Hi everyone! Hope your holiday season is going well. ^.^

I have a question for you all: if you could change something (or things) about how this contest was run, what would you change?

I'm hoping to be able to make this a yearly thing, and it would nice to get some feedback about the first one to see how things could perhaps go a bit more smoothly.

A few things I already plan on changing:

*The time of year. I'm going to shoot for starting either June or July next time so that most participants can have their vacation time to work on their entries and I can finish the post-contest wrap-up (video editing, critiques and artwork prizes) much faster without being bogged down by irl holiday business.

*The location of the award ceremony. By that time, my own guild hall should be in a presentable state to hold the ceremony itself. It won't be as lovely as Lionheart's was, but it will hopefully make us more likely to be able to hold all of the participants who are able to come, as guild members won't be in the hall trying to use it and we won't be interrupting anyone's normal business.

There will probably also be a few changes to the categories (and later contests will probably have a theme of some sort), but I haven't settled on what yet.

As I said, I'm planning on doing it earlier next year, so that the contest either runs June-August or July-September.

Thanks for the feedback! I know a lot of people would like to see something like that, but it's really hard to judge art against fiction. ^.^; That's why it didn't appear this time, but if I think of a good way to do it, I'll consider it for next year.

Merry Christmas!

No intentions to graveyard this, as I'll be doing some art delivery and critique starting later this week and am still collecting feedback.

I do plan on making this a yearly thing, with some changes, and that's why I'm asking people to drop in with some feedback on what they'd like to see done differently. I actually learned a lot from doing this first contest, so hopefully later ones will go a bit more smoothly.

Thanks for the more detailed feedback!

While I'd like to still keep all the info in the thread, I'll try to think of an easier way to organize everything with less reading of things you're not looking for. I'm sure there are some HTML tags that I'm underutilizing.

I do have quite a few to do, although not everyone had decided what they want yet. I'm going to do Mawa's first, since she was the first to let me know what she wanted, but I may be able to sneak you in at some point if I finish what I have to do and whoever else is left hasn't made an order yet.

As far as pricing goes, a picture in that style would be 5k-6k CE per knight, depending on complexity of the armor, pose, accessories, etc, and assuming no background or monsters are needed. (i.e. A picture of your knight chilling in a relaxed pose with a Flourish resting in one hand and wearing a Magic Hood and Cloak is going to be considerably cheaper than a picture of your knight holding a Divine Avenger above his head while pointing at the camera and doing a crazy wuxia kick wearing Azure Guardian Armor with wings and a cat tail, nd an Ice Queen Helm. Not that I would necessarily recommend that second option, as it would be a little ugly and I would be annoyed with you. XD) The prices of backgrounds or monsters are negotiable, as some monsters are easier or more enjoyable to draw that others.

I'd probably say 5200CE for that. Let me know if you're still interested and I'll add you to my work list.

Alright then. ^.^ Just let me know if you want to pick it back up again later.

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm certainly not recycling this thread for the next one; that would be silly. XD I already have an idea as to how I'm going to better organize it to make everything easier to find, so hopefully that will work out better.

The problem with having a whitelist or potentially evicting people from the award ceremony is that there is essentially no way in-game to enforce it; either a guild hall is open or it isn't ... there is no "invitation only" setting. Thus far, there's no way to boot someone you don't want from a guild hall, so the only way to get someone to leave is to either ask them to do so and hope they comply or close the guild hall and boot EVERYONE out (which would be counterproductive). I'm hoping I can find a way to run it more smoothly next year, but with the system as it is now it's primarily going to depend on how cooperative everyone feels like being.

* * * * *

Unrelated to Hexlash's post, I'll be Livestreaming tonight starting around 9pm GMT -5. (Re)starting Mawa's prize picture (which I likely won't quite finish today) and will go from there throughout the next week or two trying to get everyone finished. So far, I have four requests in, so as I near the finishing point on those I'll send out reminders to those I haven't heard from yet. By the time I'm finished with those, I should be able to quietly let this thread sink into the depths of the forum and start a new one for fundraising for the next contest. XD (i.e. I'm totally not giving myself a break, here).

EDIT: Starting the livestream early (aka right now) for lack of better things to do.

EDIT (a day later): Oh look, I'm Livestreaming again. I'm even turning on my microphone.

Still Livestreaming Mawashimono's prize picture ... already clocked 17 hours just of LS time on it (and have worked on it when not streaming). Only half done. This is why I don't do Knight lineless painting commissions often. XD

Join me here: http://www.livestream.com/tevokkia

Edit: Okay, at it again. XD

@Vi - Thanks hon!

@Mawa - So glad you like it! I just sent the high-res copy to the email you sent the reference from.

I'm so glad to hear that you like it that much, Mawa. ^.^

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I'll be getting to serious work on Ark's on Sunday. :D