Welcome to the Art Skills Competition 2014/2015, or "ASC" for short. It is a contest to gather willing artists from the forums to compete in a friendly test of their skills and reward the best of their work each round.
Rounds will take place each month, the last day of the month will be the final cutoff for any entries. The judging will take place the first week of the following month.
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Competition Guidelines :
1. The entry must be 100% original material.
2. Each round lasts for a month; closing date is at the end of that month.
3. Submissions should be relevant to the current month's theme. (See thread's title)
4. Keep posts resolutions within reason and if you must have a larger resolution, link it to the entry.
5. Entries can be created in any medium, please note that it will be appreciated if hand drawn entries are cropped to contain only the intended work.
6. Winners will be announced by the judge of the competition at the end of each round; the results are final and non-debatable.
7. The winner of a round will have the right to choose the next theme; if this takes too long, the judge will choose one instead.
8. All participants of each round will receive a Merit for their hard work; the winner of each round will receive the Armor Games "Artist Quest"!
Round 1: Knight
This months theme will be dedicated to creating a knight representing that of Armor Games, it is a non official character to try and stir the imaginations of artists and viewers. The artist should endeavor to embody Armor Games in a Knightly character.
The eyes scream, give me your soul...perhaps throwing some marks/embroider the black part of the AG logo on his face or give it a bit more contrast with making the helmet two toned
Symmetry is nice but asymmetry can give a deeper impression ith the composition
I was thinking about how to insert the logo into the helmet, but simply slapping it onto the helmet seemed a little... simple... heh. Maybe embedding the logo into the eye cut-out is what I was thinking. I will try that next.
And drawing without the use of symmetry on the computer is a huge leap out of my known comfort zone... but I will try it! Maybe... =P
I had an idea and was afraid I might loose it, so I started working on it right away! Took me about an hour to finish from scratch, but I am very pleased with the result!! =)
I used your advise @HecticHermit! I embedded the logo into the Helmet completely, including the upwards pointing sword in the AG logo as well. I even refrained from copy/pasting and nicely alligning every drawn line this time... I simply drew it as I went along, without repositioning or mirror-imaging anything, so there are some a-symmetric parts here and there I bet. =P
Its not bad, much more interesting then the first though the smaller swords remind me of the fleur de lis type patterns some knghts have.
As for drawing, I use a tablet, I would wager you are using a mouse , which might explain the "outside of your comfort zone" with drawing, most of my drawings are very rough and not refined.
I know many of my comments are being a bit critical and do not have much praise but I find it hard to find ways to suggest things to artists on ways they could improve a drawing.
Thank you for your time and efforts it was a fantastic start, I didn't expect more then two submission but I was surprised to see this many.
Runner Ups
StormWalker
The concept here seems to fit well with many games with the cartoony/chibi style on Armor Games. I think with a bit of touching up this would have made an excellent mascot. It shouts for fun and adventure.
MrDayCee
The helmet underwent several transformations, I really like how you embedded the logo but it is lacking a bit in presentation, perhaps its just because that I think it looks a bit like a metal barrel or it could just be the sharpness of the lines that i find too rigid in the design. It lacks a smooth contrast I think perhaps adding a few more colors to the shading, a three tone palette. It could be the combination of a sharp and rigid pattern placed upon a smooth gradient that just do not find appealing in terms of value consistency. It is a fantastic design but a bit more consistency on the color values might be more appealing to me.
Weirdlike
The knight is very good but the palette is a bit flat, I think with some more work on shading and highlights you will have a fantastic piece.What I find consistent in all these knights is the lack of human aspects, the bodies are covered head to toe in armor and what is left are glowing eye sunken in shadow. Perhaps your image set the model for the other knights but who knows. It is a very good drawing but lacks any luster.
ChromeDeathRazor
This was a close second in my opinion, the action that takes place really liven ups the composition but I think the smudging/soothing of all the colors were a bit over done especially in the background. I might suggest investing a little more time into basic scenery. The Knight is well done the only poor quality I find on him is the smudged on Armor Games shield logo.
Winner of Round 1
Kegaumongo
I find that the longer I looked at this piece in comparison with the others that the overall quality was better and consistent. While the others have strong points they lack a finishing. It is an excellent composition. The variation for coloring the glass, a well made knight and shield. I also like that instead of full plate/metal armor that you gave him a tunic/fabric. The one thing that you could have done is bumped up the resolution and made the glass a bit more transparent.
Round Two, Pending Theme Selection...
As with some of the previous attempts to reward winners, they are allow to pick the next rounds theme. Also MrDayCee has promised other rewards to both participants and winners. I hope to see you all next round, unlike previous ASC, there will be no limitations on how many times a person can win but I will consider their previous work in my judgment, I hope to see some improvement, good luck in the next bout.
Woot! Congrats @kegaumongo I had a feeling yours would win. The whole theme is very medieval.
Great job everyone, it is very nice to see all the submissions in a single post, I want to say "rep yourselves for a growing weirdo" but we'll see how the next competition will fare :P
Sorry Matt, also I really didn't limit "Knight" to the classic medieval style, it could have been a power armored mecha knight from 3030 in the Andromeda galaxy riding an alien steed on a wasteland battle field covered in scrap metal and radioactive pools of melting nuclear batteries and smoldering white hot phosphors fires. :P, it just what everyone else came up with was the classic medieval knight