Sta.sh
The semi-finalist judges checked out all of the epic and beautiful Scouts, Warriors, and Sorcerers you designed for the Fantasy Earth Zero "Create A Character" contest and were completely blown away. The skills and creativity that were busted out for this contest were truly impressive. Though it was tough, they had to pick just 25 semi-finalists from all of the great entries submitted. From the 25 semi-finalists below, the final three winners will be selected by a panel of three judges drawn from the Creative and Production staff at Gamepot!
Check out below which amazing submissions cast a level 5 charm spell on us.
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Check out below which amazing submissions cast a level 5 charm spell on us.
Read Official RulesRead Contest ArticleBrowse Entries :thumb168057494:
What makes these comments a bit discerning to me is that there's some kind of stigma against any medium at all. When it comes to things that judge the final product, it rarely matters how the journey was made. Good traditional art is good art, good digital art is good art. I still see
So it's not that these contests look for the medium and bar certain entries for that. Not at all. I can't say by what criteria they really use to choose their top entries, but "medium used" certainly isn't one of them. Overall, if you want to really see traditional works have a presence in these contests, you're going to have to be part of that movement. You'll have to be much more objective about artwork in general and really step up the game, like everyone else serious about this stuff does. This is really speaking out in general (so don't take offense to this, but I've seen it a lot), but an amateurishly-rendered colored pencil drawing isn't going to be able to stand up against a well-done digital painting. There are no brownie points for "you drew this by hand"(another misconception, digital art is also drawn "by hand," it's simply not tangible before printing). Same goes for digital work, though, a shoddy digital work is going to lose out to a competent acrylic piece.
I know that digital art is drawn by hand too but it just seems (to me) that it's the "new" way of drawing. I've been wanting to do digital art too but I just don't have to patience, materials/updated programs, or a steady hand at it so I don't take part in it unless it's Photoshop with photography. So I've been with hands-on-paper kind of drawer.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, is that this is from jealousy mixed with anger. I didn't mean to make anyone uncomfortable or uneasy with my comment a few weeks ago. I think it was just from jealousy and anger. I apologize for being rude and for offending anyone of anything I said.
Another point to bring in is the cost of materials. When entering a contest like this, there's absolutely no guarantee of getting anything in return. In the art industry, you're generally paid for your work. Especially when it's good work. I'd save the oils for personal pieces or larger commissions myself. Of course contests like this are meant to be for fun, and the prospect of selling the original painting is probably enough reward, even if it goes unnoticed in the end. I can't really imagine people who are really that good with traditional artwork to use their time on a contest like this, especially when it could be used with guaranteed paid work that yields an original piece that can be sold at IlluxCon, for example.
Because of the ease of access of digital art, traditional artists (especially online) seem like a minority. Of course, I'd say there's an even ratio of good digital and traditional artists, perhaps more on the traditional side; especially because a good understanding of how to work with digital work stems from traditional fundamentals and experience. Jesper Ejsing tried out the digital medium recently for the first time and yielded successful results that blow so many out of the water because of his extensive experience with traditional painting. Todd Lockwood made the transition into digital painting years ago, but can only stand as a pillar because of all the work he put into his oils. And of course Todd still returns to the physical canvas once in a while. There's also a huge amount of people who work in mixed mediums, combining traditional and digital. Darren Yeow often starts his renders in pencil. I know I do as well, though I'm far from the levels of these great artists.
What boils down in my my mind is the notion that digital work seems "unfair" to so many people on this site. Of course, one of the biggest goals of digital painting is to emulate the feel of digital painting, and there is just no way to compare to the beauty of an oil painting in person. If there was no digital medium at all, I wonder if the colored pencil deviants would complain that the oil painting deviants were unfair in their use of medium? Overall, they're all just different arrows in the same quiver. Any of them can hit a bull's eye, it just takes a good archer.
That's true too when it comes to contests. I personally don't really enter because I feel as though I don't have the ability to compete against all of the entries and other artists competing and that my luck with contests are very low. It's every once in a great while do I get selected into a contest and win something. And I agree with the costs of materials. Its sucks lol but I've leaned my artworks towards commission..or at least try to (with no luck). Sometimes I enter contests because of boredom and I think it will be fun to do in my free time.
Every once in awhile when I get the chance I mix my mediums but I usually do one medium majority of the time. There have been a couple of pieces I've done that are Prisma colored pencils/markers and watercolors. That's about all I can really do and the only reason really I go on Photoshop with my drawings is to edit them
I think there will still be some quarreling between artists if digital art didn't exist honestly. Me, I would be more of jealousy than unfair. But that's why I try to learn off of some of these artists on here as references and see how they made the painting or drawing. But there will always be that jealousy that will be at the back of my mind. And like I said earlier, these artists just need to push through that borderline for contrast and detail. Not be afraid of going over that line. And if they made a mistake, then they know how to approach that again in a different way.
That said, I've learned most of what I know from traditional artists. I mean, my style of work is far from their teachings, but I've learned so much for the digital medium by watching Donato Giancola go at it with his oils. Oh man, I really hope one day I can afford to have a nice oil studio setup.
Oy. Yeah. Overall I feel that contests create some warped sense of self-entitlement as well, which you don't really get from being an artist who constantly takes commissions. With commissions it seems like just caring that other people enjoy the work you do for them, but competitions are more involved with beating someone with your work. I mean both can go either way on the healthiness spectrum, but I really feel like that's the biggest difference between the general deviantARTist who involves themselves with competitions more than anything, and a professional who simply lives off of what they create. And in that is where I see the stigma come from-- the more hobby-centered members of this community. I know I've seen digital hobbyists bark the same tune of superiority for equally estranged reasons. Even worse are the self-entitled digital artists who harp superiority over their lack of a graphics tablet or their program of choice... oh, but I digress.
I think so long as the people involved have the true desire to learn, improve, and are on an honest path of art where they do it because they love it, whether or not they make it their living, all is well. There really shouldn't be any judgment for medium of choice or anything. Competitions in that sense are really healthy, especially ones like this where you were not limited on the amount of entries you could submit. You could learn from what you entered, how you could've done better, and then see what other people submit as the contest went on. I haven't seen many other contests like this one in recent deviantART history. I'd really like to, it's been two years since I tried to compete with art, haha.
And that's another reason why I stay away from entering contests a lot of the time is because of the self-entitlement that everyone wants and the need to beat everyone. I enter just to see if my work will be recognized. But since there are so many people with an account here at DeviantART, it's almost impossible for the lower leveled artists to be recognized in such a large place. I join groups to try and help get my work seen a little quicker, but that seems to not work out as well as I thought it would. So I haven't submitted much of my art to any group lately because of the mindset that it'll be denied since it's been denied the last few times I've submitted. So I lean my art to being on the hobbyist side of things now and just wait and see if anyone wants anything from me.
There shouldn't really be any judgement, but there will always be jealousy and self-entitlement. But there are people out there who don't have that true desire to learn and improve, and that upsets me. I'm part of the crowd that wants to learn and improve. I've been improving since the beginning of high school up to now. I entered the "Draw This Again" contest and I was truly shocked on how much I have improved. So much. And I'm still improving. It's just gotta take time and patience and pushing passed the borderline and have faith in yourself. Because if you don't, your art might not go anywhere outside of DeviantART or their own home.
As far as improvement goes, it's all about working out of your comfort zone, I'd say. Doing stuff that's new. Maybe even changing up the medium, alongside stylistic and thematical changes. Realizing your own shortcomings is also a huge step. An unhealthy thing to do is to value yourself compared to the work of higher-leveled artists, but it's a great way to find out what you're doing well and what needs work. If you look over at a great artist's work and compare them, you can really see what you're doing and what they're doing, and what you can do better. As you become more adept at art in general, you can really learn everything you need to by simply observing a final piece. You'll subconsciously incorporate things you like into your own work, and hopefully for the better.
Today in Awesome Horse, there was a call for everyone to post a progression of their own work from a year apart, revisiting a piece, to really keep track of their progress. Much like the "Draw This Again" meme (which I really need to do myself, come to think of it). Doing something like that every so often would definitely yield a great improvement.
Also... I would never judge my own work by whether or not a group accepted it into their gallery. I judge my own, for example, based on my expectations and aspirations. I really couldn't care less if I got accepted or denied by a group, because what matters is my own growth and my own ability to live off of the work I create. Whatever you want to do with art in this world, do it. Don't let someone's "no" be the end of you trying to submit to some group. Just keep doing it and with every denial, think, "How could I make this better?"
This contest was still in progress when it happened, thus the contest was rendered null and void.