Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme Surely thats less diverity, not more? CGI was in the minority for entries last month.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I guess my bottom-line recommendations would have to be pretty much in line with what Axeman said. I always preferred the contest topics that were based on simple themes that left the specific subject matter and artistic medium open to wide interpretation. The main reason I haven't participated in more of these contests is because the chosen topics usually restrict my creative options too much to make it worthwhile. On the other hand, two of my all-time favorite monthly contests were fairly specific as to subject matter: The "Enterprise Movie Poster" and the "Make Your Own Book Cover" contests. Those two contests inspired some of the best finished artwork this forum has ever seen, in my opinion. I would love to see more of that kind of work. Very little of the stuff that gets posted here in Trek Art, for the monthly contest or otherwise, is the kind of thing I would want to frame and hang on my wall. I would really like to see more emphasis placed on composition and presentation, at least in the case of 2D and 3D artwork in image form. This would also be helpful in making sure submissions are suitable for use in the Trek Art Calendar.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme Of course, another possibility regarding the question of media might be permitting or encouraging more than a single contest or multiple categories within a contest. That does not address, I suppose, the discouragement of cheating.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I wholeheartedly agree with this. CGI and physical models are both great, but what separates them from art and makes them, in essence crafts is when they are left without artistic context. Composition helps elevate objects that lack inherent context, virtual or real, to the realm of art IMO. I'd like to see much more emphasis placed on composed images, whether they present real or virtual objects. Such an emphasis would also have the benefit of "leveling the playing field" between the CGI, 2D and physical modeling folks. This is important because it does seem to be true that the 2D folks get the short end of the stick.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme that depends on how you look at things. unrestricted media makes a single contest diverse, but all contests begin to look alike over time. i think that really interesting things happen when you cut away from the whole once in a while. not by my count (8/15), though its entirely possible that i'm mistaking some.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme For what it is worth, why don't we include the original rules set forth above (I cannot remember if it was T'Bonz , Vector or someone else who posted them, I apologize for my increasing memory loss) and add some of the others that have been posted, specifically that the person who sets the new challenge cannot participate in that challenge. Once we have the list compiled, our Eminent Moderator, P'Trope, can pin them to the top of the board as the standing rules for the monthly contests. IMHO, I do not see a problem with limiting the type of art to be used in that month's contest. I have found that some of the best art comes when the artist is pushed outside of his or her comfort zone. After all, this is a "challenge." It is meant to stretch and push our creative abilities. As for the concern about double voting, that is easily resolved by only allowing one vote per member (I still have not figured out how people voted for two entries, once I picked one it was automatically added to the tally and I was unable to vote again). Having said all this, I think it is important to point out that I am unable to participate in the contests due to time constraints relating to work (who would have thoughtthought a government worker actually "worked"?) and family commitments (married and father of two sons under the age of 10). Not to mention my complete lack of artistic ability! P'Trope[/p], thanks for letting us put our two cents and sorry that you haven't had complete compliance with the rules you set forth in your initial post.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I agree with accepting the original guidelines that Axeman set forth for use in future (January 2006 and forward) contests. Exempting the person who sets the challenge from participating is also a good common sense rule, now that you mention it. It would minimize somewhat one of the likely motivations for cheating (to assert control of the contest and thereby confer or deny advantage). Good observations.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I agree. And yay, thanks for liking my idea. You were able to check two of the boxes before pressing submit. For this reason, there isn't really a problem with double voting, because you can't check the same person's name twice. The problem arose when someone signed up with a dual account and voted again.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I do certainly prefer the idea of the challenge being presented as a theme. I found the October contest (cops and robbers) to be cool. I didn't join in back then, not because the topic didn't interest me (on the contrary, I found it sparked my imagination, like November's), but because it didn't actually cross my mind to join... That and I only spotted it once. After all those stickied avatar contests, my mind has developed a sort of blind spot for stickies... Except fo the ones where it says "FAQ" of course. I've been kicking myself in the rear since then for not noticing it sooner. I consider the Art forum challenges as akin to the avatar challenges, where the suggestions in the form of themes allows for a broad range of entries. Currently the theme for the General Sci-fi forum is "Cybernetics Gone Wild!", which is something we all could have fun with. From a ship perspective, you could create a bio-mechanical vessel or a ship trapped by a cybernetic organism which is merging with the ships exterior. You could even focus simply on cybernetic implants. That would be open to every medium. As a a 2D artist, I really don't mind being outstripped by 3D artists and modellers, especially since there is nothing to win (I might put up a stink if there was a brand new PC up for grabs...though probably not ). The main reason I did the contest was to give me some significant practical experience. For instance, before that contest, I had never really seriously considered using a gradient fill when shading. I know it sounds strange, but I hadn't, instead I focused more on cell shaded techniques. In fact, before the challenge, I used to find cg'ing my art to be a tiresome chore. 3D art I can't afford, nor do I think I'll personally enjoy it (I can't even stand using a mouse for artistic purposes). My stint with Warhammer all those years ago proved to me that I'm not all that interested in model making (I still have a half completed "Reliant"). This isn't because there's anything wrong with these mediums, it just isn't for me and I don't really find them an enjoyable exercise. Others of course do, which is one of the things what makes the challenges so fun, the diversity of the entries. That diversity alone may make people think about trying something different, in case they haven't tried it before. I don't know if that makes much sense, since it lacks cohesion. Basically, I'm saying that my personal preference is to keep the challenges theme based. It allows for people to enjoy doing what they want.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I understand the issue of not allowing the winner to participate in the next contest, but I'd hope we wouldn't have to come to that... it would be a poor reward to have to sit out a contest -- I always looked at it as your reward was to do something you always wanted to do. Did we think Ptrope picking Steam Trek was unfair just because he'd been thinking about it for a while and was a lot more familiar with the genre than most of us were? I think that a look back through the contests will reveal that we haven't had the contest-maker win an inordinate amount of time... ...as a moderate position, how about formalizing the old tradition of having the winner open a thread saying what they were thinking about and if everyone thinks it will work. This has been done several times, and is a great help if you didn't expect to win or can't think of anything. Several people have asked for suggestions and gotten ideas in return that made great contests. If this had been done this month we might have ironed out the details and avoided all the angst so far. :thumbsup:
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I see your point. The "reward", however, is still being able to set the theme of the contest and invite other people to participate in an idea that you think is cool. Artists will, after all, find time to do "what we always wanted to do" whether participating in the contest or not.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme My 2 cents: About winners sitting the next contest out: I don't think this should be the case, for the same reasons Klaus stated. Besides, someone picking the subject of the contest doesn't necessarily mean they'd win it. Maybe I haven't been here long enough, or often enough, but I don't recall anyone winning 2 in a row? (refresh my memory if I'm wrong, please ) About media limitations: I'm undecided. I like this month's challenge (even if my own entry would eventually be disqualified by whatever new rules we will or will not establish in this topic). Though, with this particular type of media the concern about people not being able to post theirs is real and valid, but I already addressed that issue in my entry thread and prefer not to go into it again. Yes, it is the previous month's winner's privilege to make the new rules, and therefore I guess to limit the media used for the new challenge. But then again, what would have happened if the rules would allow only 3D modeling? Is this also a valid requirement? And hypothetically speaking, since the 3D modelers are the dominant part of the board, what would the response be if the next challenge is exclusively 3D modeling... and the next one... and the next one...? As I said I like the current contest, but I fear opening the door for similar type of exclusion in the future could cause a lot of problems and divide the members... About image size requirements: is there an actual reason for the 1024 thing? I personally don't think it's necessary to set a minimum image size limit as long as the entry is meant for the contest and for the sake of art only and not for the calendar, or whatever, after that. In my opinion, as long as the entry is not an avatar (which belongs in a different contest), the image size is one of the things that shouldn't be regulated... but this is only my opinion. About splitting the entries in the final poll: I can see where this is coming from. I had entered other contests before, of fanart, fanfic, and other fanworks, and there were always separate categories so works would compete against similar works. This is fair - but as someone had stated before, this could divide the board members in the long run... moreover, if the final entries are separated to 2D, 3D, and physical works, this would also require categories for hand drawn outside the computer, hand drawn with computer enhancement, photomanipulation... and the list goes on. Bottom line, this would only complicate things... not to mention that a lot of works would be a combination of 2 or more categories. Besides, there aren't that many entries to divide anyway. Oh, and just for the record: I remember at least 3 contests here (3 in a row, actually) that were won by 2D art. November 2004, Ivymae's drawing of Koss, Trip & T'Pol December 2004, Kail's TAS/Simpsons crossover January 2005, FocusAbbey's new TAS poster (Though the TAS contest was sort of exclusively 2D by its context... also, I don't remember if the February winning entry by Adam Ihle was 2D or 3D, maybe it's 4 in a row.) But as I said in the beginning, just my 2 cents.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme Okay, after carefully perusing the more constructive elements of the discussion in this thread and related threads in other forums, I’ve put together a preliminary list of rules and guidelines that might be applied to the monthly Trek Art Contest. Most of these are merely clarifications of the unwritten rules that have been in place since the contest began. A few are crafted specifically to address some of the conflicts and disagreements that have arisen in the past and particularly over the last month or so. I’ve tried to incorporate as many peoples’ concerns and good ideas as I could. A few more represent my own take on what I think would work the best, such as the eligibility of Contest Leaders and the numbers of days allotted to each part of the monthly contest schedule. Hopefully this will provide something concrete for everyone to latch onto and hash out, helping restore the spirit of community and cooperation that Trek Art has always enjoyed. Keep in mind as you read through these that I am only offering them as a suggested baseline for further refinement and not trying to impose my own positions on anyone or imply that any of these points are targeted at anyone in particular. Entry Rules 1. At least part of every contest submission must have been created specifically for the contest. This does not preclude the use of pre-existing elements or elements that were originally created for other purposes as long as some significant part of the submitted composition is new. 2. All contest submissions must be the work of the entrant or entrants. The submission may contain public domain elements such as screen caps, as in the case of photomanipulations, as well as derivations of established designs like the Starship Enterprise, but the composition or other enhancements that were made for the contest must have been done by the person who actually submits the work and claims credit for it. 3. Multiple artists may collaborate on a single contest submission but all of them must be identified for voting purposes. 4. No individual may submit more than one contest entry, including entries on which they are only collaborating with someone else. In other words, you can’t submit an entry of your own and also help someone else with theirs. 5. It is the responsibility of each contestant to submit their final entries to the person designated to collect them, usually the Contest Leader, before the contest deadline. Simply running a WIP thread does not qualify you for automatic entry in the contest. If you have developed multiple representations of your entry over the contest period, you must choose one and only one to submit as final. Contestant Eligibility 1. Any registered member of TrekBBS is eligible to compete in the monthly Trek Art contest. 2. The current Contest Leader is allowed to participate. Some may argue that this leaves the topic selection wide open for people to “stack the deck” in their own favor as well as other abuses, but where’s the fun in getting to choose the contest topic and then having to sit it out? I know that most of the topics I would be likely to suggest are ones that I would not want to be forced to miss out on. Contest Schedule 1. The deadline for contest submissions is always 12:00 midnight GMT on the last day of the month. 2. Voting begins the following day and typically remains open for 48 hours. A winner is declared at the close of voting. This person is designated the Contest Leader for the coming month. 3. The new Contest Leader has until the seventh day of the month to post a topic for the next contest. Specific requirements are open to debate and modification until the tenth day of the month, at which point they become final for the remainder of the contest. Voting Thread Procedures 1. The task of collecting contest entries and posting the voting thread usually, but not always, falls to the current Contest Leader. If he or she lacks the time or resources to fulfill the task, it may be delegated to another willing participant. 2. A typical voting thread consists of a restatement of the contest theme and/or requirements and any special considerations the Contest Leader would like people to keep in mind as they vote, followed by thumbnail links to each of the entries for that month’s contest identified by contestant user names, and finally the poll itself. 3. At the Contest Leader’s discretion, people may be allowed to vote for more than one entry, but usually not more than two. The number of votes allowed should be prominently indicated at the head of the post. Voters are responsible for taking advantage of however many votes are allotted to them. 4. Once begun, polls shall be modified or restarted only under extreme circumstances, usually involving the poll having been structured incorrectly or other technical difficulties. No restarts will be allowed for contestants that were “left out” unless the Contest Leader can verify that it happened by mistake. Even then, interfering with a poll in-progress is to be avoided if at all possible. 5. Polls should be set up to begin at 12:00 midnight GMT at the close of the contest period and end 48 hours later. Voter Elligibility 1. Any registered member of TrekBBS is eligible to vote in the monthly contests. 2. Becoming a registered member solely to vote for someone you know is considered deeply underhanded and unfair, especially if you were solicited to do so by a contestant, but there is no practical way to prevent this. Contestants and voters alike are expected to be on their honor in such matters as befits responsible and fair-minded adults. 3. Obviously, registering a dual user name in order to vote for the same entry more than once is strictly prohibited, not to mention a bannable offense. Topic Selection Guidelines 1. Don’t be exclusive. Some contest topics will inherently lend themselves to certain artistic mediums more than others, but no artistic medium should be explicitly prohibited without a very good and justifiable reason. 2. Leave room for individual expression. If you make your topic too specific or place too many restrictions and requirements on its content, you will discourage a lot of people from entering. Simple themes like “A Startling Discovery” or “The Brink of Disaster” often work best. 3. If you’re stuck for ideas, throw your contest thread open to suggestions and be willing to listen to them. 4. If enough people take issue with some restriction or requirement you want to apply to your contest topic, it might be worth reconsidering. Don’t try to force it down people’s throats, especially if your main justification is that “there’s no rule that says I can’t.” Remember that the main objective here is for everyone to have fun and be as creative as possible. Contestant Guidelines 1. Once you decide to participate in the monthly contest, you should start a WIP thread so people can follow the progress of your entry. A lot of the fun of these contests is getting to watch what the artists are working on as it comes together. 2. Try to factor artistic composition and presentation into your final entry. Not that there’s anything wrong with a pure design or concept, but finished and fully realized compositions are all too rare in the Trek Art forum and the monthly contest is a perfect place to showcase them. It would also go a long way toward helping the 2D and traditional artists compete with the CGI guys. That’s it. Probably not an exhaustive list but fairly comprehensive, I think. For the most part, none of these should alter the way the contests are conducted or add unnecessary complications to the process. What they would do, I would hope, is plug some of the loopholes and prevent people from trying to take advantage of things that weren’t previously spelled out. Feel free to suggest any changes or refinements you think are appropriate, or add anything you think I've missed.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme Vektor, thanks for compiling and outlining this rather comprehensive set of guidelines. See, folks, this is what it's all about: the challenges are by and for the members of the board - they're not just something that belongs to the TrekBBS staff - and when the board members work together and discuss things, this is exactly what can happen. Of course, not everyone is going to agree with every detail, but this is a damn good starting place :thumbsup:. Let's see more constructive activity like this, so people can reach a consensus and we can move forward again . ------ EDIT: Okay, after some more reading, I'd remind people that we have a pinned thread for challenge suggestions, which can be added to by anyone and used by any challenge winner if he or she is at a loss for a challenge. Take advantage of it! Many of us are so deeply involved in our own ideas and work that we may not always instantly have an idea that we think a large number of folks would enjoy participating in. I like the timeframe for modifying the challenges. This is nothing new around here; we've had a handful of challenges that were modified and refined after input from potential entrants. No one should take offense at such things; it encourages more people to participate, as long as it isn't abused by people who simply want to 'fix' every contest to fit their own skill set. Final entries: this one is important! It's not easy for the contest runner to find every single thread; each person considering an entry should stick to a standardized format for their thread title so it can be located easily, but they should also be proactive in getting their entry submitted to the contest runner. The contest runner should also contact each entrant to verify that the entry has been received in good order. I'm still not on the bandwagon with making a broad concept or theme a requirement. It does often lead to a great variety of entries, but I don't believe that a contest runner should feel forced by the rules to not offer a specific challenge (like the aforementioned book cover and movie poster). I'm one of those who feels that the challenge should at least sometimes be intended to knock the dust off of our creativity and imagination, by giving us a focus; it may be limiting for some folks, but I think that oftentimes those limits really spur creativity - it's problem-solving, nothing less. I think both approaches are valid and should be available, and that the members should understand and accept that not every challenge is going to be tailor-made for their existing abilities. It's kind of like a design studio in that, where an art director has specific requirements into which the art must fit in order to be used. I don't think the runner should feel that he or she has to justify a choice of challenge; it's up to the members to decide if they want to participate, and besides the allowed clarification, there shouldn't be a revolt just because people find that this month their chosen medium isn't necessarily the best one for the task. More if and as I think of it ...
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I agree with all those guidelines, and I'd just like to add that I think one of the most important issues raised in this thread is that of composition. Probably because I actually came out of a 2D background into using 3D, I've always done shots of my models in context rather than just floating in grey or black limbo, in the development process as well as a final "beauty shot" for the entry or the end of the project... I find it helps with the designing to know what it's going to look like in different settings as you go along.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme Ok, my two cents (We must be up to about fifty cents by now), I think the contest winner should be able to pick whatever medium he wants for his contest. That's his prize! He gets to set the rules. If you can't participate in a contest because you only do one type of art, then there is always next month. Next, I do not believe a WIP thread should be a requirement. Many people would prefer that their entry be a surprise, and I can appreciate that. I don't see why your entry MUST be created specificly for the contest. If you have a piece of art already that fits the theme, then you should be able to use it. T'poptarts won with an entry she freely admitted she'd already had around, and no one seemed to have a problem with that. I know I didn't feel cheated in the least. Also, the contest winner should be able to enter his own contest.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme But we won't be able to vote on the ornaments themselves. We'll only be able to vote on pictures of ornaments. Which makes it kind of trivial whether the picture originated as a real thing or as a picture. So in a sense, the rules of this contest are dictating the process that people will use to get the end result - a picture. That really makes no more sense than someone dictating that, say, everyone use crayons to make their picture. Not that I object to inherently nonsensical contest rules. It's all up to the monthly contest runner to decide. This would be difficult to implement unless the contest topics were unusual and specific each month, eg, that "do a Trek image in the style of a famous artist" idea that someone suggested. It's not very likely that anyone would have that in their portfolio already. I don't mean to be rude, but when I decide to work on something, I generally just spend the month pursuing my own idea. My experience is that I rarely if ever use anyone else's input simply because if I have a clear idea about what I want to do, then I just do it. And if I don't have a clear idea, I probably won't be motivated to finish it, so I don't bother - or wait till ideas percolate around enough that I see what it was that I wanted to do. If you're concerned that I'm cheating by not doing original art, I can save iterations of my art and then post all of it in a separate thread when I post my final art. You should address this at the people doing the voting, not the people entering the contest. If people manage to win contest thru images that are not "finished and fully realized," then by the standards of this forum, those ARE the best images. Maybe people don't care about something being art but just vote for whatever looks like the coolest spaceship. I just don't see how this rule is something you can implement. Frankly I'm not sure I follow that rule when I vote. A lot of times I'll vote for something because it's unique - if there are a lot of CGI ships, I'll gravitate towards the one image that's a cartoony image of people - and also, I really like it when someone employs humor. Those aren't strictly speaking the "right" thing to look for, either.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I wasn't trying to suggest that contest topics shouldn't be specific, I just don't think they should be overly specific to the point where there's no opportunity for uniqueness and innovation. For example, one of the pre-Axeman art challenges I ran was to design a non-military Trek vehicle, which is certainly far more specific than a two or three word theme. Furthermore, I specifically excluded the usual variety of huge, heavily armed starships because it seemed like that was all anybody was willing to produce at the time. What I did not try to do was tell people what artistic medium they could use, what race the vehicle could belong to, what size or class it had to be, how to present it in a composition or anything else like that. Obviously there is a difference between creatively confining people and providing them with a constructive focus. I was merely suggesting that people try to avoid the confinement part first and foremost.
Re: A Challenge For Everyone - Please Read & Comme I'm against requiring contests to have an extremely broad theme like "What the f*ck?" or "Deep doo doo." Even if a contest has narrowly defined parameters, there are enough artists here with different styles and media that we'll get some interesting solutions to each "problem." Restrictions can actually be a boon to creativity. As mentioned before, some of our narrowly defined contests were the best. I'm also against requiring WIP threads. Some people like to show off their work from the first polygon or line, for the sake of encouragement, feedback, camaraderie, ego-stroking, or whatever. Other people use them to stake a claim on an idea. That's fine. However, a lot of other people, including me, like working privately without public feedback and show nothing except the final result. I'm not sure what the purpose of a WIP requirement would be other than to prove that you simply didn't swipe the picture off the web and add a little something so that you could claim "authorship." But if that's the only purpose, then the rule's not needed. Of course, some people are so desperate to win that they would cheat, but they're morons.