Bubbawheat

Those are amazingly adorable! You are awesome!

honestly the thing that bothers me more is when someone corrects a very minor spelling error when the meaning of the word is easily understood. The only time I ever correct myself in chat is when I make an error that could cause confusion over what I was actually trying to say.

Oh, and I almost forgot that I wanted to show the progress of the top 3 artists in a little thumbnail collage of all of their entries (not included Liz's extra pieces).

Liz


Christopher Robin


Darth Delicous

Well, it hasn't been a full year, but this year's F-Art battle has come to a close. There have been a lot of drama as usual and an unexpected end so instead of having a usual vote thread, I decided to use this time to make a post looking back at this year and refreshing our memories of some of the great art that came out of this.

For me, I've enjoyed coming up with the themes for each month, especially some of the more unique themes. I looked at this competition as a way to challenge the artists each month and have them stretch in ways they wouldn't always think of if they were just doing art for themselves. The downside was that while I wanted to include more people and include some extra bells and whistles with the points, following the rules to the letter became an issue. This was probably the biggest failing of this year's contest. But while the competition may have suffered, it did allow for two great artists to participate that wouldn't have been allowed to otherwise. And for me, that made it worth it.

And with every month-end post, I'd like to feature the art that was submitted for this month. Since there is no voting, I'm putting these in posting order as usual. This final month's theme was Ouroboros.

Darth Delicious


Liz


And not only that, but as a measure of good faith, Liz also went back and contributed for the months she wasn't a part of. I'll highlight those pieces along with the links to those months.

January's theme was fire, it was the first month of the battle and I decided to host it on a whim more or less so the first month's theme was picked due to my love for fire as seen with my many Burnt Matchstick characters. I may have selfishly picked this theme in the hope that I might get a free piece of art out of the battle, which I did get one. It was also the start of the controversy where I decided that I should be allowed to enter the battle myself as the pieces were voted on not by myself, but by the forum members. But I was the sole judge for determining elegibility which was questionable for my late, unfinished entry.

This month also included Henri's favorite entry - Inferno


Liz's make-up entry


View the rest of January's art here

February was another month with a fairly simple theme, I chose the theme ice as a compliment to January's theme of fire. I was also disappointed by the number of artists joining this year - it was the lowest amount of all the previous years. So I tried inviting other artists who were posting at the time. Most of them turned me down, but one took me up on that offer - Darth Delicious, who would end up sticking with it almost all the way to the end.

This month had Techbot Alpha's favorite piece.


And while I had decided to remove myself from the competition, this also had my favorite piece made for the contest.


Liz's make-up piece


View the rest of February's entries here

March was the first month with a twist to it - each piece had to include a secret message within it somewhere. I had hoped to include it as a game for the voters to play by guessing each secret message, but only a couple people participated and both of them were also artists. It was really amazing to see what kind of puzzles and tricks were used in all of the pieces.

This also included Airhead's favorite piece.


and Tartyrsause's favorite piece.


and also Defiance Jone's favorite piece, after it was finished.


Liz's make-up piece


View the rest of March's entries here

April's theme was another fairly straightforward theme, off-duty and included another example of my "bending" the rules where I allowed a couple entries after the deadline, though in this instance I don't recall anyone having any problems with that decision. But also this is where I allowed Liz into the contest who had been aware of the contest and had wanted to enter, but had forgotten about it. There were also several people who had to drop out of the contest at this point, and I was aware that Lousy Day would have to drop out soon as well. It may have been a bad decision, but I decided to favor art over rules.

View April's entries here

May's theme went back to another "gimmick" where I again wanted to involve the voting audience, who apparently just wanted to stick with voting as again I only received a couple entries and again they were both from artists. The theme was "anonymous" and I left the artist's names off of the entries for voting and they also had to incorporate the abstract theme of "anonymous" into their piece. This could have also been a more controversial decision when I allowed Lady Judgement to enter with the intent that he would continue, but he decided rightly so to just stick with this single entry which I now think was for the best, especially if the guessing contest had taken off as his entry would have been a surprise wildcard.

View May's entries here

June's theme was back to a standard theme and the start of the eliminations portion of the battle. I chose the theme Tarot and was glad I did because for me, it was my favorite month of this battle.

This month had Liz's favorite piece with her additional in-game style Tarot cards.


View the rest of June's entries here

July's theme was another great month with a special prize - a trailer by Samuraiko for the winning movie poster combined with a description of said trailer. This was yet another month with some controversy. This was the closest month ever for voting and with the combination of an Early Bird point and a single disqualified vote made for a bit of drama and ended in the withdrawal of Battlewraith.

This month had Darth Delicious's favorite piece.


View the rest of July's entries here.

August's theme was another fairly simple theme inspired by the signature story arcs that have just started their release recently. Some great speculation in the entries and we'll eventually see if any of them came close.

View August's entries here.

Again, I'd like to thank everyone for their support throughout this contest and while it was stressful at times, I did enjoy running it. I'd like to end with a couple questions.

What do you think was the best theme? What was the worst? Did you have an overall favorite piece? Was there any specific part that I did differently with this contest that I got "right"?

I think I'll stick with Buffy season 9.

What probably happened with the LFG is that he selected "First Available Trial" which includes the incarnate trials, and all of them would be unable to be joined, hence the error message. But he should be able to select the Death From Below specifically it should work.

Also, I might have mentioned it before, and I hope it gets run next year, but I have no plans on running the F-Art contest next year. I'll stick with my other too-many contests.

Wow, that's really nice Liz. Great show.

For the Death from below trial especially, more people should use and explain how to use the LFG queue when forming, that way you form one, and more will form from the LFG. Let it actually be used. And I've had good experiences using the LFG queue for the sewer trial several times now.

*spoiler**spoiler**spoiler**spoiler**spoiler**spoi ler**spoiler**spoiler**spoiler**spoiler*
From an Interview with Brian Clayton on ZAM:When the dust has settled, one of the Freedom Phalanx will be dead.
And by dead, we mean they’re gone from the game. We’re going in and taking them out from missions and zones. There will be a major ripple effect that’ll affect the world once the death occurs. Even if you don’t play the Signature Story Arcs, you’ll still experience the repercussions.
Note from @Positron_CoH: Remember whos the target of the interview. Surviving 8 (not a sexy name) vs Freedom Phalanx (something all our players know).

According to this - some speculation may be correct. BaBs and Sister Psyche are in the new tutorial. Manticore is prominently featured in the new ongoing training missions - you even go to his mansion. Then again... BaBs or Sister Psyche would be pretty easy to swap out for someone else, Manticore - much less so.

More speculation!

By extreme reasoning, you would have won in July with your City of Monkeys poster. If you had been planning to do this for a while, it would have been nice to say this at the beginning of the month instead of waiting until the end of the month when Liz's entry is finished or near-finished.

We have clashed many many times during this contest and it's been very clear that our methodologies about this contest do not match at all. I'm not saying that I'm 100% right in all my decisions, heck I'm quite possibly not even 50% right, but it brought us to this point. Throughout this year I got to see a lot of great art, I got to see a lot of great artists grow and stretch their talents, and for that alone I consider this year's F-Art contest to be a success.

Oooh, nice. I really like the shoulder piece and plaque in the background. Her eyes and goggles both seem a little askew - either tilted or their perspective is off.

Really the best way for them to change the system is to make every player's rate equal in a lower quantity situation. Some may think this is the case using an average, but it actually isn't when dealing with small numbers. The best way which I've said before and will say again is to use a like/dislike system, or even just a "like" system.

If I could enter myself, I'd put my money on Synapse. I think Steel/Skyway is in need of the next revamp and between Posi and Synapse, you tell me whose TF is better...