First off, let me acknowledge that "Character Challenge 101: Gamma Madness!" was much harder than I anticipated. So congratulations to everyone who powered through and produced an illustration, you should pat yourself on the back. I do think that sometimes it's a good thing to stretch your creative muscles and try something that's not necessarily in your comfort zone. And, we got some really nice work out of it! Bonus!
Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, here are the entries for this week:
I'd love to hear which are your personal favorites, but for what it's worth, here are mine:
I should note that while awesome, "Wanda" by Krivalis was, like his or her great Pop Quiz entry, not eligible for an overall favorite nod as the file wasn't named correctly. It's still a really great design, though.
Anyway, all of those embodied the weirdness of the "Gamma World" setting very well, and were good illustrations to boot. My overall favorite this time out, though, was clearly dblade's "Chruse the Hawk". It looks like it could be in a new edition of the RPG as a bit of featured interior art, plus it's an intriguing looking dude:
Congratulations to dblade, and thanks again to all who embraced this tough challenge!
Congrats dblade. Amazing as always.
Thanks!!!
I almost didn’t enter because I still needed to complete the shading on arms, feet, shield, and various other little spots.
Awesome work, everybody!
Grat Dblade. I can’t see my entry in the overall list.
Great job dblade and all the other entries. This was a great “character” contest and I wish I had time to participate. These characters would have really pushed me out of my comfort zone and maybe some new ideas. Cheers my friends!
Aargh, sorry about that Harlequin — check now, it should be up.
If anyone else has an entry that isn’t showing, please let me know. The batch downloader thing might be a little buggy.
No problem Jeff. I only missed my Frying Pan Wielder Vampire 😀 So another gratulate for everyone i think this is very hard contest.
Yowch, this contest was HARD. Not surprised my entry didn’t make it as a finalist. Really got me thinking, though, and trying out new uses of items I’d probably not have considered before. So, I guess it was a good idea.
I formally nominate Chruse by dblade for Hall of Fame.
Interesting stuff by all entrants.
first congrats Dblade- This was SUCH a great piece, that I could NOT be jealous of it winning!
And Thanks Jeff, I got 4 of 4 in the display “Pool” and 1 in Jeff’s Faves (or the winners pool)! It ALMOST makes me wish I had not gotten a FLU shot, so I could do a few more!
VR Pineapple upsidedown cookies to every one today~ I’m Happy!
Nice creations on display there.
But, on the matter of Wanda, and other similar ineligible entries… I really don’t get it. The sole purpose of naming the characters “properly” (as defined by the rules of the character design contests) is allowing Jeff to link the creations with their respective creators after the images are downloaded, without the need to waste the time browsing through the whole thread of some 100+ posts per contest. Am I getting it right? Yeah? OK, let’s move on, then: why is an ineligible character taken into consideration, and even more – made it to best of the best, on one hand, and rendered unable to be the overall winner, on the other one? :S I mean, sure, one definitely wants to “punish” those who don’t follow the rules by disqualifying their wrongly named entries (as in disregarding them), but the creator was clearly identified here. So it’s either
1. “You did not name your image properly, hence your entry is disqualified, disregarding the level of its (un)coolness. Sorry, dude – follow the rules. It’s not like they were not explained thoroughly over and over again.”
or
2. “OK, your character is not named properly, but for some reason it is ->allowed to participate in the contest<-." Participate – as in all the way through. As in with a chance to win.
There, just putting across my fairly irrelevant opinion.
The characters that I like the most from this lot of great entries are those of dblade and Krivalis. djuby's creation is also astounding.
My personal opinion, again.
Great work, everyone. Cheers.
Because I want people to see the consequences of not naming their file correctly. As in, “If even an awesome picture like that can’t win because the creator didn’t bother to follow the rules, then I had better make sure I don’t make the same mistake.”
I tried for several months just putting incorrect entries in the trash and not mentioning them, but no one noticed.
I tried for many months correcting them myself and silently putting them up as if they were right in the first place. But since there were no consequences, people never learned to name them right. I just got more and more aggravated that I was having to fix your mistakes. And then the new job started and I had even less time to get these done.
In any other contest you’d just get dumped and never know why. Imagine not putting your name on your Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes entry. They ain’t showing up at your door. I would prefer not to do that because I try to be more personal here.
But that’s a two-way street. I put a lot of time and effort into running the site and adjudicating these contests. For someone to not bother with the very rudimentary requests I’ve made that reduce my workload and enhance my enjoyment of the process is disrespectful and lazy. It makes me want to not do the entire affair. If you can’t be bothered to read a rule and rename a file, you’re basically saying your time is more valuable than mine, and that you expect me to fix your mistakes.
My goal is to reduce the incidence of that while also respecting my own time and efforts. In other words, the solution is not “You get to ignore the things that make it possible for Jeff to do this”, it’s to try and convince people that I want these things named properly. I’ve tried everything from begging, to rewriting the rules multiple times, to creating a cartoon of the rules, to trashing incorrect entries, to fixing the incorrect entries silently with no one the wiser, to putting the entries up and pointing out that they are wrong.
My hope is that the public examples will stick and the folks who aren’t bothering with it, will start to bother with it.
And let me note that this isn’t directed at any one person in particular. It’s been a persistent problem by lots of people from the very beginning.
Well I did not participate in many a contest, but I always followed the rules. I was not trying to criticize back there. I was a bit curious. And I was aware of the fact that you had to spend your time seeking the author of that image. But you did the same in that Pop Quiz, and the very same mistake occurred here. Make no mistake – I am very grateful (more than very, in fact) that the HM exists – grateful to you, of course. And I know you’re trying in various ways to make us comprehend the importance of what we are expected to do (and what is it that we need to do – and it appears that it’s more complicated than it seems :D). Just – if you ->draw it<- to someone, and they disregard the directions yet again, do you think they'll get a more subtle message? 🙂 I mean, good luck, I hope it works out…
I'm sorry that I triggered such a long post on your behalf, thus consuming your time, and if my own post seemed disrespectful – that was not my intention.
Cheers.
Oh, another thing: maybe we (the contestants) could re-upload the problematic entries when we spot ’em, along with warning their respective creators (which is already done on a regular basis, it seems). It’s not that time consuming for us (we are spending our free time here anyway – in other words – we’re playing), it would help the contests run smoother and spare the contest threads some long posts concerning the matter. It would spare us all some annoyance, also. I’m not that regular visitor here, but I might as well start doing this when I bump into those pesky entries.
Sorry about the multiple posts, I’m having some issues with the edit button.
That’s nice of you, but at some point … I mean at some point, if they can’t get it right, that’s their tough luck. I mean we might as well create them for them, too, you know?
You got a point there. Let’s hope your methods yield some results and all the mess with the links gets… Well less messy. 😛
Congratz dblade! and to the rest of those who entered as well. I won’t say I found this contest hard, but I just couldn’t get inspired by any of the descriptions in the random generator so I opted out this time around! My only true regret of not taking part in the contest this time is having to wait for the Caption contests to run before the next Character contest! Can’t even flex my creative muscles on the pop quiz’s as my weekends are busy with work!
Heyla!
Congrats to DBlade! Awesome entry! A lot of creativity out there in HM!
Definitely a win for dblade! As someone who used to play Gamma World, the randomness and discombobulation is entertaining but defies illustration. I picked the one of my ten that “made the most sense.” Or at least that I could attempt to interpret in HeroMachine.
djuby’s Albew (Saurian) is wicked and scary. SkyBandit’s Phewalt is definitely Gamma World. Jack Zegler’s Dianie is great. Though I think she is more RIFTS than Gamma World.
A very hard challenge… à la prochaine!
As many have said congrats to dblade.
All of the entries look awesome, i’d hate that i missed this contest, but i’m too grateful for the (awesome) time i got to spend with some friends in real life. Still, i’ll probably try making some things like these when i get some time. ^_^
Congrats dblade!
This contest was full of awesome so well done to everyone.
Epic as always dblade 🙂
HOLY KARP I GOT TWO INTO THE FAVES SECTION!!!
I laugh a little every time I see the featured creators window and poor Chruse isn’t there. Obviously Wanda has captured Jeff’s heart this week. 🙂
Sorry, I put the link in the wrong place. I’ve fixed it now.
Thanks, AP. It’s really one of my very favorite characters of all I’ve done for a contest. Sometimes, they just come out really well. And I don’t know what world she fits in better, I just went by the description that was generated.
Dblade, I fuggin LOVED da hawk bird avenger. I honestly thought his name was “Bird Avenger”