September F-Art battle - the finale!

August's theme is Oroborous

The end is the beginning is the end. For the finale the theme is Oroborous - the place, the menders, the past, the future, whatever you see fit for it.


Rules


All types of visual art are acceptable for this month's theme. Screenshot manipulations, sketches, graphic design, etc. So long as they incorporate this month's theme into the work.

1. Use City of Heroes/Villains Characters- This is, afterall, a CoX Fan Art competition, so I expect you guys to keep that in mind. If there's nothing relating to City of Heroes/Villains in your entry, you will be disqualified.

2. Keep It PG-13- All entries this month must be postable to these boards without a 2 click.

3. Deadlines- All entries MUST be submitted to this thread by Friday September 30th by Midnight Eastern US time. Voting will begin by Saturday October 1st, held here on the CoH boards. The pieces that I put up for a vote have been personally verified by me, so if you disagree with their qualifications, please take it up with me rather than the artists.

4. Prizes- The overall winner of the year will be determined this month and receive 100 million inf. Thanks to Draggynn and Amerikatt for their donations to the prize fund.

Bubba is just trying to give you the time you need to do your best work.

Sorry, no more Amirkatt Arts til the tubby tabby regains her fighting form!

Deadline is next Friday, try not to wait until the last minute!

Okay okay... I'm not in the finale... but here's my entry anyway! *giggles*

CoH Fan-Art Sale still several slots open!

Read my in-game stories and check out my DeviantART page.
- coXso - It was a memorable time filled with art!

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.

Thanks Bubba! Yeah, I'm not at total peace with the goggles either, but after a long battle I gave up and left it like this .

CoH Fan-Art Sale still several slots open!

Read my in-game stories and check out my DeviantART page.
- coXso - It was a memorable time filled with art!

hmm.. you know what.. I'm gonna try and fix that goggle issue... it bothers me! *blushes*

CoH Fan-Art Sale still several slots open!

Read my in-game stories and check out my DeviantART page.
- coXso - It was a memorable time filled with art!

TLDR for you? Just read up until the -------------- line. Those wanting to know my reasoning read on to the end.

You know last year I went along with what other people wanted (going through a "Bayani bonus round" for cash after I had already won the main contest under Wassy) instead of standing up for what I thought was right and in the end I caught an unbelievable amount of flak, both public and private, for playing along. I was called a quitter, coward, cheater and more and I was so disappointed with how it was handled and the resulting reactions that I briefly considered leaving the forums altogether. Now I find the sacrifice I made in giving people what they asked for has been by and large forgotten and several I've spoken to a year later only remember (incorrectly) the end result.

This year (sadly) I find myself in a very similar position at the end with a controversial decision to make but this time I am choosing to not just allow what others want and do what I feel is the right thing. Up until now I was waiting and hoping the others involved would step up and make the right decision themselves or that through votes, drops or some other mechanism it would work itself out so I wouldn't be saddled with this unfair choice again. Doesn't look like it.

What I am saying here is with DD's exit (due to votes) from the contest last month I am the last remaining valid contestant and so the art contest is ended.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

What do I mean by valid?
I started at the beginning and had my first entry submitted before the 31st of January and submitted 8 consecutive pieces, one per month, each before the respective deadline. Liz did not.

What do I mean by unfair?
Well let's say I skipped the first 7 months and put up just 1 piece at the end of August but it got the most votes and I won the whole contest... would that be fair to all the other artists who were in and competing from the start? Of course not.

Well, what if instead I had jumped in back in June (hey that's when eliminations began right?) and submitted only 3 pieces at the end to win the whole contest versus 8 from my competition... would that be cool as long as I had Bubba's approval? I think most fair-minded people would still say no, having to submit only 3 entries vs. the other having to come up with 8 is not fair.

So at what point (if ever) is it fair to join a contest late?

Putting aside what I think for the moment (that January 31st has always been the deadline for entry) if the host is going to bend his/her own rules to get more contestants in then I say you have to at some point draw a hard line and say anything before this is in and anything after this is out and then you have to stick to it no matter what you may want to have happen or who may ask you to join.
Bubba did exactly that and drew the line in March when he declared in his list of rules...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bubbawheat 6. This is the last month for open submissions.

Liz failed to post until mid way through April, sorry but that misses the original cutoff by almost 3 months, the new cutoff by 2 and the new new final cutoff by 2 weeks. I think (me speculating here) Bubba was just happy to have more artists join and Liz was happy to be in and neither gave much thought to if what they were doing was fair to the rest involved.

LJ if people remember joined even later than Liz (in May) but I think (after speaking with him) that he realized the possible ramifications of coming in so late and politely bowed out in June with "apologies to the other contestants for intruding." I have much respect to Bobby for doing the fair thing. Were I to submit any art now I would be giving my tacit approval to this unfair extra month (yet again).

I don't.

Apologies to those who wanted to see more art, for them I did revive the Art Jam to carry us (hopefully) through the end of the year.

P.S. To be absolutely clear I am not bowing out or throwing in the towel (or whatever some may try to spin it as),
I am saying DD and I were the only two legit contestants last month and with her out I am
the last artist remaining and this time I'm taking a stand on principle.
It may not be popular but it's the right thing to do.

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

*huggles* CR. I see your point!
I remember Bubba asking around if it was okay if Liz joined... at the time it seemed like a good idea, because basically we were losing a lot of participants. But indeed it was not fair for the participants that actually started at the beginning.
No hard feelings towards Liz though, or to anyone, really.

I suppose... it would be wise to stick with the rules from now on. *nods*

You had a good run CR! Thank you for your great arts (sure.. even the stickmonkey *giggles*) in this battle. I sure hope to see you in the race again next year!
Till then... Monthly Art Jam it is! *cheers*

Oh, I almost forgot.. I put up my Ouroboros piece again... been fooling around with it for several hours, trying to fix the silly goggles..but got so frustrated that I again gave up on it. I have more arts to make, so I'll concentrate on that now
Oh..and it's is NOT and entry for the F-Art battle! Only to show what I came up with! -just saying-

*waves*

CoH Fan-Art Sale still several slots open!

Read my in-game stories and check out my DeviantART page.
- coXso - It was a memorable time filled with art!

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.

@DD: *Hugz*
Thanks for understanding.

I agree no hard feelings.
That would be wise going forward.
You had a great run too (lol stickmonkey ).


@Bubba: I agree, from an artistic standpoint, this years contest was a great success,
speaking personally most of my best pieces for the year came about as a result of this contest.

Thanks for hosting it.

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS


What up, *******? I'm gonna art the heck outta you all. This **** be on, son!


A WINNER IS ME.

Wow. I am so glad I dropped out early. It would've been nauseating to sink time into another piece and then have something like this happen.

Shame on you Chris. If you were going to pull this nonsense, you should have done it at the start of the month. If you had a huge objection to Liz' participation, you should have raised those objections when she started.

I remember what happened last year--it was basically the same deal as now. As the result of a poorly designed ruleset, you got ahead based on a technicality and decided to declare yourself the winner. You declared yourself the winner of an art contest--WITHOUT SUBMITTING ART TO ACTUALLY BEAT THE REMAINING OPPONENT. Yes people gave you a lot of flack over it. It ran against the spirit of the whole competition. Why on earth would anyone want to win something like that?

Sad sad sad.

Bah.

I have to agree with the sentiment that if this was indeed the stand you were going to take, you should have taken it much earlier than now. As much as I hate seeing people drop out, sometime that is the right way to make a stance upon principle. If you felt so strongly people shouldn't have been allowed to enter after X point then, once they were allowed after that point, you should have dropped... I'm of the general opinion that continued participation is, if not approval, then at least acceptance of the situation. To accept it up until now it seems contradictory to suddenly take the stance...

And while I can at least see the "I hoped things would work out for the best" I don't think it's a legitimate excuse. And even IF that was an acceptable excuse, it would have only been so up until the end of last month's contest. To wait until now... To wait until Liz has put who knows how many hours of work into a piece for the competition... It is just wrong.



Ah well. Say la V. (yeah, too tired to even waste a moment trying to think of how to spell that so *shrug*)



Anyway, Bubba... If you are running again next year I hope you learned a lot from this year and apply it wisely. And if you are doing it next year, or passing it off to someone else, many thanks for doing it this year. It was not a flawless run but you put in a lot of time and effort and I hope you know it was appreciated.

Um.

Kudos to DD for a brilliant submission! If I had a little spare time I'd try too, but you actually made time which is wonderful, for everyone watching.

Kudos to Liz, if only because I'd still love to see what might have been in the works this month. Loads of talent and humour. You're a phenomenal artist.

Kudos to Bubbawheat, you've done so much to inject spice into this event, to keep it rolling along, and to weather the arrows of incontinence that your ground-breaking efforts encountered. Your efforts are purely voluntary, and extremely generous. From the Mission Architect threads to this one, you have always been a huge contributor to forum life, and I hope that you continue to enjoy doing that, so that we may enjoy too.

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I don't believe I can respond civilly to this right now.

I am glad I waited until I finished my piece to check the boards.

I think others have stated how I feel with considerably more tact than I can muster at this time. I will be posting my image some time tomorrow.

Thanks airhead!

Indeed kudos for both Bubba and Liz!
Can't wait to see what you came up with Liz! *bounces eagerly*

Thank you Bubba for the host, the great themes and the making of the Early Bird system! *cheers*

Personally, I learned a lot and I sure will be tuning in.. and hopefully joining in the next battle!

CoH Fan-Art Sale still several slots open!

Read my in-game stories and check out my DeviantART page.
- coXso - It was a memorable time filled with art!

What, I don't get no kudos?

Your faces are going to be arted right the heck off.

Some thoughts on maintaining structural integrity for this sort of contest:

1) Keep the submissions private until judged. People will drop out solely on the basis of comapring their idea(s) to others' already-presented work. No submissions should be visible to other contestants until the judging is complete.

2) Set a standard that no contest will be judged any earlier than (for example) 14 days after the 5th sumbission is received. Obviously, you may want to modify both numbers for various reasons, but make them a permanent standard thereafter. This will give you a decent, attainable pool to judge from, and you just need to make sure that, once the minumum number of entries is reached, the closing date is announced and remains unchanged thereafter.

Just some brainstorming I thought I'd throw out there.

Thanks for your thoughts Bloodspeaker!

The main reason why participants enter their submission at the last possible time...minutes...and seconds even, is to prevent other participants to see what they've come up with and therefor not giving them a change to work even harder to try and top it.

So keeping the entries from the public untill the deadline (which imo should be set at the start of the contest), would be an excellent suggestion. *nods* And to keep in a fair shot at the Early Bird Vote, the host should probably mention it on the boards when a participant (and name him/her too) has entered their work already, so the public can see the host is being fair. (unfortunately there are people who really don't trust anyone untill proven otherwise, so to rule out any accuses to the host..this should work).

The judgement of a piece can be done by the host as soon as a piece was send to him and if it's not according to the rules the host can PM the participant about it. That would also prevent a host putting up his opinion on the boards (even if it's not their intention), which can set the tone to a piece for the voters.

When the deadline is done, the host can post the pieces... and maybe even keep out the participant's name, which might result in people actually voting for the artpiece instead of on the artist (if such thing has happend, anyway).
I'm just keeping options open, really.

So yeah..that's my input for today

CoH Fan-Art Sale still several slots open!

Read my in-game stories and check out my DeviantART page.
- coXso - It was a memorable time filled with art!