Parriah's why did you vote the way you did?

[Parriah]

Ive been voting alot, can you refresh my memory, what minis were yours?

Bar, Bar, Bar rnd 1
G Squad rnd 2
1st squad rnd 3

[Parriah]

I found your picture, called '1st squad', the picture is pretty dark, that'd be one thing I'd suggest changing.  Either set the white balance before taking the picture or do an 'auto level' correction to the photo, to balance it after the fact.

I have added a flash for my next entries, I had noticed how dark they seemed on the LAF, hadn't noticed that before that tho, probably just me tho.

One thing I find strange, is how the total votes vary so much.  just on a quick spot, I see one with currently 408 votes and another at 465. I don't understand this.

That is mostly (I guess) what puzzels me

 I haven't had time to go through and make comments on any yet (still playing catch-up on going out of town) but I vote on all pairings. It only seems right and fair, for one, everyone took the time and effort to paint and for the competition, it would seem that those with more total votes have more chance to get more votes, so why do some pairings get passed by with no votes from people who are voting? I'd think all pairs would have the same number of total votes.

I too vote on all pairings, don't understand the others either, unless some choose to abstain on a match which they can't decide on.

As for why i vote the way I vote, for me it's overwhelmingly decided by quality of painting. I pick the one that I think has the best looking paint job.

Everyone has their biases, art is subjective, and for me that is roughly broken down to:

1. quality level and technique: how much talent is in evidence and what techniques are used: such as, I don't like the heavy-block section skin & muscle style commonly seen in a lot of historical miniatures, so that technique would rate lower for me than blended skin tones- just as an example.

2. color theory and selection. hot & cold, light & shade. this kind of thing, how successful it is.  Sometimes something can be painted really well but the color choice detracts- or technique might be less but the selection of colors more than compensate for it.  The 'eye' of the artist can be as important as much as brush control.

If both of those are dead even then I'd take into account model selection, terrain setting, posing and such, but I'm feeling like that is more for the fun of presentation and it doesn't swing my vote over the other considerations.

Thanx for the input, it should help me ( hope any way)

[Parriah]

Romanovs and Guard vs. G-Squad
Photography was your biggest enemy on this entry.  There is too much foreground and the shadows didn’t help your presentation.  Neither did the extra space above the figures themselves.  Get closer or crop the picture.  Remove the portion that distracts from your subject.  As for the figures themselves, the 1st two figures are in focus, while the rest are not.  The girl with the pink, toxic symbol shirt looks to have paint chipped from her nose and the separation lines could stand to be crisper and straighter.  For example, on the pink machine,   the black portion of hose on the upper arm has bled onto the arm’s surface.

Hey, Hey its da Monk(eez) vs. Bar, bar, bar   
You had my vote on this entry.  Picture was tighter in this group.  I did also notice how this picture was cropped.  There isn’t any vast foreground or overhead space.  I would have liked to have seen finished round bases on them (personally), as I like the effect.  This group of figures brought some good memories, especially the old Hercules.  Not sure if it is the flash of the camera or perhaps there are areas on the models that look chipped on these as well. 

As round 3 is still commencing, I will refrain from commenting at this time.  I hope this helps.  I would like to end on this note, congratulations for entering and thank you for sharing what you have with all of us.  I do like what you have and would be happy to see all of them on the table whether as opponents or allies.  They are nice and hey...Not shiny silver like most of mine.  Cheers

Great response, thanx! 

[Parriah]

Its difficult to say. Much of what makes me vote the way I do is subjective and a matter of my personal taste. I could love an entry while others prefer its competitor. We all like different art, music, partners etc. Its the same for minis. This seasons comp is of a really high standard and already I have seen match ups where either entry could have been a 'grand final' winner. Thus Im not voting against 1 entry but voting for another. People arnt saying they dislike your entries, just that they like the others more.
I looked again at your latest entry and have to say that I really like your minis but the photography doesnt do them justice. Imagine a match up where the competitors figs are equally good but 1 team has photographed better than the other. Which would you vote for?  My inclination is improve the 'presentation' improve the vote count. But it is just my opinion and others may have a different view. But keep going. You may get a more favourable match up in future rounds and start clocking up big scores.

I didn't mean to imply that others are AGAINST me. especially in a paranoid manner. I just wanted to know how I am failint to earn more votes, I can arguably see how either of the two who beat me were qualitatively better, I just couldn't figure why the vote totals were of such a vast difference.
I agree the photography is lacking, newb here, trying to learn as I go. New to numerical cameras, I learned on film and chemical developing. I used to be a fair hand at photography, made A's in B&W and Color courses taken in Community College in 84. 
Hope to improve on the photography with my next entries. And I intend (as made obvious by last statement) to continue.

[Parriah]

well said!  Besides,all the GW Entries seem to have a hard Time too,they dont get that many Votes,regardless the Quality of Painting

I agree, and didn't mean to make it seem there was some enimical element there, just trying to understand the disparity in numbers of votes recieved. Thanx!

[Parriah]

Bwah, thats an old grief I see passing by every year tbh

* GW doesn`t do well, while Germans and Colonials do

Sure, it is of course the nature of the `average core` on the LAF, but I think in the end it balances out quite well.  I lost count how many times I got trashed by GW models over the years 

THANX tom! 

[Parriah]

My criteria are:
Quality of painting - well painted figures are what wins my vote
Quality of photo - a good photo sets off the entry and is a vote winner
Quality of base - yes, this is part of the figure
Quality of figure - less important but if you put lipstick on a pig.....its still a pig!
Quality of background - terrain that sets off the figures is better than a blank background

9 times out of 10 the above criteria makes the choice obvious - but when both entries are equal my bias settings apply.  These are:
15mm wins over larger scales and smaller scales win over larger scales.  This is a personal bias and reflects that it is more difficult to get a WOW! in 15mm.
Historical wins over Cthulhu, which wins over sci-fi, which wins over fantasy.
If both historical then WW2 wins over Napoleonic, which wins over ancient, which wins over mediaeval.
GW is a real turn off for me and generally gets a negative vote - although warhammer is better than 40,000K and Necromunda, Epic and Bloodbowl stray into the relms of acceptability.  Naked or near naked women women nearly always get a negative vote - although there was a excellently painted hareem entry in LPL5.  I also have an unjustifyable bias against weird stuff and choas.

So honest feedback:
Round 3: 1st Squad was simply not as well painted or photographed as Where's Indy
Round 2: Orctrader's Romanovs and Guard were gloriously well painted - game over! G-Squad would have suffered on the non-historical near-naked women criteria.
Round 1: Equal painting and photo etc.  Bias settings applied - so Bar,bar,bar... got my vote over Hey, Hey, its da Monk(eez)
 

Thanx, Paddy, great feedback 

[Parriah]

Well, even though I`m an average painter, crap photographer and slacker in scenery myself and approach the LPL with the olympic thought, I do have experience as a painting contest judge on the Crisis painting contest (one does not need to produce art to appreciate and recognise art me says  ), and I look at entries on the following criteria:

* I try, where possible, to look `past` the picture.  This means, again where able, to look at colours, techniques, etc without the benefit of the better lighting.  Of course, as one compared to a `normal` contest has to go with the picture in the first place, photograph quality is not the main factor for me.  Of course, if they are like mine mostly blurred, out of focus and whotnot`s, then this clearly ain`t possible.

* The setting.  Again, first of all I look at the core business, namely the 5+ blokes (critters, boats, cars, hemaphrodite butterfly`s,...) that make the entry and try not to spend to much attention to the things around them.  In case of near equality, the story told by the surroundings comes factoring in of course.

* Originality.  Yes, the 275th time you see models x or y pass by (and I`m not meaning repeat entries of the same painter) from range A or B it tends to get boring.  The LPL works disasters every year on my budget as it is a real treasure trove of what is out there.  I use this mostly as the `tie breaker` for my vote.

* Yes, like everyone I do have favorite scales and era`s.  This however I factor in mainly whe I just cannot decide, for example this round, as I stated in my comment, was the Blue in VT vs Silent Invader round.  I`m not telling who I voted for, and neither was in my `niche` of models and era`s I like.  So here it was a clash of styles for me (see the match up for the whotnot`s) BUT there where other rounds where I didn`t say uberly oooh or waaaw for one entry, and then my bias calculates in... which I think is only human.

I do admit, judging real life is different then online voting, as you can turn (carefully and not on the paintjob!!!) models around to look at them at different angels, and online your restricted to a 2D picture. 

My major comment, I saw it above here as well pass by, is that some models of yours look to have paint chipped of, OR your `flashing` to hard which make it look that way (Bar, bar bar suffered from this a lot).

Oh, and if anyone tries to win my vote to get my favorite scale and era, I`m an Anime otaku (and then I mean real Bandai style stuff, not Infinity  )

Thanx a lot and say hey to Spike Speagle and Jet for me next time you see them.

[Parriah]

I tend to evaluate based on (usually in roughly this order): painting, photography, presentation (scenery, background, story, etc) then subject matter.

Assuming those aren't clear deciding factors in a matchup, I'll proceed with some of the following unashamed personal biases:
Scenic backgrounds over plain.
Non-GW over GW.
Pulp/RCW/BoB/Interwar over nearly anything else. (and in about that order, if both entries fall into this category...)
Historicals over SF & F, although this is much laxer bias than others.
Naked wimmen aren't a deciding factor in and of themselves, although the opportunity they give to show off well-done flesh-tone painting does sway my vote. Any well-done flesh does, really. Skin is hard.
Any other random factor that enters my head, including but not limited to sobriety whilst voting, phase of the moon and how many hours of sleep I had the night before...

Sometimes it really does come down to a coin flip, but not usually more than once per round!

(the following are based largely on me thinking about how I'd voted after Captain Blood's post-LPL5 Thoughts on how to succeed in the LPL last year. They're inspired by but not identical to the good Captain's initial rules...)

Coolbeans! 

[Parriah]

For me The actual paint job is of course the most important.  That said I do have my prejudices.

28mm wins over smaller scales.
Historical wins over sci-fi or fantasy.

Those with a backround terrain or "story" beat those without.

If both historical then colonial, Back or Beyond,or WW1 are first choise.  Then ancient, or medieval.  WWII is next and lace wars last. 
GW of and in itself does not get a negative vote - although warhammer fantasy is better than 40K but I really don't like space marines. 

Good to know, thanx!
But being a Marine myself and a sci-fi buff, well,,

lets agree to disagree and get along with each other very well, I hope.

[Parriah]

My criteria for voting are:

Quality of figure painting
Quality of basing (the little details etc)
Quality of photo

I don't really care what type of figure the painter has chosen since I don't need to like the figure, just the way it's painted / based.
Also the background is not so important. When the judging is really tight, these secondary matters come into play.

Do you mean the background doesn't matter at all, or when the choice is the most difficult, then you try to ignore the setting and concentrate on only the figs?

Otherwise, great to hear from you too. 

[Parriah]

plus: like the prof does I prefer entries with scenery and solo-shot of the painted miniatures. (Photo-quality doesn't mean the quality of the skill in photoshop)

I understand, thank you very much! 

[D@rth J@ymZ]

Better lighting can have multiple benefits to your overall photo quality.  I would suggest using at least a couple of lights to reduce any shadows and do not use the flash on your camera.  As mentioned by a few others, setting the white balance correctly on your camera and using proper lighting will help to ensure that your image is in focus, well lit and that the colours are a true representation of your brushwork.

and practice, practice, practice! 
The biggest benefit of digital cameras is that you can take several photos, then make adjustments and retake.  My average LPL entry photo is a process of at least 30 pictures, adjusting angles, lighting, scenery and model arrangement so that I am able to get the effect I want to achieve.

[Dr Mathias]

It is better to under expose (darker) rather than over expose (brighter). On an over exposed digital image, the whites are blown out and you can never get those lost details back, while in an under exposed image there is usually still information there and adjusting levels can get you close to proper balance. A correct exposure is best of course- the less post production manipulation you have to do, the better.

Avoid using the camera's flash. If the lighting is so low that a slow shutter speed required, you may need to set the camera on a timer so that you keep things crisp. Like film, any shutter speed below 1/60 of a second can get motion blur from slight camera movement, and to be honest I find digital less forgiving than film in that respect.

[NurgleHH]

A good help with Phototechnics is looking for pages with "object Photography". There will you find a lot of useful hints. These pictures often should sell products and must be "perfect".
Here is an example of a good website: http://blog.dreamstime.com/2009/07/31/object-photography-basics_art30087