Christmas Contest - Final Voting

[itzashamtwo 3]

aww that sucks wheres mine at? the goblin one that says .. merry xmass noobs?

[jbdevs 7]

That is a fair point, but also in my opinion some of these artists took their time from paid artwork in attempt to win prizes of money value, which is sorta like being paid for their work. If it were an engineering competition, the decision would be who was the better engineer. I would hate to spend 40 hours designing a heavily tasking project to design something to lose to something that had a good poem mixed with a meh picture (example being my entry). That's just how I saw it.

This.

Honestly, my final piece isn't where I wanted it to be, but I worked within the deadline given (I would've loved the extra 12 hours a lot of entries were given to finish).

 

I went for the 8-bit style to try to stand out from the crowd, but that kind of fell through, either way, I appreciate any feedback on my work. (Totally love your signature by the way, Fouton)

[Fouton 266]

Thanks :) I finally got Photoshop with my online courses so I made it transparent so I can transition it to other forums. Woulda loved to have it earlier when I first came into WoW, making my first sigs. Pureblood Firehawk + Disgusting Oozeling, edited to look like my normal mount. That took so long to edit in Paint >.<

[EricLendsei 0]

I vote for O, becouse is simple and happy ^__^

[antimetica 3]

I didn't make it to the finals and didn't expect to.  I love the final choices and voted for 6 of them.  So funny I did not vote for O which seems to be popular, but I didn't think people liked "chibi" style cartoon (really 50 people love chibi?), it is not my taste but I learn something new every day.  

 

My favorite is S.  The colors are so vibrant and the energy of it is very dynamic, it reminds me of pro comic book work.  G is a close second for me is very creative and unique, also a strong statement about the current times while being funny - which is a talent in itself to make commentary about a sensitive subject pull off as funny.  Like an editorial cartoon in a newspaper.  Awesome!

[Miasma 4]

Are entries D, E, F, L, S and T legit? The font choice is absolutely woeful and to be honest some of the images have author's signature on them.

 

C, O and N I voted for and I hope N wins because I thought it was funny and creative.

[Fouton 266]

Author's signature won't matter since people can just go to the contest page and see who posted what.

Also, it's your own opinion, hence the voting. I like those fonts.

[forsetti 0]

i vote b

[thetimberwolfgrey 14]

i vote b

Hey Forsetti, thanks 

[Kattii 40]

Everyone who entered the contest did a great job and should be proud of themselves. If your image was not selected as a finalist you can still send it to friends and family who play wow and spread the holiday cheer. Good luck to all the finalists!

[blaqkbird 10]

I don't mean to jump on the bandwagon of disappointment, but I do agree with some of the people who are/were upset that some of the submissions don't look legit. Don't get me wrong I'm not a paid artist or anything (still working on my art major) but from taking a digital art class this past semester for college and my professor actually did some work with Avatar the last airbender and a few other shows, taught us (more or less jammed it into our brains by repeating himself everyday for 4 months) that if you plan on using a picture to gain anything you need to use less than 50% (of each photo you plan on using) and change it 20% or more before it becomes your own work. I kinda agree with some of the people in that there are those that don't look heavily modified. "D" would be an example, since it's background could be found on the internet (http://wallgp.com/christmas-fireplace-background/christmas-fireplace-background-2/) and each character used was only a portion of it but added a hat or a present for slight modification. Again not trying to rain on anyone's parade was just voicing why I think a lot of people seem disappointed and upset by a few of the submissions. On that note good luck everyone and "F" I'm rooting for you that murloc is adorable! Also "E"!

Edited December 23, 2013 by blaqkbird

[Gamu 13]

I don't mean to jump on the bandwagon of disappointment, but I do agree with some of the people who are/were upset that some of the submissions don't look legit. Don't get me wrong I'm not a paid artist or anything (still working on my art major) but from taking a digital art class this past semester for college and my professor actually did some work with Avatar the last airbender and a few other shows, taught us (more or less jammed it into our brains by repeating himself everyday for 4 months) that if you plan on using a picture to gain anything you need to use less than 50% (of each photo you plan on using) and change it 20% or more. I kinda agree with some of the people in that there are those that don't look heavily modified. "D" would be an example, since it's background could be found on the internet (http://wallgp.com/christmas-fireplace-background/christmas-fireplace-background-2/) and each character used was only a portion of it but added a hat or a present. Again not trying to rain on anyone's parade was just voicing why I think a lot of people seem disappointed and upset by a few of the submissions. On that note good luck everyone and "F" I'm rooting for you that murloc is adorable! Also "E"!

I think the same, but if the jury let them be finalists, is because they consider that the pics are able to be on the final, and everybody has their opinion about them.

You're so lucky to have a digital art teacher, where I study they consider that working on pc is cheating and don't let us paint on photoshop u.uU

Anyway, gratz to all the finalists =)!

[blaqkbird 10]

I think the same, but if the jury let them be finalists, is because they consider that the pics are able to be on the final, and everybody has their opinion about them.

You're so lucky to have a digital art teacher, where I study they consider that working on pc is cheating and don't let us paint on photoshop u.uU

Anyway, gratz to all the finalists =)!

Awwes, yeah I took the class because I wanted to learn how to use photoshop. I actually learned a lot and it was great fun! I don't really like illustrator but it's easy to use to convert hand drawings to make them look cleaner. I mainly took the class because I am decent at drawing but when it comes to t-shirt contests they want something done in photoshop so yeah that was hard to do not understanding it. Anyways yes I agree everyone has their opinion on the submissions I was just voicing why I thought people were coming off as upset kinda giving an artistic opinion and what I learned from that class (if that makes sense?). What I'm going for after my art major is software engineering. :D Anywho, good luck everyone! (Gamu I hope you can use photoshop in your studies someday soon! :) ).

[Damien 1,514]

I removed about 15 votes that were made from duplicate accounts or same IP address. If you want your friends to vote for you, then have them create an account through Facebook. Otherwise, if they are at your place, I cannot distinguish between you and them, and in this case I simply remove the votes.

[Akraen 230]

A is just so elegant. The trees so beautiful.

[Miasma 4]

I removed about 15 votes that were made from duplicate accounts or same IP address. If you want your friends to vote for you, then have them create an account through Facebook. Otherwise, if they are at your place, I cannot distinguish between you and them, and in this case I simply remove the votes.

 

This just adds to the "how legit are some entries" question if people are willing to do this as well.

[Fouton 266]

It's expected with any public voting competition. I'd get all my friends to vote for me too, the prizes are pretty awesome.

[blaqkbird 10]

It's expected with any public voting competition. I'd get all my friends to vote for me too, the prizes are pretty awesome.

Yeah but friends voting for you is different than yourself stacking the votes in your favor. Looking at the votes now I'm rooting for O! :) I can see how much of a difference roughly 15 votes being removed made from how the votes looked this morning.

[thetimberwolfgrey 14]

Sorry, I went on a rant here, saying a lot of things in ways I did NOT mean to: sounding angry and elitist. I was trying to say my thoughts, not yell them and cause a big issue. I did not mean to sound like I was yelling at admin and trying to change what was already voted on. If the judges approved of it, then it would be unfair to change that now on entries that passed. I misunderstood some aspects of the contest and truly am sorry for causing a scene. 

Edited December 24, 2013 by thetimberwolfgrey

[Lyraina 5]

Are entries D, E, F, L, S and T legit? The font choice is absolutely woeful and to be honest some of the images have author's signature on them.

 

C, O and N I voted for and I hope N wins because I thought it was funny and creative.

 

What's wrong with putting a signature on one's work? I always do so, especially if posting anywhere besides my own website. As long as the rules don't forbid that of course.

As for being legit, I can obviously only speak for myself (which would be entry L) - the icy veins mods made a great effort to find out if the submitting person really is the artist. (Even contacted me over my artist twitter profile to make sure!)

I agree with your opinion on the font though - it pained me a bit to add it, but I didn't find anything I liked better... maybe I should take some graphic design course eventually instead of only practicing drawing/painting.

 

Anyway - good luck everybody & Merry Christmas!

Edited December 24, 2013 by Lyraina

[Damien 1,514]

This just adds to the "how legit are some entries" question if people are willing to do this as well.

Aside from D and H, I don't see who anyone can argue about the other entries.

[Lalicat 1]

Are entries D, E, F, L, S and T legit? The font choice is absolutely woeful and to be honest some of the images have author's signature on them.

 

C, O and N I voted for and I hope N wins because I thought it was funny and creative.

 

Mine is N, thanks for the compliment. :) It was hand-illustrated, took me 8 hours or so... Glad you enjoyed it...

A little surprised by the disproportionately high votes on some of the entries. Seems a little odd to me, but what can you do I suppose. Maybe they just have a lot of friends or a DeviantArt account or something.

[besthijacker 5]

I don't exactly approve of the decision to let 'H' slide. To be honest I didn't mind as much till it became such a hugely voted for piece. I didn't think we were allowed to just take someone else's artwork, steal it, and add a Christmas tree to it then call it our own and be able to win. Especially for a competition where a lot of value in prizes is offered to the winners. I'm not saying I'm against competition, I'm all for a good competition but not if the people that are winning are cheating. My opinion? If you take away the work you stole, and you still have a structured piece that's of your own making that still makes sense on its own and the stolen work is just to support it, I'd let it slide. Granted I still think stealing is stealing. Taking official artwork and just painting a tree and a hat on it isn't an original piece that can stand on it's own and shouldn't be allowed to win a Christmas Card creating contest, and win prizes donated so generously by companies who wanted to inspire fan-made, original artwork in a fair fun competition.

 

Damn. I thought contests like this suppose to be all fun. But you seem to have personal vendetta against anyone and anything. I suggest you should take a chill pill and relax. If the people who created the contest AND later who voted for best 20 entries did not said anything, what is the issue here exactly? It could have been easily disqualified during intial voting but it wasn't. I suggest you should just move on with your life. 

 

Anyway, good to luck to whoever wins! And remember it's all about having F-U-N! Some people tend to forget that.

Edited December 24, 2013 by besthijacker

[Storm 426]

Besthijacker really hit the nail on the head. This isn't an "art contest". It's a fun contest that happens to involve artwork. If it were purely an art contest we would have a panel of critics judge every entry based on the merits of it's technique, style, execution, and all sorts of other fancy metrics while sitting around drinking wine and eating stinky cheeses.

 

If that were the case screenshots would be banned. anything that just photo shops together character models would be banned. That isn't the sort of contest we wanted to run. We did disqualify some entries that we were fairly certain were 100% stolen, and we passed on selecting many others that were just a screenshot with a few words added to them.

 

We do appreciate the amazing talent some people displayed in their work, and many of those were chosen as finalists. We also appreciate the humorous concepts some people came up with and we chose them based on the concept of their card rather than their flawless execution. I'm sorry that you feel some of them did not make enough changes to published work to be considered their own work, but we like them for what they were trying to do with the piece, not for the artistic ability they displayed while doing it.

[Enkor 18]

Come on, now…

 

Nobody can blame Besthijacker (funny name, under the circumstances…) for being chosen as one of the finalists… We can blame those who set some rules and were inconsistent in applying them (the very first entry also somewhat altered the orginal Blizzard artwork, and so did the one with the Sunwell poster – both were denied), but now that it’s done, it’s too late to go back on it. Lesson to be learned for the next contest.

 

I also can’t blame you for wanting to win, Hijacker! Good for you man, you did what you had to do and worse case scenario you’ll end up with second place… GG!

 

I wanted to win too, and I pestered my friends to vote for me, but I wasn’t that succesful in rallying votes… It doesn’t help that I’m currently unsubscribed, or I would have offered the TypeFrag subscription to some guild leader for 25 + votes, and possibly made a raffle with a pet or two, just so I could win everything else I only wanted the mounts anyway.

 

But, really… If you’re going to spend the whole day fishing for an impressive 60 votes (I’m not saying it’s bad… clearly it’s not against the rules to direct voters here, I’m 100% sure everyone who has more than 10 votes did it), don’t tell people who are disappointed because they worked really hard, showed some true talent (I’m not talking about myself, as proud as I am with my work; B did something amazing starting from a mere screenshot, G is also quite brilliant, L is simply an amazing drawing… not really a proper Christmas card, but it still deserved more votes… Q was more creative than it was given credit for... I almost forgot M, which is very cool and funny at only 14 votes...), and had higher expectations of the judging process, that “it’s just for fun”.

 

That’s so hypocritical and obnoxious! If it’s just for fun why did you struggle to get so many votes? Why not have fun watching some of the better entries win?

 

Fun is good and all, but winning is awesome! Again, you shouldn’t feel guilty for trying to win, period. But you can at least show some sportsmanship and respect to the other participants and NOT preach at them about "fun" and "moving on with your life" from your cozy vantage point of 80 votes… because being upset is also understandable! More so when somewhat justified. Instead, what do you do? You take away the prize AND spit on the losers because they are sore... Sorry, but that's horrible!

 

Storm, just… /facepalm

Edited December 24, 2013 by Enkor