CMON Mass Effect
Number one in a long list of observations that I find interesting. Sometimes I’ll put a name to such observations such as this one I call the CMON Mass Effect.
I’m sure there’s away to mathematically project this and it may be interesting someday to work out all the angles but for now I’ll just try to sum this up quickly.
CMON Mass Effect: The condition resulting in posting models in groups will increase the overall average score of any one individual model in said group.
This can be observed by listing a single mini, of average workmanship. The score should average out around 5-6 on the CMON scale. Now take 5-10 of same average ranked models and post them as a group and the score will go up, maybe not exponentially, but it will go up. From what I’ve seen, group postings will usually ranks nearly a full point higher.
The funny thing about the CMON Mass Effect is that it works nearly the opposite for high ranked work. Post a mini that would routinely hit 9’s. Post a group shot of 5-10 models that rank 9’s (not anything of mine, of course ) and you’ll see the average will decrease overall.
I think part of it has to do with level of detail that’s visible in a given photograph. I notice that many photos that utilize the full 600px width for posting on a single model tends to show too much detail. Blending issues, color banding, mold lines. etc. If you want to see where you need technical improvement, take very close photo of your mini and look at it objectively. If you were to re-shoot that same model from a bit farther away and reduced the width of the image you would find that some of these issues tend to soften up and not be so noticeable.
This is one reason why the CMON Mass Effect seems to work. The more models in a photo, the less detail can be seen. For an average model, this is a plus. It works opposite for exquisitely painted and highly skilled pieces. You tend to lose sight of these exceptional details when posting multiple models in a single photo.
Someday I’ll try to come up with a scale/ratio on how good you think your model(s) is(are) to how large the actual picture should be here on CMON to optimize your score.
Again, just an observation.
