I discussed with BlackBull that the attendance for the contest has been somewhat below the expectations recently.
Now this can have many reasons and it is probably not going to be any better with the summer coming, but nevertheless Bull and me thought it would be nice to hear your take on what to do to make the contests more interesting / get more attendance.
After all, these contests are supposed to be fun, enjoyable and a bit challenging as well - for you, the people how take part.
To give this a start, one idea could be to use polls to identify interesting contest themes.
So, the idea is to share your view on the contests and discuss what could be improved. Let us know what you think!
Please, let us know your point of view about the contests. it will be helpful to improve the way they could be runned as well as to know if they're covering your expectations or not.
I promote the Digital Alters contest in both the Digital Renders thread and on my blog. It doesn't seem to drive traffic however.
Knowing when prizes are won/will display would be nice too. I won the March Digital and the thread was never updated with the final standings.
I'd remove the ability to placehold spots. In the few months that I've been competing, it looks like they invariably lead to "not enough time, gotta drop" edits. If folks are willing to compete, they should be able to follow through on that.
I honestly always liked the PnP - Paint and Present. I think what really made that exciting was the simultaneous unveiling of all the submissions - working in the dark and wondering how others might interpret the chosen card seemed really cool.
Determining which card was sometimes difficult I think - hard to pick a selection that everyone felt they had reasonable access to without always being a basic land. I think having multiple cards ( and allowing participants an entry for each one ) would be a good move - perhaps an EDH staple and a card of your choice from the most recent set?
I believe the best motivation was trying to conceptualize and produce a great piece of work to showcase alongside others - and the audience anticipated and enjoyed the same.
Also, definitely need regular well-defined deadlines - monthly is good. Knowing what the next rounds card(s) were going to be, say, a week or so before the current round ends would be nice and might encourage more regular site traffic.
Erm, I've never entered a contest, but if I WERE to enter a contest, I'm going to voice what's been said before me -- I'd prefer a strict deadline, but a flexible category.
I definitely only draw people and not landscapes, and not creatures, and not anything else. I imagine other artists also have their niche, and allowing us to draw/paint/render what (honestly) we're probably already working on prior to the contest announcement will boost the number of entries.
Yeah, it may not get us to stretch our boundaries (paint what you already love to paint!) but I'm guessing by the OP that you're worried about participation ... so I figure we ought to address the numbers issue ...
Also, since I'm slow, I'd prefer 2 months instead of 1 month, but I realize I might be in the minority here ...
Hello! I'm the new moderator here in artwork, and one of my goals is to really help the contests get up and running I think that having very fixed dates is a good start, ideally starting on the first of the month, and ending on the last day (28/29/30/31 or whatever). Secondly, I believe that having a poll for the next months topic/topics would be great. After all, people can vote for their favoured subject, and are already thinking of ideas for it. This should help us all want to paint and enter for it! Thirdly, how would you guys feel about having Contest announcements in the main artwork forum? I may have to talk to my higher-ups about it, but it might help raise awareness and drive traffic towards the contests.
Thank you all so much for your thoughts and suggestions. Keep commenting, and we'll soon be able to get these contests up and running again!
Since BlackBull is running the contests now, he could start a new sticky thread for contest schedule and suggestions so that he could more easily keep the first couple of posts updated. The first post could list brief descriptions and links to the currently opened contests and polls. The second post could list next month's contests so that people can begin planning and working ahead of time and then list possible further upcoming contests in no particular order. The rest of the thread could be limited specifically to suggestions and discussion of upcoming contest themes.
With the next month's contest topics posted earlier, I think the open time for submissions could be shorter. For example, have monthly submissions from the 1st–20th and the poll from the 21st–30th or 31st. (I'm not intentionally trying to volunteer BlackBull for more work.)
One month is plenty of time, does it take you guys a month to paint a single card, honestly? A few hours? So you have to set aside a few hours one day out of your month to enter the contest. Sometimes things come up in a person's life and they cannot find those few hours, that's fine.. extended the contest for another month is pointless, they can attend the next month's contest.
Having contests/announcements/etc posted on time are a must.
Prizes? What is the point of a contest without prizes? Maybe $100 to each winner isn't too feasible for this, sure... but what if the winner chooses the topic for the next month? Or they choose from 3 options available or something along these lines? Something to get some more incentive to participate.
First off thank you BlackBull for all your efforts in running these. I also appreciate that Mobo is stepping up to help out with this.
I agree with a lot of the others who have already posted regarding keeping the contests on schedule in terms of consistent start & end times as well as having the next contests themes chosen by the end of the month.
Additionally doing something to build awareness of the contests to MTG Salvation community at large might be helpful. Having a links to the monthly polls on the home page (below where You Make the Card is featured) is an idea. Or featuring the smaller versions of the previous month's winners on the home page? Beyond that I'm not sure how to really incentivize the contests to boost its numbers. Prizes might be cool but that could complicate things very easily.
In terms of topics it might be fun to team up with the Card Creation thread and pull cards from there to illustrate occasionally. Another idea I always thought would be cool is if the mods approached WOTC to get the art description for an existing card and use that as a topic only revealing the actual card at the end of the contest.
Strict deadlines are a big one. Knowing that I can come in on the first of the month and see what the theme is keeps me from having to guess how long I'll have to wait, and also keeps me from wasting time checking for the update. I don't mind having extended deadlines for the end of a contest as long as the artists are actually working on the project, but there shouldn't be a deadline extension in hopes that someone will come up with a piece in that extra week just to improve attendance. If there isn't attendance, it was a failed theme, and we need to move on to the next month as soon as possible.
The most memorable themes since I've been doing the artwork contests are only two: Rehashing an old card art from alpha/beta, and depicting an existing creature token. They were open enough that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted as an artist, which was nice, but also defined enough that I had a clear path to go on.
An interesting idea, at least for the artwork contest, would be to get an art description similar to what Wizards gives their artists, and have that as the months contest. Perhaps hold a poll month after month to find out what card type people want, and then if it's a creature find out what creature type etc. I think that would give at least somewhat of a taste of what the real Magic artists have to do.
An interesting idea, at least for the artwork contest, would be to get an art description similar to what Wizards gives their artists, and have that as the months contest.
Another idea I always thought would be cool is if the mods approached WOTC to get the art description for an existing card and use that as a topic only revealing the actual card at the end of the contest.
An interesting idea, at least for the artwork contest, would be to get an art description similar to what Wizards gives their artists, and have that as the months contest. Perhaps hold a poll month after month to find out what card type people want, and then if it's a creature find out what creature type etc. I think that would give at least somewhat of a taste of what the real Magic artists have to do.
This is speaking of just the "artwork" contest, right? I wouldn't want something like that for the "alter" contests... because, well, they should be alters.
Great input so far - I will summarize a few point tomorrow, when I have a bit more time for this. Please keep going, and also please ask your friends/colleagues who participated in the contests in the past to give some input.
I honestly always liked the PnP - Paint and Present. I think what really made that exciting was the simultaneous unveiling of all the submissions - working in the dark and wondering how others might interpret the chosen card seemed really cool.
This is an interesting point I would like to discuss as well. During the PnPs the submitted entries were only revealed until after the submission deadline. What do you think about this?
It seems to solve a couple of issues:
- Increases excitement as people wanna see what other have contributed
- High quality entries at the very beginning of the contest won`t discourage other user from participating
- Discourages people to submit a low quality entry shortly before the end of the deadline to get a trophy for free, when it is obvious nobody else will take part
One month is plenty of time, does it take you guys a month to paint a single card, honestly? A few hours? So you have to set aside a few hours one day out of your month to enter the contest. Sometimes things come up in a person's life and they cannot find those few hours, that's fine.. extended the contest for another month is pointless, they can attend the next month's contest.
Hmm ... there seems to be a bit of a *difference* between the Alters and the OriginalArt entrants. I don't do alters, but coming from a fine arts standpoint, a lot of Altered cards I've seen either end up as 1) a seamless extension of the original card as printed by Wizards or 2) something that's COMPLETELY different (and better).
But are the contests that run for Alters, DigiAlters, OriginalArt, and Photoshop staying separate? Or are we combining some of them? I'm a bit confused.
Although we all have different styles and preferences, the challenge comes from not knowing what the contest topic will be, and rising to meet that challenge, whether outside of our comfort zone or not....so I don't feel a poll is necessary. I think whoever suggested 3 weeks of open submission time followed by a week of voting is a good idea....for continuity each month. Also, perhaps consider private submissions, only to reveal the collection of submitted works during the voting week. If someone posts up early in the contest a submission that is amazing, it may be discouraging to other alterists. More advertising or actual prizes may also help boost entry submissions.
What do you guys think we could reasonably do for "actual prizes"? They'd need to come from somewhere, and charging an entrance fee is a big no. We'd need a sponsor of some kind. I'd love to help out, but my current financial situation wouldn't allow it.
I don't think there would be too much of an issue, it's just actually having prizes worth giving out!
What do you guys think we could reasonably do for "actual prizes"? They'd need to come from somewhere, and charging an entrance fee is a big no. We'd need a sponsor of some kind. I'd love to help out, but my current financial situation wouldn't allow it.
I don't think there would be too much of an issue, it's just actually having prizes worth giving out!
I'm on the fence about prizes. I don't think there's anything big enough that will draw a bigger field without also complicating the process and opening the contests up to other issues like vote rigging. Charging an entry fee to the contests seems like it would deter more people from entering rather than garnering additional entries.
In the end I think just participating is its own reward. But I'm weird like that.
Well, it seems that putting this thread up was a home run. I'm very excited about all the debate raised here.
I would like to give my perspective about some suggestions that people thrown here:
For all the artwork contests in general:
* "More wider themes." As somebody pointed out, may be this wouldn't necessarily move people to stretch their boundaries, but this would definitely increase atendance. So, at the end, competing in a more masive poll will increase excitement for sure (wich is positive from all perspectives.)
As an organizer I also felt that "Under the Blue Sky" was pure win as a theme. It was wider, while also inviting people to experiment more without feeling that they could step outside the task, and also guaranteed more participation (and actually we multiplied the entrants that month.)
It is true that there are subjects that some artists just feel uncomfortable to deal with (as human figure; animals; technology; WotC characters; etc.) Expect to have more themes like that one in the future.
* "Paint and Present." This is a very, VERY interesting tweak to improve in the alteration contests. It is true what you people said: This encourages people to still sending an entry since they don't know the quality level of the previous entries until the round is closed. Also, this improves excitement wich, as I said before, is pure win. Also, adunakhor pointed out something very important too: This way, there wouldn't be people sending an intentional low quality piece just to see if they can fish an easy cup. I think this new modality (wich actually is being used for the christmas exchange) will probably be part of the future rounds.
*"Addition of Extra prizes" I've tried this once before. Around fifteen months ago, I tried to give some alters from my binder as extra prizes (beside the trophies.) Even when this was exciting for some people, *shrug* it became a problem because I had to start covering the cost of three shippings every month (regardless of the labor cost.) I actually owe two of the three alters I promised as prizes (one belongs to Klug, actually *sweat*) because I wasn't able to cover the 8-10 bucks that means sending an envelope from Argentina to the states with proper envelope and tracking number. As a side note, I still having money trouble.
Today earlier in the morning I was sitting at a bus and thinking: What if we open a paypal account to receive donations to give them back as prizes in the contests? Well, it was just too naive from me to think this wouldn't lead to trust issues, or even to be doable under the forum rules.
In case we expect to add extra incentives, we would have two options, and both would end as problematic at the end:
- Physical prizes: Need to be financed, as well as their shipping.
- Virtual money (Paypal and the like): Would be subject to trust issues and also will be probably against the forum rules. money is always an issue. U_U
So, by now, let's forget about extra-prizing the contests. Sorry.
NOTE: We still having the option of asking for discount donations in different categories, such as: Card altering; custom playmats/boxes; 3D alterations (artist discount); supplies (store discounts); etc. We would still being subject to the forums rules and this would need to be discussed with the mod crew, of course. In case we decide to improve this, be sure it will not be in a short future.
* "Strict Deadlines" The contests actually used to have those. Was a mix between having an extremely low atendance and me being a little bussy that led the deadlines to become as flexible as bubble-gum. Mea culpa. Expect strict deadlines as well as possible in the future (hopefully I will have help to keem these then. :))
* "Theme Polls" This is a nice idea. Even so, depending on wich kind of tasks we improve in the future, polls will be helpful tools or simply useless. May be we will be using them intermittently (probably ;))
* "Two-month Duration Rounds" As somebody pointed, it feels plainly usseless/pointless (yes, if you missed a month's theme, just go and try next.)
For Artwork & Altered Contests:
* "Apply Art Descriptions as Themes" I personally like this one very much. In case we decide to use this, we would have two options:
A) To send an E-mail to WotC asking for real art descriptions from previous pieces. this would increase excitement sky rocket and also will have a cherry on the cake when unveiling for wich card the description was originally made.
B) We can simply make our own art descriptions, wich will have a similar impact as the option A, but may be a little less appealing. We can anyway deveal at the end that we were describing an actually real card, so that could add a bit of that extra taste we talked about in option A.I'll try to contact WotC and see if getting original art description is possible (and for free, of course :p) I would really like to make this idea part of our contests. Seriously.
For DIGITALLY Altered Contests:
* "Acceptance of Renders" Some people (at least one, I think) pointed this out outside this thread a while ago. (Actually, there was a proposal of changing the name from Altered to Render.) Personally, I think that the idea here still being to alter an MtG card, except it is digital. I've conceived this contest to be the digital version of the regular alteration one, because I understand that modifying a digital image is really easy for those who manages graphic software. If you are also able to use premade WotC material (like original art, merchandising art, etc.) I can't see the difficulty around the themes. Anyway, this brand new contest seems to have a low atendance because almost of the digital altering community seems to preffer to play with diverse unofficial frames, while picking up art from the web. I would specially like to have more participation of the rendering community in this thread in order to help us to conform this new category, making it enjoyable for most of the community.
Digitally Altered Contest wasn't made for my personal enjoyement so, if making it more appealing to the people it was made for means to accept rendering, so the change will be natural and well accepted.
Some personal questionings/ideas:
* What if we apply the "paint and Present" way, and propose a sole task for each month, wich would need to be acoplished by all the people in the four contests/categories? May be the solution is as simple as Unification.
It will be wider, easier and also will promote a single artist to implement more than one of his multiple ideas by developing each of them for a different contest (because remember that we still having a restriction of one piece by contestant per contest/category.)
We will just need to post four different polls (or a single one divided in four parts) to determine the winner of each category. Also, trophies would still being one for each different topic as usual.
* More comming...
(Special welcome to Mobo, our brand new moderator in the artwork subforums! ^_^)
EDIT: I was browsing the art threads and found that there's a contest that's an official one (or treated like one) called "Make a Proxy" contest. It seems that, in case we allow renders (now I'm a little confused, what's more proper? Proxy or Render?) in the Digitally Altered Contest, wouldn't that make it a 2.0 version of "Make a Proxy"?
What I'm sure is that we don't need two contests giving a trophy each for the same category. Also, wouldn't it be more proper to have the aforementioned contest in the artwork subforums, more specifically in the "contests" section? May be it will be better to fusion both contests in a single one and host it monthly next to the rest of the contests.
We have some very talented and powerful people on these forums, including Steve Argyle, Igor Kieryluk, the man (or woman?) behind Inked Playmats, and Jeremy Jarvis. Surely we could find a way to work something out with one of them?
Great to see the discussion is going on, obviously there is still a genuine interest in the contests! Time for me to contribute something content-wise as well...
Hello! I'm the new moderator here in artwork, and one of my goals is to really help the contests get up and running
[...]
how would you guys feel about having Contest announcements in the main artwork forum?
Mobo, welcome to the artwork forum and thanks for offering a helping hand It is good to have you on board. To answer your question: Yes, I think it would be very helpful to promote the contests on the main forum. Anything that will increase attention would be good - would you mind discussing this with the upper mod class to see if this could work out?
* "More wider themes."
As an organizer I also felt that "Under the Blue Sky" was pure win as a theme.
* "Paint and Present."
*"Addition of Extra prizes"
* "Strict Deadlines"
* "Theme Polls" This is a nice idea. Even so, depending on wich kind of tasks we improve in the future, polls will be helpful tools or simply useless.
I agree that having wider themes is an important one, "Under the Blue Sky" is a very good example of a simple but exciting and motivating contest theme.
Paint and Present had two different aspects: First one was revealing submissions only after the deadline - we should try this out for the reasons stated above.
Second aspect was - if I recall correctly - that always a specific card had to be altered ("this month let`s all alter a Duress!"). This is exciting as well, but imho should not always be the case, as it would limit the contest too much. However, the idea itself is great and could be a recurring thing that pops up every few contests.
About the strict deadlines, we all seem to be on the same page. What Mobo said seems reasonable, have all contests start at the very beginning of the month and have them end at the end of the month, no exceptions, period. The polls to determine the winner could be up for the following week, that`s it.
Prizes:
Personally, I think that a contest must have a prize or reward to encourage people to participate. Now we already have that: The trophies, which actually are pretty cool prizes.
However, what I feel is missing at the moment is some sort of "official celebration" of the winner. The visibility of contest winners is pretty low, despite having the trophy below your avatar later.
Some simple things that could help could include:
- Announce an official winner for every contest in the poll, once the time for the poll is over
- Announce all winners in the "Official Altered Art Thread" and the "Official Digital Rendering Thread" where the winner will get much more and well deserved attention. This might also encourage others to take part next time.
- Keep a log of all winners - something we already have, but that has not been used for some years: The monthly "Art Contest Hall of Fame". The idea of this thread is great, but should be changed in a way that you can see the winning submission for every past contest.
- Keep a log of all winners - something we already have, but that has not been used for some years: The monthly "Art Contest Hall of Fame". The idea of this thread is great, but should be changed in a way that you can see the winning submission for every past contest.
I knew I was missing something important. YES, I agree we should bring this back to life. it is a great way to give proper reconnaissance to the monthly winners. I had this in mind a while ago, but then completely forget about it. Thanks Adu for bringing it back to discussion.
Not trying to start anything but just wondering.. It's the first and the extended polls are still up and nothing new contest-wise has been posted. Are we going to discuss all of our contest options throughout June and start back in July?? I was kinda hoping the "time-frame" issues were going to be resolved since it was something everyone mentioned. We didn't just mean strict deadlines but strict start times as well. ;[ I may be jumping the gun and something may be posted this afternoon but I'd rather point it out instead of wait until the 2nd, or next week at that.
I discussed with BlackBull that the attendance for the contest has been somewhat below the expectations recently.
Now this can have many reasons and it is probably not going to be any better with the summer coming, but nevertheless Bull and me thought it would be nice to hear your take on what to do to make the contests more interesting / get more attendance.
After all, these contests are supposed to be fun, enjoyable and a bit challenging as well - for you, the people how take part.
To give this a start, one idea could be to use polls to identify interesting contest themes.
So, the idea is to share your view on the contests and discuss what could be improved. Let us know what you think!
Ok, now it`s your turn...
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BBull.
Knowing when prizes are won/will display would be nice too. I won the March Digital and the thread was never updated with the final standings.
I'd remove the ability to placehold spots. In the few months that I've been competing, it looks like they invariably lead to "not enough time, gotta drop" edits. If folks are willing to compete, they should be able to follow through on that.
Determining which card was sometimes difficult I think - hard to pick a selection that everyone felt they had reasonable access to without always being a basic land. I think having multiple cards ( and allowing participants an entry for each one ) would be a good move - perhaps an EDH staple and a card of your choice from the most recent set?
I believe the best motivation was trying to conceptualize and produce a great piece of work to showcase alongside others - and the audience anticipated and enjoyed the same.
Also, definitely need regular well-defined deadlines - monthly is good. Knowing what the next rounds card(s) were going to be, say, a week or so before the current round ends would be nice and might encourage more regular site traffic.
I definitely only draw people and not landscapes, and not creatures, and not anything else. I imagine other artists also have their niche, and allowing us to draw/paint/render what (honestly) we're probably already working on prior to the contest announcement will boost the number of entries.
Yeah, it may not get us to stretch our boundaries (paint what you already love to paint!) but I'm guessing by the OP that you're worried about participation ... so I figure we ought to address the numbers issue ...
Also, since I'm slow, I'd prefer 2 months instead of 1 month, but I realize I might be in the minority here ...
Thank you all so much for your thoughts and suggestions. Keep commenting, and we'll soon be able to get these contests up and running again!
With the next month's contest topics posted earlier, I think the open time for submissions could be shorter. For example, have monthly submissions from the 1st–20th and the poll from the 21st–30th or 31st. (I'm not intentionally trying to volunteer BlackBull for more work.)
Having contests/announcements/etc posted on time are a must.
Prizes? What is the point of a contest without prizes? Maybe $100 to each winner isn't too feasible for this, sure... but what if the winner chooses the topic for the next month? Or they choose from 3 options available or something along these lines? Something to get some more incentive to participate.
My 2c
I agree with a lot of the others who have already posted regarding keeping the contests on schedule in terms of consistent start & end times as well as having the next contests themes chosen by the end of the month.
Additionally doing something to build awareness of the contests to MTG Salvation community at large might be helpful. Having a links to the monthly polls on the home page (below where You Make the Card is featured) is an idea. Or featuring the smaller versions of the previous month's winners on the home page? Beyond that I'm not sure how to really incentivize the contests to boost its numbers. Prizes might be cool but that could complicate things very easily.
In terms of topics it might be fun to team up with the Card Creation thread and pull cards from there to illustrate occasionally. Another idea I always thought would be cool is if the mods approached WOTC to get the art description for an existing card and use that as a topic only revealing the actual card at the end of the contest.
The most memorable themes since I've been doing the artwork contests are only two: Rehashing an old card art from alpha/beta, and depicting an existing creature token. They were open enough that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted as an artist, which was nice, but also defined enough that I had a clear path to go on.
An interesting idea, at least for the artwork contest, would be to get an art description similar to what Wizards gives their artists, and have that as the months contest. Perhaps hold a poll month after month to find out what card type people want, and then if it's a creature find out what creature type etc. I think that would give at least somewhat of a taste of what the real Magic artists have to do.
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This is speaking of just the "artwork" contest, right? I wouldn't want something like that for the "alter" contests... because, well, they should be alters.
This is an interesting point I would like to discuss as well. During the PnPs the submitted entries were only revealed until after the submission deadline. What do you think about this?
It seems to solve a couple of issues:
- Increases excitement as people wanna see what other have contributed
- High quality entries at the very beginning of the contest won`t discourage other user from participating
- Discourages people to submit a low quality entry shortly before the end of the deadline to get a trophy for free, when it is obvious nobody else will take part
My gallery of altered cards
Hmm ... there seems to be a bit of a *difference* between the Alters and the OriginalArt entrants. I don't do alters, but coming from a fine arts standpoint, a lot of Altered cards I've seen either end up as 1) a seamless extension of the original card as printed by Wizards or 2) something that's COMPLETELY different (and better).
But are the contests that run for Alters, DigiAlters, OriginalArt, and Photoshop staying separate? Or are we combining some of them? I'm a bit confused.
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I don't think there would be too much of an issue, it's just actually having prizes worth giving out!
I'm on the fence about prizes. I don't think there's anything big enough that will draw a bigger field without also complicating the process and opening the contests up to other issues like vote rigging. Charging an entry fee to the contests seems like it would deter more people from entering rather than garnering additional entries.
In the end I think just participating is its own reward. But I'm weird like that.
Turtles fight with honor!
I would like to give my perspective about some suggestions that people thrown here:
For all the artwork contests in general:
* "More wider themes." As somebody pointed out, may be this wouldn't necessarily move people to stretch their boundaries, but this would definitely increase atendance. So, at the end, competing in a more masive poll will increase excitement for sure (wich is positive from all perspectives.)
As an organizer I also felt that "Under the Blue Sky" was pure win as a theme. It was wider, while also inviting people to experiment more without feeling that they could step outside the task, and also guaranteed more participation (and actually we multiplied the entrants that month.)
It is true that there are subjects that some artists just feel uncomfortable to deal with (as human figure; animals; technology; WotC characters; etc.) Expect to have more themes like that one in the future.
* "Paint and Present." This is a very, VERY interesting tweak to improve in the alteration contests. It is true what you people said: This encourages people to still sending an entry since they don't know the quality level of the previous entries until the round is closed. Also, this improves excitement wich, as I said before, is pure win. Also, adunakhor pointed out something very important too: This way, there wouldn't be people sending an intentional low quality piece just to see if they can fish an easy cup. I think this new modality (wich actually is being used for the christmas exchange) will probably be part of the future rounds.
*"Addition of Extra prizes" I've tried this once before. Around fifteen months ago, I tried to give some alters from my binder as extra prizes (beside the trophies.) Even when this was exciting for some people, *shrug* it became a problem because I had to start covering the cost of three shippings every month (regardless of the labor cost.) I actually owe two of the three alters I promised as prizes (one belongs to Klug, actually *sweat*) because I wasn't able to cover the 8-10 bucks that means sending an envelope from Argentina to the states with proper envelope and tracking number. As a side note, I still having money trouble.
Today earlier in the morning I was sitting at a bus and thinking: What if we open a paypal account to receive donations to give them back as prizes in the contests? Well, it was just too naive from me to think this wouldn't lead to trust issues, or even to be doable under the forum rules.
In case we expect to add extra incentives, we would have two options, and both would end as problematic at the end:
- Physical prizes: Need to be financed, as well as their shipping.
- Virtual money (Paypal and the like): Would be subject to trust issues and also will be probably against the forum rules. money is always an issue. U_U
So, by now, let's forget about extra-prizing the contests. Sorry.
NOTE: We still having the option of asking for discount donations in different categories, such as: Card altering; custom playmats/boxes; 3D alterations (artist discount); supplies (store discounts); etc. We would still being subject to the forums rules and this would need to be discussed with the mod crew, of course. In case we decide to improve this, be sure it will not be in a short future.
* "Strict Deadlines" The contests actually used to have those. Was a mix between having an extremely low atendance and me being a little bussy that led the deadlines to become as flexible as bubble-gum. Mea culpa. Expect strict deadlines as well as possible in the future (hopefully I will have help to keem these then. :))
* "Theme Polls" This is a nice idea. Even so, depending on wich kind of tasks we improve in the future, polls will be helpful tools or simply useless. May be we will be using them intermittently (probably ;))
* "Two-month Duration Rounds" As somebody pointed, it feels plainly usseless/pointless (yes, if you missed a month's theme, just go and try next.)
For Artwork & Altered Contests:
* "Apply Art Descriptions as Themes" I personally like this one very much. In case we decide to use this, we would have two options:
A) To send an E-mail to WotC asking for real art descriptions from previous pieces. this would increase excitement sky rocket and also will have a cherry on the cake when unveiling for wich card the description was originally made.
B) We can simply make our own art descriptions, wich will have a similar impact as the option A, but may be a little less appealing. We can anyway deveal at the end that we were describing an actually real card, so that could add a bit of that extra taste we talked about in option A.I'll try to contact WotC and see if getting original art description is possible (and for free, of course :p) I would really like to make this idea part of our contests. Seriously.
For DIGITALLY Altered Contests:
* "Acceptance of Renders" Some people (at least one, I think) pointed this out outside this thread a while ago. (Actually, there was a proposal of changing the name from Altered to Render.) Personally, I think that the idea here still being to alter an MtG card, except it is digital. I've conceived this contest to be the digital version of the regular alteration one, because I understand that modifying a digital image is really easy for those who manages graphic software. If you are also able to use premade WotC material (like original art, merchandising art, etc.) I can't see the difficulty around the themes. Anyway, this brand new contest seems to have a low atendance because almost of the digital altering community seems to preffer to play with diverse unofficial frames, while picking up art from the web. I would specially like to have more participation of the rendering community in this thread in order to help us to conform this new category, making it enjoyable for most of the community.
Digitally Altered Contest wasn't made for my personal enjoyement so, if making it more appealing to the people it was made for means to accept rendering, so the change will be natural and well accepted.
Some personal questionings/ideas:
* What if we apply the "paint and Present" way, and propose a sole task for each month, wich would need to be acoplished by all the people in the four contests/categories? May be the solution is as simple as Unification.
It will be wider, easier and also will promote a single artist to implement more than one of his multiple ideas by developing each of them for a different contest (because remember that we still having a restriction of one piece by contestant per contest/category.)
We will just need to post four different polls (or a single one divided in four parts) to determine the winner of each category. Also, trophies would still being one for each different topic as usual.
* More comming...
(Special welcome to Mobo, our brand new moderator in the artwork subforums! ^_^)
EDIT: I was browsing the art threads and found that there's a contest that's an official one (or treated like one) called "Make a Proxy" contest. It seems that, in case we allow renders (now I'm a little confused, what's more proper? Proxy or Render?) in the Digitally Altered Contest, wouldn't that make it a 2.0 version of "Make a Proxy"?
What I'm sure is that we don't need two contests giving a trophy each for the same category. Also, wouldn't it be more proper to have the aforementioned contest in the artwork subforums, more specifically in the "contests" section? May be it will be better to fusion both contests in a single one and host it monthly next to the rest of the contests.
Just an observation I made.
We have some very talented and powerful people on these forums, including Steve Argyle, Igor Kieryluk, the man (or woman?) behind Inked Playmats, and Jeremy Jarvis. Surely we could find a way to work something out with one of them?
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
Mobo, welcome to the artwork forum and thanks for offering a helping hand It is good to have you on board. To answer your question: Yes, I think it would be very helpful to promote the contests on the main forum. Anything that will increase attention would be good - would you mind discussing this with the upper mod class to see if this could work out?
I agree that having wider themes is an important one, "Under the Blue Sky" is a very good example of a simple but exciting and motivating contest theme.
Paint and Present had two different aspects: First one was revealing submissions only after the deadline - we should try this out for the reasons stated above.
Second aspect was - if I recall correctly - that always a specific card had to be altered ("this month let`s all alter a Duress!"). This is exciting as well, but imho should not always be the case, as it would limit the contest too much. However, the idea itself is great and could be a recurring thing that pops up every few contests.
About the strict deadlines, we all seem to be on the same page. What Mobo said seems reasonable, have all contests start at the very beginning of the month and have them end at the end of the month, no exceptions, period. The polls to determine the winner could be up for the following week, that`s it.
Prizes:
Personally, I think that a contest must have a prize or reward to encourage people to participate. Now we already have that: The trophies, which actually are pretty cool prizes.
However, what I feel is missing at the moment is some sort of "official celebration" of the winner. The visibility of contest winners is pretty low, despite having the trophy below your avatar later.
Some simple things that could help could include:
- Announce an official winner for every contest in the poll, once the time for the poll is over
- Announce all winners in the "Official Altered Art Thread" and the "Official Digital Rendering Thread" where the winner will get much more and well deserved attention. This might also encourage others to take part next time.
- Keep a log of all winners - something we already have, but that has not been used for some years: The monthly "Art Contest Hall of Fame". The idea of this thread is great, but should be changed in a way that you can see the winning submission for every past contest.
My gallery of altered cards
Good that you are motivated I will look into this with Bull and Mobo about how to proceed best.
However, let`s not rush things. Better make it right than quick.
My gallery of altered cards