I think we need a custom clip-art contest!

[WebmasterCricket]

Someone neutral can pick a subject or character and let the contestants go nuts. Pre-assign neutral judges and guidelines. No hard feelings when RMD crushes all!

Whadya think?

 

[BobBrazeal]

Custom clipart???? That lets me out. I don't have a creative bone in my body!!

I think it would certainly be fun to watch the contestants go at it. Better wait until BT returns, though. I'd think she would be interested in getting in on this.

Don't know what you might have in mind for rules. I'll throw out some suggestions.

1. Must post all entries to a competition thread.
2. Have a start and end time for posting to the thread. (1, 3, 7 days or some defined time)
3. Contestants are on their honor to not use clipart created prior to the start time. (can use "ideas" from other work they've done previously)
4. Must define custom (how much content from downloaded art and how much "custom")
5. At the end of the time, each contestant would select some defined number of clips from those that they had posted on the competition thread and move them to another thread to be judged. Each entrant gets the same number of entries. They must be pulled from the original thread without modification.

Just some thoughts.

 

[StormAlongBay]

I'd be a judge but I have reservations about posting my results.
Somehow, my posts get edited here.

 

[BobBrazeal]

Oh, that's not possible, is it, Kevin?? Only you can edit your own posts!!!

 

[WebmasterCricket]

#4 would be a problem to keep tabs on.

Animation would also have to be out because not everyone can animate or even has the software to do so.

JC

 

[BobBrazeal]

Your right about both. Even as I was writing #4 I was thinking that it would be difficult to define and totally subjective even then. I agree with the animation restriction.

 

[RoutemanDan]

Don't be so modest JC! Sounds cool lets do it.Good rules Bob. For #4,if we're going to customize an already existing piece,maybe we can submit it beforehand and the judges would rule it acceptable or not.

 

[BobBrazeal]

I think it is an incredibly great idea!! I think it would really be a lot of fun.

Not necessarily suggesting other rules but just thinking out loud here; any size restrictions, separate "artistic" catagories, age groups?

 

[WebmasterCricket]

Having seperate categories could make it more complicated, but also may get more entries that way.

1) Unlimited

2) Standard

3) Beginner??????

Possibly have a text category and a artistic category?????

Age may not be fair either. I know some kids that are better w/ PC's than adults.

As far as size goes, I would say 400 united inches not to exceed 300 in any direction and 40k????? Is that too big?? Small??

JC

 

[RoutemanDan]

Agree about the age.400x300 sounds good,but whaddya say ,hmmm,60k as opposed to 40.

 

[WebmasterCricket]

Sorry Dan, I should have explained it better.

400 united inches would mean that the height + the width can't exceed a TOTAL of 400.

400x300 would be museum art not clipart.

60k is fine if need be, but I can't imagine needing that much space for a still image. (Maybe I'm not thinking straight.)

JC

 

[RoutemanDan]

No JC your thinking is fine,mines off. I just saw that there isn't going to be animations .No biggie,I can live with that.What's wrong with museum art?

 

[WebmasterCricket]

I just clipped a full color photo at 200x200(= the 400 max.) and with no lossy compression it ended up at about 45k. I don't think that a limit of 40k should be too bad with those figures.

JC

 

[BobBrazeal]

I do assume that we are actually talking pixels here and not inches.

You're probably right about age.

Catagories could be complicated. What process would be used to place entrants into catagories? Would have to define the catagories and trust people to compete in the correct one. My thinking about catagories was prompted in thinking about how the judges would compare if there were too much variation between entries.

 

[WebmasterCricket]

Yes, pixels.


I think that the definition of the "subject" or "character" would narrow the entries down a bit but I don't know how much. If the topic is say "Figaro" then you will get a pretty narrow field. If were to say the topic is "color" then you will get tons of different stuff. That's something the judge's team will have to decide on.

I think people will stick in their skill level categories fairly well. If you are say "advanced", why would you want to win the "begginner" category?

BTW I'm not spell checking here....

JC

 

[WebmasterCricket]

The more I think about it, the more I think that the entries should be PM'd to the judges and not posted directly. If you see a bunch of much better stuff posted, you might not post your entry at all and reduce the amount of content that the contect may have otherwise generated.

I wan't to see the good stuff and the not-quite-as-good stuff too.

JC

 

[BobBrazeal]

Yea, I think that the judges would be the best to decide how to break down the catagories and skill levels. I also agree and I would expect that people here would not try to compete in classes that didn't represent their skill level.

 

[BobBrazeal]

I can see your point about PM vs. posting. I just hate that the rest of the DIS'er couldn't enjoy the competition as it progresses.

There is the other side of the coin too that as contestants saw other entries posted, they would try harder to come up with better entries. As I was thinking they still would have the chance to choose the 2 or 3 or 4 etc items that they wanted to have judges. I thought it might add a bit of strategy to the competition in what you posted early and what you held to post until the last moment.

That is also why I thought about the different levels so that people wouldn't be posting against others of vastly different skills.

 

[BobBrazeal]

Looks like the judges will have a number of decisions to make and rules to write. So who selects the judges?

 

[Wishydoo]

This sounds interesting!! Can I hang out with the judges?? lol