Contest Week 74: Texture! closed for judging

In this contest you'll be using the tools available to you to mimic real-life textures and combining them onto unexpected surfaces. Think of it as a contest with a focus on technical skill, but also on originality with what textures you decide to put on what objects. Some examples of unexpected textures would be- A vase with with a texture of water sitting on a table with a texture of leather, or a cloud with a texture of brick above a mountain with a texture of steel.

Here's some sites I found with examples of textures-
http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/07/14/texture/
http://www.texturepacks.net/ (has a few free sample textures)
http://www.gomedia.us/arsenal/freestuff.php (the texture pack at the bottom is very nice and a free download)
http://textures.z7server.com/ (large collection of free texture images)
You can also easily look at the objects sitting around your desk to see how different textures look.

The rules:
-Your drawing must include at least 2 textures in it that look at least vaguely like whatever their real life counterpart is.

-These textures must be on an object that would not normally have them, as in the examples above.

-Contest Week 74 will be open for entries for roughly 2 weeks starting from now until Saturday, March 29, at 11:59pm PST. That's the end of the day on Saturday for people in the US.


CLICK HERE FOR WEEK 73 WINNERS

JUDGING CRITERIA:
Creativity: The amount of imagination, originality and expressiveness that was put into the entry.
Technique & Effort: The amount of style, skill and craft that was put into the entry.
Following the Theme: How well the entry followed the theme of the contest.

Winner
Due to the small turn out this time I'm only choosing one winner, which is-
1st Place: Sitting Area by QTgillie


***SHOWCASE ANNOUNCEMENT!***

After every 10 contests, one contest winner from the 10 winning entries will be put in the Showcase Gallery.

Sweetcell and Shanghai: I have an idea for your consideration.

Contest Ideas and Voting

Each time a contest is posted, members could leave contest ideas via comments on the forum post. These contest ideas would be listed on the 'next contest' post for voting. Members would vote for contest ideas via comment posts (just like contest ideas). The contest idea with the most votes would then be used for the next contest. Confused? It might be easier using contests A, B and C:

Starting with "contest A". Once "contest A" has completed, all the 'contest ideas' posted on "contest A" via comments would be listed on the next contest, "contest B". Members would vote on the contest ideas listed on "contest B" (from "contest A") via comments. Once "contest B" has completed, the 'contest idea' votes on "contest B" would be tallied. The contest idea with the most votes from "contest B" would be used for "contest C".

When voting: Each contest idea would have a corresponding number listed on the contest post. To vote for an idea, a member would need to post a comment with their vote listing the contest idea number or the contest name or both.

An example of how this would look on contest 75, with my additional descriptions in parenthesis(**):

Contest Week 75: Snake People

These next 2 weeks your goal is to draw.....(contest description here)

Contest Ideas for Week 76 (collected form week 74).:

1. Taco Bunnies
2. Robot Jello Landscapes
3. Nude Presidents

An example of a vote and contest idea left via comment by a member on Week 75:

Contest idea: Killer plants (voted for on week 76, used for week 77)
Contest vote: 2. Robot Jello Landscapes (vote for week 76)

I probably made this sound more complicated than it is but hopefully you get the idea. Would you be up for trying this system out? Let me know. Thanks.

I would be interested in seeing the length of the contest and the numbers of submissions per contest theme. With 75 contests, there's statistical significance for some interesting trends as to what types of contests are popular, and perhaps whether 1 or 2 week contests yield more drawings (per week). There also may be some overall trends as to time of year and how many drawings...

Marcello: I like my idea more, it's less statistical and more democratic. I think the contest mods need to accept the fact my idea is superior and praise me for coming up with it. Albeit, I didn't articulate the idea very well but if you get the gist of the system you can see why it's such an awesome idea and it will benefit everyone.

My idea wasn't meant as an alternative, but more a research curiosity.

lately sweetcell and I have noticed and discussed what seems to be a decline in participation, but I'll have to look through them and count first to know the numbers.

Marcello: I see. In that case, my idea should be priority. Statistics can be done anytime but my system needs to be implemented ASAP, lest we anger anymore members. I should have never left the contest board, behold the absolute chaos and hysteria that ensues in my absence. This whole situation displeases greatly.

*commits seppuku*

Well since there are some out there who feel they have better ideas than ours then I might be up for this........

Or those people can show me how Hari Cari works.

An extreme foreshortening contest in the future may also be another idea to consider :).

Having the members vote for contest ideas would be advisable, they would be accountable for any "lame contests" instead of the mods. Shanghai and Sweetcell would continue to judge the contests. Someone suggested the members come up with the contest ideas a while back but we had never taken the time to organize a system to do that until now. So, there it is.

I thought the whole problem was that lame contests might be unavoidable? Better to have it in the hands of a trusted few perhaps, but who has veto power in the case where no good ideas are presented (I know, this would never happen with the talented people here)? It's fine that accountability gets passed around, but can we somehow prevent lame contests from happening at all?

All in favor of democracy say "I"! All in favor of benevolent dictatorship say "Oh yeah"!

I think we need to give "the system" a try before debating whether it's better or not. We've got nothing to lose and possibly a great deal to gain. The fact so many of us want to be in control makes democracy a must if we're going to sustain some level of peace.

Ok, how about this, we have a seperate thread that's pinned and always stays on the front of the contest forum. That way people have easy access to give their ideas and not wait around for the next contest to present them. That also gives Shanghai and myself time to pick which contests to try. And any LAME contest ideas we just delete so the thread doesn't get overwhelmed. And of course Shang and I can still do our own ideas from time to time. But as for choosing, I still say that should be up to myself and Shang. But the more popular ones would of course be in the forefront.

Sweetcell: You've obviously missed the point of "the system" or you're choosing to ignore it. The point of this system is to give the members control of which contest ideas are to be used by voting from a list of their own ideas.

If the mods have contest ideas, they would add them to the voting list along with everyone else's. Primarily, your responsibility as a contest mod would be judging and moderating the contests (as it should be).

How about we do it Vegas style? I'll build a wheel and divide it like a pie in say... eight slices. Then we have a pinned thread for people to write in suggestions. I take the first eight, place one on each slice of the wheel and give it a spin. Whichever it lands on is the next contest. But know this up front, I refuse to nail tadpoles to the wheel except in a case of emergency.

Suring and you could draw beans picking tuna gardens in a neat blue tree crying onion! WHy not just make the next contest the first idea that comes up in the idea box that day. Suring there is screaming broken pineapple professors in wash stones.

Dan and Dave: Would you like to give the voting method a shot?

I'm not makin fun of ya Klox.. I just thought using the idea box would be an easy way to get topics. Your idea seems very sound and well designed

So far there's an extreme foreshortening contest that has been suggested. It's similar to the perspective contest from week 52, but it can be worked out to be different enough and it's been a long enough time.
I'll suggest a war contest theme too.

I have about a dozen half baked ideas at any given time but most of the time I can't remember half of them so that only leaves 6, and 3 of those have to do with ninja so that's apparently out too.

Dave: I didn't think you were makin' fun, I really just wanted to know if you think we should try the system. It would appear that you do, which is great.

Shanghai: As for repeat contest ideas, wouldn't voting take care of that? If the members want to have 2-3 similar contests in a row, that's what they'd get per the majority vote. They'll vote for what they want regardless if it's new or rehashed, no lose ends. When posting contest ideas, we could limit the members to one idea per contest (as well one vote).

This then begs the question, do we need polls on here to make things work smoothly? Obviously you can count by hand but it seems a bit tedious...

method3: Counting the votes wouldn't be your responsibility, you're in the clear. The voting system requires a little more effort from our contest mods, at least initially but once they get used to it, it shouldn't be a problem. I'm concerned with how voting would benefit this particular part of the contest board, whether we need voting/polls in other areas of the contest board (or this website for that matter), is yet to be seen. As I've said before, giving this system a solid trial would only benefit the members.

I'm all for letting people vote on ideas for the next contest, but I say here and now if a mod has an idea then there shouldn't be a vote since it is their contest they're judging. Let suggested contests be given a vote, but a mods own idea is a stand alone, as it's always been. That shouldn't change.

I'll add that if a mod can't come up with an idea then they ask for some. But again if they have their own, it's used.

That's ridiculous Swettcell. The whole point of voting is to eliminate discord amongst the members when "mods' come up with crappy ideas. You're a control freak and the idea of you not getting to say whats what pisses you off. Get over it. Clox's idea is sound and should be given a fair and solid try.

Axil: Exactly, you get the idea.

Sweetcell: All contest ideas would be voted on, regardless who came up with them, be it a mod or a member. That's the beauty of this system, the members control it (keeping in mind, mods are members too). Each member can suggest one contest idea per contest and vote once per contest.

I say we give it a trial run for 5 contests, and see how it works. We can decide whether to keep it, go back, or try something else entirely after that.

Awesome.

Well, I guesse I'll give up my Nazi-ish ways axil. You are the voice of reason, god almighty. I bow before you.

I REALLY wish there was a sarcasm emote.

(¬\¬)

... and then they all lived happily ever after.

Thanks so much for moving my drawing.

well isnt this just one big mess.
voting is defitnily a good idea, it would eliminate all this nonsense.
or maybe you guys could think of good ideas by yourself.

I remember asking either marcello or kolxboy if we could vote or if there was a collab contest as an idea and one of you said yes but that asnt right, some of the winning entries were collabs but no contests were.

Let's all draw pictures of Axil for the contest! Wouldn't that be fun??

examples:
Axil as a ninja
Axil as a pirate
Axil as the president
and the list goes on and on......

ok...or on a more serious note...
How about we pic a member to draw from the 'member pics' thread, and submit it for a contest idea?
The drawing could be done in the style of different types of artists:
PICASSO, MONET, or even CARTOONISH OR CARICATURE-ISH.....

the only 'rule of thumb' is that it be tastefully drawn.

That's my lil ole idea.

what if to submit a contest idea suggestion you have to draw something?

what, draw an example of your own idea before making it a suggestion, or a rule that only people who have actually drawn on this site (and not just made an account and maybe commented a few times) will have their suggestions added to the voting?

second on that active members get to vote thing