Tev's Great Big Contest is over, but she'd love your feedback! Snubear! I finally finished your picture!

@Everyone - Merry Christmas!

~Skye

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.

I'll try to make it next time then! =P

>if you could change something
More dinosaurs.

If anything, get a more organized thing than a forums post with info all over the place.
A wiki page could work I guess.

What part of the forum posts did you find disorganized or difficult to understand? Was it the length of each post that made reading a chore or was it not arranged satisfactorily?

I thought the forum posting was perfectly coherent..........

Could it be like not so close to finals week next time? I had so much studying to catch up on I barely had a chance to attend.

Yes, the posting was perfectly coherent in my opinion as well. All the information was there in order, and with appropriate headings.

And @Twerpsy: the contest officially ran from September 1st to November 30th. I don't know about you, but my finals were mostly the second week of December. So it was really only close to finals week if you were doing a last-minute entry. The thread was also launched on August 1st, to give prior time to start/think about entries...

I meant specifically the ceremony. Sorry 'bout that.

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

I do have a little suggestion, but it is about the competition itself, not the ceremony. If this isn't what you want to hear, I'm sorry enough to be kicked into the SL forever until I shredded myself to pieces ._.

I notice that the categories have something missing, maybe a category which means "Best Overall". I believe there are people here who are exceptionally good and deserves a huge award like this.

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.

You can separate them, like "Best Overall Visual Art" and "Best Overall Fiction". Fair and square :)

Merry Christmas!

This will NOT get put into the ground. KEEP THIS ALIVVVVEEEE!!!

On a second note, do you think you'll have another one next year?

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.

My main issues with the organization was the posts were too long and hard to navigate. I read a lot of stuff until I found what I was looking for.
A wiki post for example let's you jump to different subtitles from the main table. Also it allows for many titles sizes so sections can be easier to read.
Also the main competition explanation was kind of really long and complicated. While it was probably needed to make everything clear, it could have used a short version for participants that was like "choose A category, choose 3 prices from the A pool, don't break rules". Currently categories are some paragraphs apart from the prizes, and from the rules too. Also have the list of categories and prices using spoiler tags for the definition of each thing, So the list is easy to look at and you can check extra info if needed only.
Also I never payed much attention to any of the updates or weekly games and stuff because it was kind of a chore to keep track of them.

Dunno if anyone felt the same, but if you look at the first page, there's really a lot of text with nothing separating it but a few bolded titles.

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.

http://rockjelliesandothercuriosities.tumblr.com/image/36795665104

So when I saw the art you made for Edyth, I thought, "I've gotta get me one of those!"

Now I know you probably have a backlog of commisions from the contest, but could I get one myself after the rest are finished? And how much would one in the same style as Edyth's be? I'll send the app later if you agree. =P

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 may or may not ditch one of these if the price is too much. =P

Personal color: light, light blue (cyan), Cheeky eyes
Armor: Skolver with Divine Valkyrie Wings, and divine bomb bandolier
Helm: Chapeu of the White Rose with divine pipe
Weapon: Voltedge
No monsters
As for pose, how about just leaning against a random wall in haven casually holding my sword out in a playful way. Ya know, Cheeky!

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

Weeeeell, apparently I thought I had more ce than I really did when I first posted...So unfortunately I'm gonna have to cancel this commision. =/

But perhaps in the future.... ;)

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

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

When will you stream again?

Hopefully next Tuesday, I'll start up again.

I'll post here when I do, because I'll be picking up wherever I'm at on Mawa's prize picture (unless, somehow, I've gotten very ambitious and energetic and finished it by then).

I haven't heard from anyone else on their art yet (although I know at least two of them are still pondering what they'd like), so hopefully by the time I finish this one, someone will have decided. Soon I'll send out reminders.

Hi everyone, happy holidays! I got back from vacation not too long ago so I've missed out on quite a bit, heh. Congratulations to everyone who won stuff, i.e. everyone! C:

For the piece of artwork that I won, could you draw a coloured picture of Moomay and myself in the sleeping pose (not necessarily replicating that last picture exactly). I don't have many specific guidelines, but I'd like it if you noted a few things:
1) Do include our vertical vents! We are the Sleepy Kats after all~
2) If you could draw a couple of the sleep Zs, that would be great!
3) I'm not fussy about the background, as long as it's soft and isn't too distracting.
4) You can leave us weaponless.
5) The two knights should preferably be side by side, facing forward but slightly angled toward each other. Haha so maybe I am fussy :P

But yeah, do let me know if you can do that, and thanks again! :)

(side profiles of the knights here and here.

You got it! I'm doing them in the order that I receive the requests, so I'm working on Mawa's right now, then I have Arkapha's, and then I'll do yours. ^.^

Thanks Tev ^^ no rush at all!

I'm back! And after 20 minutes of reading forum posts... If you could do the contest differently... hmmm.... >___<" ........ maybe..... Well, I sort of agree with the others about having a wiki page, it's not necessarily needed, but I'm sure some people would find it much easier to navigate with a wiki page, but the forum posts were fine by me (and if you don't want to make a wiki page, you could always just create a new forum thread and organize it like a wiki page using the post links for navigation, considering this thread is quite old, but has sentimental value) and I strongly agree with your planned changes. maybe for the themed contests, you could (if you haven't already planned to) add a Best Theme category, I don't know.. wait that's common knowledge.. well um, not sure, your contest was run pretty well, but there were some hitches, especially during the ceremony XD Maybe if someone plans on joining the contest, they must confirm it with you, so that maybe you can have a white-list, or maybe anyone who has submitted an entry has priority to entering, and spectators are not priority? Something like that, as well as a very essential part; a system to make sure everyone listens to you, like, I know you most likely don't want to evict anyone from the ceremony, but if they cause too much of a disturbance... Then again, it's hard to keep track of this thing, and with you lagging out and all... I'll think of moar later, I think this wall of text is good for now... :3

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.

I thought for a full three weeks.

I couldn't think of a single thing I might improve about the contest. So there you go.

Making updates via audio or video might be interesting, but that's just me and my audio/visual media hype.

But that what we have you for.

Hey, I'd be glad to do audio/video updates next year! :D

Unless you feel like our podcast 'updates' were adequate (I don't feel like they were).

Dammit I could have wiped the floor in the Spiral Spy category (and probably just lost any chance at a sportsmanship award), stupid 8 months absence...

"Dammit I could have wiped the floor in the Spiral Spy category"

He's not being cocky. I'm pretty sure he totally could.

hay >: c
I take offense to that
u wanna fight about it?
Nah, kidding. I still recognize you as my better. Although I might challenge you to an honor duel* in the future.
*HONOR DUEL RULES:
1. There are no rules
2. NO AA

Well, I'm running another one this summer, so you'll have a chance to enter then, if you like. ^.^

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

Hope you like it - I spent an hour or so trying to put an actual background on there this morning, but between the aura glow and the lettering scroll, it was too busy and looked like rubbish. If you would rather have an actual background, let me know and I'll scrap the scroll to do something different with the text. If you like it, I'll go ahead and mail you the high-res version.

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Started work on Arkalpha's today ... have the figure sketched out except for a few details and wanting to move the position of one of the legs slightly, so will get to work on that some more tomorrow if Mawa's doesn't need any more changes.

Spiral Spy's category is doomed.

Not if I can do anything about it!
(implying i can, which probably isn't the case)

Wow, Mawa's piece looks great, Tev!

It's amazing, Tevokkia, far beyond what I envisioned or hoped for. And watching you work on it via Livestream wa also a special treat in itself. Your "prize" so far exceeds the contest entry fiction pieces I wrote that I'm embarrased. I'm excitedly awaiting the high-res version in my email.

I'm so happy our guild had the honor of hosting your awards event. I hope I'll have a chance to be of some service to you again in the future.

@Vi - Thanks hon!

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

This thread has earned a Purple Spiral Artifact, making it one of three threads (or less).

Your argument is now invalid.

(Who am I talking to? o.O)

Hail teh purple!

I made that protrait my desktop background. I've never had an image there that I've loved so much or looked at for so long. Thanks again.

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