Ive noticed the programmers around here get all the contests, would it be possible to do a visual arts contest. Would anyone be interested?

The staff/mods generally support contests, but they want to see rules and objective judging criteria written up beforehand so there aren't accusations of bias and unfairness. If you write up a good topic and rules for the contest there's a piece of paperwork you can submit to ask the staff to supply a prize, such as an amazon.com gift certificate.

I can't remember the last semi-official contest for our thriving artists. The occasional photoshop 'contest' crops up, which are usually farily sad [grin], but the dollar bill one was fun. I don't think anyone won, even though I thought my Linux dollar was pretty sweet...

I agree that this would be fun (woo!), but I'm curious how in-depth of a contest you're thinking of.

Well, I was thinking 3d, not 2d.

So then, a poll.

what timeframe would you prefer:
a.) 1 month long
b.) 1 - 2 week long
c.) 1 day
d.) 3 hours (ala captain midnights 3 hours competition)

what type of entries:
a.) single 3d model, textured, low poly
b.) single 3d model, textured, high poly
c.) single 3d model, non-textured, low poly
d.) single 3d model, non-textured, high poly
e.) scene modeling*, textured, low poly
f.) scene modeling*, textured, high poly
g.) scene modeling*, non-textured, low poly
h.) scene modeling*, non-textured, high poly
* Scene modeling suggests characters interacting with an environment

what type of contest:
a.) we give you an open theme, you go to work (examples: bad deeds, triumph)
b.) we give you a restrictive theme (examples: the hero character, a bad guy)
c.) we give you no theme, you produce the best possible work in the time frame

what type of software:
a.) Standardized (we tell you what programs are in and what arn't)
b.) open (anything)

so then, thats the 'poll'. Anyone who wishes to comment feel free. If you would like to see a contest speak up as well because its only worth doing if there is enough interest.

Wow. I wouldn't enter at all (I don't care to do 3D work unless for a game contest [grin]), and I imagine others would require some sort of great prize.

I'd suggest picking a good theme though, so that people don't simply submit old work unconstrained by the time limits.

My vote goes to a poly-limited custom character w/ texture (so choice a))

well, im guessing that Avatar God is correct when he says that there just isn't the motivation on this board for a long contest. Visual arts just isn't its strong suit I guess.

So how about this, a one week character contest under a simple theme like monster, scifi, robot or pirate ninga. Best wins. Id really like to see a contest for visual arts, to see what the people that post here are capable of.

anyways, thats all. There hasn't been much interest so if there arn't at least 10 - 20 people that want to do it in the next 3 or 4 days then theres really no point.

please, speak up if your interested, if not speak up and say why.

-slowpid

I'm very interested in running some more artist-friendly contests (though to be fair, 4E4 made of point of encouraging people to band together and focus on content instead of coding everything from scratch).

The difficulty is in objective judging criteria, as sunandshadow noted. If you have some ideas about how to achieve that, please drop me a PM.

What about some sort of mod? Where some programmer creates an litle demo
and the contest is to create cool models for it?

let me ask this:

if I donate a decent prize, say over 100 dollars, who would be interested?