Did you EVER 100% disagree with a Best of Show model....??

 Absolutely. In '06 I lost best of show in a coin toss(true story, they couldn't decide....so I'm told) anyway, I'm not upset about not getting best of show. But I totally disagreed with that title going to a car. A CAR??? Are you kidding me? 1 piece body, some paint and decals, and maybe 40-50 parts. I had academys 1/32 F-18D, which has somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 trillion pieces, seams to clean up, painted markings. I believe that there was a few others that were better than mine, so I'd have still disagreed.

 The last contest I went to, put on by the same group, had a car win best of show. There was nothing special whatsoever about this car. One guy had scratchbuilt a couple pieces of heavy equipment that were amazing.......nothing, some stupid car takes it. No offence to any of the car guys here, but the only time a car model should be able to take best of show is at a cars only show, or if everything else is just gawd awful.

The only time something like this happened was a couple years ago. There was a 1/35 Dora entered in the Armor/Artillery class. I was one of the judges. It didn't place in  its class. I don't even think this event has an honorable mention. Anyway, each judge was given a ballot and when tallied the Dora had the most votes. Now remember, there were car guys and airplane guys and ship guys casting ballots. The Dora was BIG and took "Judges' Favorite." People  were quite stunned and the explanation after the fact, despite what it looked like, this wasn't a "Best of Show," just a judges' favorite. I don't think it was unfair, just poorly managed.

There have been several very large dios by a local builder whose individual elements have been superb, great figures, often modified to meet the story, near perfect armor, very well done scenery. However, the stories, IMHO, are his downfall. They just tend to fall apart. People appear to be walking out of walls, a PaK 40 being loaded but aimed at a girder 10 scale feet in front of it, a tank falling off a road into what is supposed to be a cellar but had exterior walls on all four sides. Despite this, he has taken a number of BoS awards.

As to cars, a perenial Nats winner with scratchbuilt 1/16 armor lost out to a car a few years ago. He agreed completely with the decision, knowing where there were weaknesses in his LAV. At a regional two years ago, a collection I entered of Woodland Indians was in running for BoS against a Toyota GTP type car with full detailing. I absolutely agree it should have taken first over my collection based on the quality and amount of work the builder put into it.

Of course. Especially if a local club member takes BOS against a better built kit. Which has happened at several contests I have attended, and when announced, the sponsors didn't even try to hide it; "And BOS goes to our very own *name with held*! Way to go *name with held*!"
More than a few heads were shaking at that.

Fermis brings up an interesting point. How much does the complexity of the kit and/or the degree of difficulty building/scratchbuilding influence the judging? I've only attended a couple of shows and didn't know any of the judges so I have no information on the criteria. I can only relate it to photography competitions/shows where I've seen many upset that their images weren't judged higher because of how difficult it was to get the shot in the first place or (in the old days) how hard it was to print the image. The answer of course was that, unless you are going to stand there constantly explaining how difficult it was, the impact of the finished piece was all that mattered. It's very subjective in that case and the car model may just have had more influence from a purely aesthetic POV. Having said that I would hope that the difficulty of the build and how well it was executed would be present in the judges minds.

Rudi35 wrote:

Fermis brings up an interesting point. How much does the complexity of the kit and/or the degree of difficulty building/scratchbuilding influence the judging? I've only attended a couple of shows and didn't know any of the judges so I have no information on the criteria. I can only relate it to photography competitions/shows where I've seen many upset that their images weren't judged higher because of how difficult it was to get the shot in the first place or (in the old days) how hard it was to print the image. The answer of course was that, unless you are going to stand there constantly explaining how difficult it was, the impact of the finished piece was all that mattered. It's very subjective in that case and the car model may just have had more influence from a purely aesthetic POV. Having said that I would hope that the difficulty of the build and how well it was executed would be present in the judges minds.

Judging, wheterh IPMS or AMPS, is basics first. Paint application, (correct sheen, too thick, orange peel) alignment, (everything is in line as it should be, ordnance on a/c aren't canted againt the air flow) seams/sinkmarks, (filled properly and accurately) decalling, (correct placement, blending in, no silvering)  glue marks, finger prints, etc. More models fail to make the first cut based on this than anything else. In many cases, a whole class can come up with models with major basic errors. The judges nust then struggle (in traditional contests) to find which three have the least problematic presentations. Realistically, degree of difficulty and accurizing rarely play into the equation. You can spend $500 on aftermarket doodads for a $10 kit and still fail to make the grade if you miss the basics. It's not at all uncommon for an OOB kit to take even first place.

If you've done a lot of work on a kit, you should give the judges and spectators, some documentation on what you've done. No one knows every kit on the market, now and in the past. The same goes for unusual markings, extreme weathering or vastly different sub-types.

Esthetics: I don't recall ever saying this model is more esthetically pleasing than the next unless it's a diorama or collection where presentation IS part of the criteria. (One contest did include this as part of its general rules, but that is quite rare.)

Thanks for the information on judging. It sounds like the criteria are fairly widespread and a good job is still required no matter what the subject or kit.

What about things like weathering? If there are two similar models of the same general quality and one is nicely weathered, do you think that might influence the judging? I'm still going after the aesthetics angle to the story :)

Rudi35 wrote:

Thanks for the information on judging. It sounds like the criteria are fairly widespread and a good job is still required no matter what the subject or kit. What about things like weathering? If there are two similar models of the same general quality and one is nicely weathered, do you think that might influence the judging? I'm still going after the aesthetics angle to the story :)

If by some bizarre fluke of nature and chance, alignment of the planets, third blue moon of the month, and pigs take flight on the backs of monkeys,  there were two otherwise absolutely equal models and one had excellent, consistent, believable weathering, that would likely come out ahead of the pristine kit. Truth is, as you may have guessed, in my experience, that's exceptionally unlikely. A couple years ago at our show, it took the judges 45 minutes to determine which of two super armor kits should take first. More ofen, time is spent on determining who has the fewest faults and should get a pity third because it has to be given out. Sometimes, that extends all through a class.

This, of course, is based on the IPMS style of 1-2-3. In AMPS open judging, this is not an issues since as many gold medals are awarded as there are gold medal level models. Since each model is scored individually, this is never a problem.

PaintsWithBrush wrote:

For full disclosure, I have never been involved with any contests. Having said that, I can not imagine an entry having any sort of visible "glitch" receiving an award, much less a "Best of Show" honor. Any time I've looked at pictures posted from various contests, ALL the work is so "Top Shelf", I can see why judges have to be such "nit pickers". I can see where an AMPS/IMPS event comes down to subjective viewpoints or even a coin toss. I have no doubt that any builder with the confidence to enter such an event in the first place believes they should take the top spot, though the judges may not agree on that day with that particular entry. As far as "playing favorites", aren't all entries anonymous, i.e. no name on the descriptor card?

 This particular show, all three times I've been, BOS went to ......."our very own __________". I don't think club members have any anonymaty at these things. 2 of them were to the same guy, but all three were cars. They were very impressive, But my belief is, there was better candidates on the tables, even much better than mine. Oh well, I got to see some great builds, learn a thing or two, and best of all, some great deals at the vendor tables. That's what it's all about for me.

ajlafleche wrote:

Rudi35 wrote: Thanks for the information on judging. It sounds like the criteria are fairly widespread and a good job is still required no matter what the subject or kit. What about things like weathering? If there are two similar models of the same general quality and one is nicely weathered, do you think that might influence the judging? I'm still going after the aesthetics angle to the story :) If by some bizarre fluke of nature and chance, alignment of the planets, third blue moon of the month, and pigs take flight on the backs of monkeys,  there were two otherwise absolutely equal models and one had excellent, consistent, believable weathering, that would likely come out ahead of the pristine kit. Truth is, as you may have guessed, in my experience, that's exceptionally unlikely. A couple years ago at our show, it took the judges 45 minutes to determine which of two super armor kits should take first. More ofen, time is spent on determining who has the fewest faults and should get a pity third because it has to be given out. Sometimes, that extends all through a class. This, of course, is based on the IPMS style of 1-2-3. In AMPS open judging, this is not an issues since as many gold medals are awarded as there are gold medal level models. Since each model is scored individually, this is never a problem.

That's why I was careful to use the words 'similar' and 'general'  Naturally 'absolutely equal' would be rare, but you got my drift.

Absolutely--and not necessarily just with the "BoS" winners.

I've been to shows where there was undeniable bias in the judging, where I never went back again. ANd no, I don't mean only that mine didn't win when I thought it should. I mean that models that were purely blase' won over some spectacular models. And everybody in the place is shaking their head saying "huh?!"

The thing that really gets me is when a model or dio wins just because it's so BIG--it's like the judges seemed to think that because it was big, and involved a lt of work, that it deserved some recognition. But I've seen small dios that blew away dio's four times their size. That happened recently at one show I went to.

I actually had a judge tell me how important it was to fill out the part of your entry where it says what modifications and details you added, because "we don't know what the kit has or doesn't have! We don't know what should be there or not!"

Reassuring, huh?

the doog wrote:

I actually had a judge tell me how important it was to fill out the part of your entry where it says what modifications and details you added, because "we don't know what the kit has or doesn't have! We don't know what should be there or not!" Reassuring, huh?

I'm with Smeagol on this, Karl.

There are thousands of kits out there now and many more OOP, and some OOP for many years. The system asks three guys (usually) to pass judgment on a bunch of kits on a table. Some of those came with lots of detail, some with none. Some have scratchbuilt details and conversions; some are presented with a ton of aftermarket detailing. No 1, or 3, individuals can possibly know what each box contained and, if done right, should not be able to tell scratchbuilt from aftermarket from in the box detailing.

The fact that stuff was added isn't (shouldn't) be the determinant for the first cut. But based on how well it was added, in a tie breaker situation, between two models equal in basic skills, I am more likely to go with the well done scratch effort, then the well blended commercial detailing then OOB.

As far as clubs that promote home cooking and other irregularities/improprieties, their contests won't last long. Entrants do not return if they perceive this kind of behavior. In the Dora example above, the IPMS regional coordinator was there that day and swore he would never return to that show.  He did not have the authority to ban the show, but he had the ability to not give it his personal support.

As to "one of our own" taking BoS, two factors are at work here.

First, involvement in a club is the best way to improve your skills and increase your chances of getting awards. An online community like this is fine, but with the number of attaboy posts that show up, there are few opportunities for real critique/mentoring.

Second, using my club as an example, since I have access to the registration data, the two largest groups are members of my club and unaffiliated modelers. I/m guessing that holds true in most events, a lot of folks don't like to travel far so there's a greater concentration of entrants from the area. Therefore, there may be a greater likely hood of a local taking BoS. That said, in crunching out numbers, there was an almost perfect correlation between the numbers of entrants from a club/unaffiliated and the percentage of awards that set got. i.e., if our club had about 20% of the entries, about 20% of the awards went to club members. If unaffiliated had about 25% of the entries, about 25% of the awards went to unaffiliated modelers. The effect was an almost perfect random distribution model.

Further, the pool of modelers is relatively small and the pool of likely winners (those with the skills to produce winning models consistently) is smaller still. Those people are likely to travel greater distances to a show and become known among others who attend shows. So at our show, I know quite a few people from outside my immediate area and from other clubs. A personal greeting when I'm handing out an award may appear to an outsider as me greeting a club member, when in fact, the person may be unaffiliated and from another state entirely.

Since ‘home court advantage' seems to be prevalent in many people's minds I would expect that judges would also be wary of appearing to be biased towards their buddies and perhaps even go in the opposite direction and judge their homeboys more harshly - subconsciously that is. I think it's probably rare that a judge purposely alters his opinion to favour one person over another.

Personally I've never cared for competitions in clubs of any sort since there will always be people who get their nose out of joint (sour grapes) and it can breed bad feelings and make people vow to ‘never return again'.  This hobby is supposed to be for enjoyment.

Rudi35 wrote:

Personally I've never cared for competitions in clubs of any sort since there will always be people who get their nose out of joint (sour grapes) and it can breed bad feelings and make people vow to ‘never return again'.  This hobby is supposed to be for enjoyment.

Those out of jointers really should be staying in their closets anyway. If they show their stuff and get critiqued at a club, they're going to get out of joint. If they post online and are told there are problems, they'll get argumentative and say,  "It could have happened! Anything is possible."  If they don't win at a competition, it's not because they need to improve, but because they judges weren't fair, don't know their stuff, blah, blah, woof, woof.

If they stay home from shows, all the better. The overall camaraderie is upset by these whiners.

I've entered in a few contests, and I've even received 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.  But to be honest I just like putting my stuff out there on the table for people to enjoy...just as I enjoy seeing their subjects.

Now I'd be lying if I said that I didn't care at all about placing but at the end of the day nothing changes if I do or if I do not get an award.  Just about all of my other awards are burried in a box in my closet.

In the last contest that I entered the Judges Best of Show was a car and the Spectators Best of Show was a sunken sub diorama.  They were both amazing, don't get me wrong, but frankly the sub blew the car away.  We were all scratching our heads on that one.

Rudi35 wrote:

Personally I've never cared for competitions in clubs of any sort since there will always be people who get their nose out of joint (sour grapes) and it can breed bad feelings and make people vow to ‘never return again'.  This hobby is supposed to be for enjoyment.

I've never begrudged a winner the recognition, and lord knows, I have enough trophies, but there is, I suppose, a sense that truly the best model should win. I honestly feel bad for the guys who lose, who obviously deserve to have been recognized as having achieved a level worthy of reward.

At least the comments here confirm that this seems to happen all over the place. Chalk it up to human nature?

the doog wrote:

At least the comments here confirm that this seems to happen all over the place. Chalk it up to human nature?

Or the fact that judges are looking at things a whole lot more closely than other entrants do, especially when there is a close competition. As a spectator, you may not see the canted tracks at the back of the tank because the owner has placed the back away from the viewer. You may not look down into an open hatch and see bare plastic. Again. in traditional 1-2-3 competitions, where awards are strictly limited, these are the things judges have to look at.

Also, add "Stuff happens." A few years ago, I was judging an armor class. All of us inadvertantly overlooked an M8 Motor carriage, the Stuart based SP howitzer. It was a very well built example and probably shoud have been in contention, but we missed it. the builder was a friend of at least a couple of us on the team, so ot's not like we intended to ignore him. Other "stuff happens" includes the team listing the winners in reverse order. Most judging sheets go Honarable mention, OOB, 3,2,1 in descending order on the page to make it easier for the person reading the results. If the judge assigned as scribe gets the order wrong, a very good "1st" could wind up in third to a significantly less worthy "3rd."

the doog wrote:

Rudi35 wrote: Personally I've never cared for competitions in clubs of any sort since there will always be people who get their nose out of joint (sour grapes) and it can breed bad feelings and make people vow to ‘never return again'.  This hobby is supposed to be for enjoyment. As far as "never returning again", we've all been to contests where one model has seemingly inexplicably beate one of obviously superior quality. But when two, three, even four categories fall to obviously-inferior models, there's no sense going back if the expectation of reward and recognition for a job well-done is so inexplicably decided. I've never begrudged a winner the recognition, and lord knows, I have enough trophies, but there is, I suppose, a sense that truly the best model should win. I honestly feel bad for the guys who lose, who obviously deserve to have been recognized as having achieved a level worthy of reward. At least the comments here confirm that this seems to happen all over the place. Chalk it up to human nature?

 I've only ever been to a couple of IPMS meetings in Vancouver so please excuse my general ignorance of the competitions. To me there was more to the meeting than who won what. I enjoyed seeing all of the models, the vendor area and especially talking to other people. I guess if I was vying for a trophy I might think differently but this kind of proves my point that the competition aspect seems to have a negative affect on what should be a positive event. Judging is always going to have a certain amount of subjectivity, so there will always be those who disagree with the choices.

smeagol the vile wrote:

I recalled something.  I have only been to one contest (IRL that is) it was the mosquitocon I went to with medic (and ran into wingnut) but what I forgot that I just remembered was that we couldnt see the entrants names, so unless the judge knew the person on a friedly basis enough to recognise his model on sight there couldnt be any bias

Without a name on the card it would be hard to tell whose model was whom's, unless the model has been entered in many a contest and or taken to meetings for show and tells or look at what I am doing. What ever the case, my opinion remains; it looks bad for the BoS to be from the local club and announced as such, "Hey lookee here Bob won again! Way to go Bob!"

 the doog wrote:I've been to shows where there was undeniable bias in the judging, where I never went back again. ANd no, I don't mean only that mine didn't win when I thought it should. I mean that models that were purely blase' won over some spectacular models. And everybody in the place is shaking their head saying "huh?!"

 doc wrote:Several of us went out of town to a contest last Spring and the same thing happened to us. After the photos were published on the net I checked the winning entries and over 90% of them had local address'. There is and was and always will be judges siding with models of someone they know. It's just a sad fact of life. No matter how good your build was the one that does'nt even deserve to place, will win 1st or 2nd of category. This is not to say all judges are that way, but some people have no conscience or scruples.

  Ok, off the soap box.                                                      doc

 Soap box 

 Don't think that really fits here. I read statements from observations.