How do you rate the judging at the shows?

[Einion]

Originally posted by JohnLea+Aug 19 2006, 01:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (JohnLea @ Aug 19 2006, 01:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>IMO, judging must not only be beyond reproach, it should have the appearance of being beyond reproach. [/b]

That is the ideal.

Originally posted by Paul Kernan@Aug 19 2006, 11:51 PM
Being human, it is nice to have your work recognised for its worth and in the beginning medals were important as that measure of recognisition. Nowadays, having met a lot of great painters and made good friends with a number of them, it is the show that is the entire package or experience. I do not travel for hours on end, drop a lot of hard earned cash and damage my liver for the sake of a piece of metal.

Aye, the right attitude no question in my book.

Gong-hunters tend to be exactly the kind that take bad (and "bad") judging decisions too hard; I know it was true of me when I was overly concerned with medals and I've seen exactly the same attitude a couple of times over the years. Luckily this tends to recede with maturity To be fair a genuinely dodgy decision that leaves most attendees scratching their heads and saying, "what the...?" is a legitimate source of frustration and anger, but too often we're not our own harshest critics as we're supposed to be!

Originally posted by Paul Kernan@Aug 19 2006, 11:51 PM
With this in mind, I believe that most judges do the job with the very best intent. Whether the individual is fully qualified and knowledgeable is another topic.

That's the issue really, judge fallibility. There's no way around this as even a strong judging team has weaknesses and we're all human after all; but another problem is that politeness often prevents judges from speaking ill about other judges, even in private, and I've heard comments from serving judges at local and international level which I think should disqualify them from being judges (the classic being "I don't like it"). I've also seen circumstances lead to situations that should never occur: judges helping out in a class they are entered in... call me crazy but you should recuse yourself; it shouldn't even need to be pointed out by someone else that you shouldn't be around, much less actively helping in the decisions.

Originally posted by Paul Kernan@Aug 19 2006, 11:51 PM
On the other hand, I have also seen mediocre (again IMHO) pieces by 'masters' that have won gold. Are judges embarrassed to award a bronze/silver to a consistent gold winner?

Something like that, yes, I think so. What happens is no different to judging in other arenas; in dog shows it's called judging the wrong end of the leash, so for us I suppose it could be called judging the wrong end of the brush. I've seen it dozens of times in modelling and expect to continue to see it, although how widespread or blatant it is will vary greatly from place to place. There isn't a single show I've attended in the last decade where I don't think this has happened.

Originally posted by Paul Kernan@Aug 19 2006, 11:51 PM
The entries that do drive me crazy are the 'in progress' pieces. They are interesting to look at but to have these incomplete pieces in competition is ridiculous. Have them exhibit but not compete.

Agreed.


<!--QuoteBegin-pkess@Aug 23 2006, 09:41 PM
We actually tried an exhibition with no competition several years ago in Williamsburg, VA. A really great area for a show. The problem is no one wanted to attend a show without a competition. [/quote]
Good to know. On the subject of competition, the great thing about the Open System is that it's not really a competition, but more a show with the potential to be awarded for the best of what you're capable of.

It's automatically better, IMO, than any gold/silver/bronze/commended-type show simply because it awards excellence uniformly (in theory) without so much of this type of problem: small differences in standard meaning the difference between bronze and nothing; two entries that are clearly excellent, with practically nothing to choose between them in quality, but one gets the gold because more judges like blue than red, or something like that!

Einion

 

[Stonerdog]

Hi All,

I find the judging to be good at the shows I attend (about three per season). It is interesting to read pkess' post about exhibitions not being popular. The NNL format used in car modeling is one of most popular exhibitions, with east coast and west coast NNL's being hugely attended and enjoyed.
To compete you must have thick skin and be able to accept and respect the judges decisions regarding your work.
Thanks for a great site here.
Best Regards,
John "Stonerdog" Stonaker

 

[darkeye]

my only comment to this great post is;

jugdes should not be competitors.

noticed at several English shows that this is a norm. i have not entered Euro-militaire yet but when i attended for the first time in '03; it was obvious that some nepotism was evident. other shows like Golden-demon are like Gray points out, all about marketing and £££$$$$$ and are there fore in my opinion a right 'fix'
i'm with the 'not really competing' attitude now that i am older. i will if time permits finally enter Euro06! but more to take part and have a mooch around and get inspired.

all the best mate== timo

 

[PeteC]

What I find amusing is that so many folks will say the judging or the competition is not important. What is important is meeting people, making friends, blah, blah, blah; yet the quality of judging is still an amazingly popular topic of discussion. Hmmm......

 

[Stonerdog]

Pete; et all,

The human animal is naturally competitive...yes it's great to see your friends, etc...etc. In the end it's hard to deny that you would not be bummed if the piece you enterd did not garner some recognition.

See your at the Long Island show if you're going.

J.Stonaker

 

[frank h]

Hi
I voted good got to maintain some level of confidence
in judging decisions

Though not naive enough, not to realize sometimes unbelievable
errors of judgement are made

Frank

 

[Masterclub UK]

Judging is a very difficult thing. Different shows do things differently and tend to develop their own styles. In England for many years people have said that models that win at Euro do not place at Scale ModelWorld and vice versa.

The biggest Problem IMO is getting people to Judge in the first place and obviously the judges have their own likes and dislikes which painters get to know and then paint to please the judges. If you have a way of incresing the number of available judges I would love to hear it.

I ran a major competion for a few years and in one year swapped all the judges from their normal categories to others. That year I was nearly lynched by a mob of pot hunters as they didnt win when they expected too and seemed to think I had broken the rules! Its amazing what a small change can do.

IMO not judge or organiser should have models of their own entered into a competion they are invoved with. I also think competions should allow a public ote with the general public voting for their favorite figure/model in each category.

Richard

 

[Anders Heintz]

As someone who has judged at every major show in the US as well as Euromilitaire I voted Excellent. Obviously this may seem as a bias but it is my honest opinion,not necessarily about my own judging, but the overall judging as a whole.

My comments are based soley on the Open System, not on the IPMS 1st, 2nd, 3rd type of judging systems.

I have seen and heard a lot of comments about "if this judge doesnt like this type of figure" they will immediately not award the piece properly. I have never seen this happen in the 5 or so years I have been judging at various shows. What people misunderstand is that we are not judging based on what we like, we are judging the technical aspects of a miniature. How clean is the paint job, how is the anatomy, how's the over all appearance of the piece etc etc etc.

I have judged a lot of pieces that I absolutely loved, but they still earned a bronze based on the execution of the piece. And frankly, I think that "the judge doesnt like Napoleonics" type of statements are just an excuse for poor performace. If the piece is worth a gold it will more then likely get a gold.

The open system is a great tool if used as intended, it gives each person judged a panel of judges opinion on where they are at that point in time, from a techincal/compositional skill level point of view.

We have all seen the occasional head scratcher result at a show, but this is by far not the norm.