Town Herald Features
Art Contests
By:[Dilandau]
Art contests are one of the key features of Elftown. I'm sure most of you have seen them around, have entered them, or even created one. Among the most popular art contests are the official ones that Elftown runs, such as the recent Halloween art contest or the current Christmas image competition ( Christmas Art Competition - 2004 ). The official Elftown contests were the first to be created, but some ET'ers decided to take it upon themselves and create their own art contests, mostly for fun. Prizes range from badges, requests, art sent to the winners, just prestige or actual prizes sent to the winner. I remember one art contest in the distant past having the prize of a box of tarot cards; it was very nice and I recall quite clearly that the brilliant artist [ fuurin ] won it. Art Contests and Contest Corner are a couple of the bigger wikis to store your contests.
So when did all this popularity begin? I interviewed [ Saffron ], who created the vastly popular page of art contests for some information.
[ _Dilandau_ ]: Do you remember when you started this wiki (Art Contests)? And why?
[ Saffron ]:Well, I believe it was in August 2003, right after the Elftown-Graphic-for-Elfwood- competition, which was an official contest. I had entered it and really liked the idea of online contests. Then I accidentally discovered that [ spiritee ] and some other Elftown members were organizing un-official contests. Someone had listed them in their house, and I sort of copy-pasted them into a wiki page, with the convenient name Art Contests. Later I found out that [ spiritee ] herself had made a list at Contest Winners, but because the winning picture also had to be posted there, it got kind of large after a while and took a while to load. That's why Art Contests (or at least its main page) will never have any graphics displayed, it's large enough as it is (really, it's terrible!).
[ _Dilandau_ ]:Was there an instant explosion in popularity, or was it a gradual thing?
[ Saffron ]:Well, at first there were just about 10-15 contests, but when more people discovered it, it quickly grew to about 50, and now there are over a 100 contests running. I hope it will eventually get to a point where there are as much contests ended as there are added. People like entering contests, they like fact that they're competing with others, but they also like making them. I think many of the people who are watching the wiki are running one or two contests themselves. But anyways, it grew real big very quickly, yes. Like everybody had always wanted to enter or run a contest, but just didn't know it yet :)
[ _Dilandau_ ]:That's cool, what's you're
favourite contest and do you know what's the longest series of contests running? What type of contest is most popular?? (I have a sneaking suspicion it's anime XD)
[ Saffron ]:Wow, I don't really have a
favourite contest (or else what if it ended?), but the ones I enjoy the most are the well-organized ones with original/fun themes. But there are so many of those that I can't possibly find the time to enter all of them... About series of contests, I really don't know, I believe there has been an Art of Eyes contest part 3, no-one's ever gone beyond part 3 so far :) And the type of contest... well, you could say the most popular is anime, but maybe that's because many people just happen to draw in that style. The most popular contests -or at least the ones that get the most entries- are the ones with very broad themes (like "anime") or that get a lot of publicity somehow (official Elftown ones, or ones that get advertised in popular houses or on popular wikis).
So there's a little history of art contests, a hugely popular wiki with approximately 210 watchers.
History of art contests, all great and good, but how do people feel about art contests? Popular themes, what do people like MOST about contests? I interviewed some prominent art contest goers and found lots of variety in their answers. Everybody I interviewed really liked the contests, but I suppose I selected biased samples :P. Some artists use art contests as a source of inspiration when they hit artist blocks and others just enter for fun. Artists also like a challenge when competing, and some just want to see other's work as a source of inspiration. I was told some well-made contests were created by [ Kaimee ] and myself ([ _Dilandau_ ]:huh?). Some people like to see how other people perceive the contest themes. There are many reasons art contests are loved.
Quotes:
I get to draw about things I had never thought of, or if I had thought of them, and didn't have the time, they're the reason for me to draw and enter contests.
-[ Sunny Silverunicorn ]
I like seeing other people's art and comparing it to my own. Like many other artists, I get my motivation from seeing great pieces of art that I admire, like [ Asrun ]'s, and wanting to make something that's just as fantastic as theirs.
-[ Leara ]
What I like about contests the most….voting! It's exciting I always like to see how many people vote.
-[ Flamingo13 ]