, typically, chosen by the manufacturer (including
Reaper for the Sophies) or their representative on site using their own
criteria.
The scoring is quite simple. A judge assigns an entry one of
five numerical values based on their opinion of what the entrant has earned for their entry:
0 – No award
1 – Certificate of Merit
2 – Bronze Medal
3 – Silver Medal
4 – Gold Medal
The Reaper Con judging teams are made up of three judges
(There are options to use 4 or 5 judges but regardless of how many judges are
used only three scores are tallied). Each judge assigns one of these 5 values
to each miniature assigned to their team. The three scores are tallied which
gets a value somewhere between 0 and 12. That final tally gives a number that
tells the team what award to give to the entrant for that entry. Judging is
typically not done by committee, each judge assigns the score they feel the
piece deserves and moves on to the next. Most discussion takes place around
which piece to score when there are multiple entries. Judges do consult with
each other when they have difficulty assigning a score to an entry.
0 – 1 No Award
2 – 4 Certificate of Merit
5 – 7 Bronze Medal
8 – 10 Silver Medal
11 – 12 Gold Medal
So that’s the basics, now let’s take a look at how a judge
uses the five components to decide what score they are going to give you.
Painter Division
The Painter Division is for stock models, those that come
straight from the package or are assembled as shown by the manufacturer (it can
include minor conversions). The Painter Division is the largest category at the
MSP Open, often encompassing hundreds of entries at each show. There is no
limit to the number of entries that an individual can enter in this category. I
personally would limit yourself to your three best, but if you intend to be
considered for other manufacturer or theme awards then it would not be out of
place to see six or more entries from an individual.
If you have just a single entry then the judges can just go
ahead and score your entry, no discussion is necessary. If you have multiple
entries, then there will be a discussion between the judges on which entry they
want to score. That conversation is typically the only conversation that needs
to occur for any given entrant. When selecting the scoring entry the
conversation is based on “I can score this one higher than the others” or words
to that affect, till they come to a decision which is usually pretty quickly
done. If the entries are visually very thematic the judges may decide to judge
them together as a single entry.
Let’s take a quick look at the scoring guidelines the judges use (which is published as part of the MSP Open Rules):
Difficulty: 5%
Creativity: 10%
Workmanship: 10%
Painting Skill: 70%
Presentation: 5%
So what does that really mean? In a nutshell we want to see
how well you can paint! Did you really execute the different techniques to the
best of your ability? Hence why painting skill is the predominant component
that a judge is going to look at. Let’s look at a breakdown of those components
and how they relate to a miniature in the Painters Division.
Difficulty: This
is definitely not an intuitive concept in the Painter Division. The judge is
not looking at the techniques (including freehand) you used on the miniature.
They are looking at how difficult is the miniature itself to paint. While how
difficult a miniature is also subjective, subtle shading on flat or nearly flat
surfaces are much more difficult to pull off than shading on a surface with
more surface texture. Often difficulty is going to come into play when a judge
is on the fence between two scores.
Creativity: This
component looks at use of color, color schemes and the use of freehand designs
in other words things that aren’t part of the sculpt itself. This is also where
painted effects first come into play, like OSL (Object Source Lighting). This
is the component that really addresses your freedom of expression on your entry
and how well you bring that across to the audience.
Workmanship: This
is a pretty straightforward component. It reflects how well you prepared your
model for painting. Any type of non-painting effort is represented here. In the
Painter division this includes finding the elusive mold line and eliminating it
but it also includes assembling a multi piece miniatures or executing minor
conversions. A well done conversion or well assembled miniature means that the
judge can’t tell that anything has been converted or that it had multiple
pieces. A missed mold line, poor assembly or a poorly executed conversion could
easily drop you a while numeric value in the scoring.
Painting Skill:
This is the whole key to the Painter Division entry, how well you apply paint
to the miniature. These is where you are evaluated on the techniques you used how
well you executed them. Tying everything together is really important as well.
Everything you do must come together as a whole composition. It is an area
where judges need to be aware of everything that is going on and how it is
fitting together. While this is the predominate component of the Painter
Division it is also the most subjective.
Judges must overcome their prejudices about which techniques
they prefer. As an example there is nothing wrong with drybrushing as long as
you executed it properly regardless of how the judge feels about that
technique.
Here is an example of how a judge needs to be aware of many
different styles and techniques. Blending doesn’t always have to be a smooth
transition from light to dark, there are multiple different types of blending,
it is how well you executed the technique or style you opted for. Do you blend
like Jen Haley or like Alfonso “Banshee” Giraldes? They both achieve marvelous
blends but their techniques are markedly different in achieving those blends.
Presentation:
While not the most important component in the Painter Division it is another
example of getting the little things right. A nice, well executed base will set
the “scene” for your miniature. It can be the simple base that the miniature
came on or with or it can be more elaborate, although I would save the effort on
a really elaborate base for a miniature going into the Open or Diorama
divisions. This component is another that one that a judge will often use when
making that final decision between scores, a tie breaker as it were.
If you made it through that wall of text, congratulations!
Hopefully that helped explain away some of the magic behind the scoring in the
Painter Division.
