Discussion Art/Comics/Multi-media Contests for 2016? discuss here

[Scalenex]

I decided that this year I would not allow drawings in our short story contest. If popular clamor says this is a bad idea I'll retract the world.

I do like drawings and the like. I just don't think short stories should have to compete with them directly.

My thoughts are this so far.

-The timing of our art contests should fall so that there is minimal overlap for entry working time for our short story contests, and where feasible, minimal overlap with painting contest time.

-I think a visual media contest should generally have a longer window than one month to create the entry. This will allow people relatively new at this such as perhaps Scalenex who was continually thwarted by bad scans delaying him releasing his Spawning of Bob parody comics in 2015 like he wanted to.

-A meme or editing contest could have a shorter window.

-There should probably be a cap on one per entry because our more experienced artists can probably churn out stuff much faster than the rest of us.

-There is relatively little point to make a contest anonymous since art styles are generally more distinctive than writing styles.

But I need input from our more active artists.

Should contest themes involve an artistic media: Single pane comics, comics in general, graphic stories, illustrated stories, drawings, etc?

Should contest themes instead involve a story theme: Man Versus Nature, Spirit of Horror (aka our short story categories or similar)?

Should contest themes be based on game lines? Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 8th edition have a different look and feel to them. Should the artistic topic be limited to lizards?


What are you thoughts on what a visual media contest should include everyone?

 

[Trociu]

I think you are totally right in every aspect and for the questions you had left open I have my own answers :
-theme of contest should probably be free. There is no point in making borders around a contest which will probably have less contestants and be less often organised than short story contest. Let's give them freedom.
- should we let films, photographs and drawings in same contest? It's may be not truly fair but it could mean very few contestants.

As you see my answers depend on number of participants. Probably I won't be one of them as I'm totally better with wia and music than other things. I think you should add a poll about who would take part in such contest if it meant total freedom and after that eventually ask who would like to make what

 

[Tziruzitza]

My two glass beads...

I would rather see a contest with a story theme and no restriction on the media used than the other way around.

As an idea, why not use the same theme as the short story contest, start it at the same time, but allow two months for entries, then a month for voting? So the deadline for submissions would be the same as the voting deadline for the short story contest, and the deadline for voting would be the day before the next theme is announced?

That way, the short story entries and art entries could all be collated together after the dust settles into a single themed thread?

I'm not an artist, so I don't know whether that would work or not...

 

[Slanputin]

I agree with this idea. I can't help but feel that some disparity exists between judging how a story is told via prose vs. a visual medium. I think this type of multi-media contest will go some way to assuage this, whilst also tending to the obvious talent we have in the forum.

Re: restrictions per game system (AoS/WFB), I think is unnecessary. To do so would remove artistic licence.

There definitely should be an overall theme: constraint breeds creativity etc, plus I think it'd prevent stagnation in subsequent contests if themes chosen.

I don't think there should be a limit on the media use so long as it remains within the stationary-visual realm (I.e. No videos, as that would make it a wholly different kind of contest, although I imagine gifs could be acceptable.) I disagree with a limit on a minimum # of panels as it really should be at the artist's discretion of how the story is told, however a maximum limit seems acceptable so as to curb excess.

 

[spawning of Bob]

My preference for the art and writing stuff has always been to try to get a collaboration going, rather than a competition. Hence the Temple of Artzi'Fartzi and "please all contribute" things like the Boromemes.

But hey, the writing comp has obviously attracted attention and brought all sorts of goodness out of people. And it has had other, more tangible, benefits <polishes trophy>

Setting a theme is good, as per @Slanputin and @Tziruzitza . How does this sound for an extension on Tziru's proposal:

Drawing month is during short story voting month. This means all of the stories are available as inspiration. Those who wish to illustrate their own stories can do so. Those who wish to illustrate other peoples stories can do that (I have ideas for @Tlac'Natai the Observer and @Nahualpiltzintli which I just haven't had the impetus to do - one is super complex and needs research, the other one just needs research and me to develop the skill of caricature art.) Anyone who wants to do something original on theme can do that.

Judging would be the art's quality vs its articulation of the theme.

Given that there are many different visual styles - single frame comic, comic strip, graphic story, portrait, scene, realism, impressionism,pencil and paper, watercolour, collage, photoshop art, computer drawing - at the end of the year having a "Best Of 2016" poll to rank works in their broad categories would allow different media and equal footing.

Sounds easy? What about collaborations? @details + @n810 = awesome. I suck at backgrounds. What if I just download one?

Rather than having a ruleset that confines the art, you could have the artist attach a brief explanation ie: "Pencil on paper, contrast and colour enhanced on photoshop, the background is an original photograph. "



Back to collaborations. I want to sharpen my GIF skillz again and then organise everyone to build a central repository of L-O emoji-s.
This one is from the underempire and it has no L-O equivalent.

And who could forget the anguish of a miscast?

 

[Scalenex]

Okay we'll try this after this contest and see how much participation we get.

Drawing month is during short story voting month. This means all of the stories are available as inspiration. Those who wish to illustrate their own stories can do so. Those who wish to illustrate other peoples stories can do that (I have ideas for @Tlac'Natai the Observer and @Nahualpiltzintli which I just haven't had the impetus to do - one is super complex and needs research, the other one just needs research and me to develop the skill of caricature art.) Anyone who wants to do something original on theme can do that.

Judging would be the art's quality vs its articulation of the theme.

And we can do this too. A Best of 2016 would be easy to organize next December/January. The categories will suggest themselves over the next year.

Given that there are many different visual styles - single frame comic, comic strip, graphic story, portrait, scene, realism, impressionism,pencil and paper, watercolour, collage, photoshop art, computer drawing - at the end of the year having a "Best Of 2016" poll to rank works in their broad categories would allow different media and equal footing.

 

[Bowser]

Well if you take out videos and limit it to comics and drawings it's not really a multi media. But as for restrictions it should be run in the same way a story contest would be. Keep the theme, don't restrict to aos/wfb lizards only, unless that's what you did for the short story contest. I agree with pretty well all of what @spawning of Bob said.

 

[spawning of Bob]

Turns out my first and only idea on the story theme is a GIF animation - I will post it in the comp discussion thread just to troll people.

 

[Hyperborean]

Well damn now I can't be lazy, damn deadlines

But yes, echoing the above, having themes is good as then there is more of a comparison point, if we just drew whatever then we'd need a broader judging criterion. With a theme it would be, "who executed it best?" and not just who "drew the best"

 

[spawning of Bob]

Having said all that, art is way more subjective than words. I had in mind "horror" as I drew something. It was a "My Little Pony" tribute. Some people went "aw. So cute" Others got the chills.

Again having the artist explain how / why the work articulates the theme would help others to understand, but then the artists response becomes a writing exercise. Dammit again!

So I now want to recant everything and leave the judging to the subjective eye of the beholder. If they perceive that art A gives them a feeling about the theme more than Art B, or they feel art C has more artistic merit, or they feel Art D took a lot more effort, they can vote accordingly.

I will still want to know all of the artist's secrets, but I can wait till after. The winner should be forced to do a tutorial.

If Scalenex needs a break, I can collate the entries - there shouldn't be as much accidentally-being-influenced-risk as in the writing comps. I won't look at the PMs until I have a firm idea anyway.

Sooooo.

To formalise things:

I am super happy for Scaly to launch the art comp thread. Same theme as Story comp, deadline 1 month after. Rules to be determined in the next 4 weeks. Scaly can also set up the polls and do all the hard work of collating entries (but I am aware that Scaly has a novel to finish so he might need some time and space, in which case I might step up. Curse these non-moderator, can't-really-be-bothered claws!)

I see no harm to collaborations (the rising tides raises all boats, after all) but I think the comp entry should be flagged as @details + @n810 for example. I am happy to give creative advice but bear in mind that I have only graduated from stickmen to being able to draw boobs very recently (this is actually true). My technical advice about scanning, adjusting contrast, uploading and embedding is going to be more useful - therefore I will add a tutorial about such things to the comp thread when it appears.

Meanwhile none of you are off the hook - there will be other art projects through the year. Comp or not, I mean for L-O to be known for fantabulishious WHFB and AoS fan art. When we have some Kewl art galleries full of kewl art expect lurkers with itchy pencil fingers to join the cold blooded cause.

The Old Ones will it.

 

[Essmir]

I thougth it was artists that would post in this tread? Why by Sotek's spit so long posts!?
Well to not go of topic I think more restrictive competitions is more fun and chalengeing. But if we get low number of partisipants we migth have to open upp. But mostly I wold like to ban writing. If you wold like a comic "show don't tell" as a wise mam said
And no explanation let the art speak for it self. only tell what medium you used like traditional/digital, oil/grafit/ink you know (or Google knows)

This is my fifty cents
//Essmir

 

[Slanputin]

hougth it was artists that would post in this tread? Why by Sotek's spit so long posts!?

Can artists not write long posts?

I tend to be fine with all of the above. I'm still against videos, as what's involved in creating film has enough going into it that I think it's both at ends with other mediums, and requires a different level of critique.

 

[pendrake]

-There is relatively little point to make a contest anonymous since art styles are generally more distinctive than writing styles.

Gotta agree with this.

The thought of illustrated short stories with illustrations presented inline is intriguing though. I might like to explore that at some point myself.

 

[spawning of Bob]

I had hoped that Scalenex would allow up to three word free illustrations in short story comp entries - but I respect his rationale for keeping the stories clean.

None of that precludes re-posting the story with pictures later.

 

[pendrake]

I had hoped that Scalenex would allow up to three word free illustrations in short story comp entries - but I respect his rationale for keeping the stories clean.

Same here.

None of that precludes re-posting the story with pictures later.

I might do that with that first one. Somebody ought to draw a Spineburl tree...

 

[spawning of Bob]

My illustration not good enough for you?

 

[pendrake]

My illustration not good enough for you?

[??] I missed it. I keep tabs on this place, by literally keeping a tab open. But I am really only on sporadically...

 

[spawning of Bob]

Illustration for Rogue Skink here

 

[Scalenex]

I hereby bequeath @spawning of Bob with the full backing of the L-O online staff to host our first art contest. He can set the theme, rules, and entry/voting times however he sees fit.

 

[spawning of Bob]

Oh poop. Internet is broke at my place. And I ain't hosting nothing on my wife's phone.

I will launch the comp thread when able, and theme will be "Continuity and Change". Story illustrations are positively encouraged.