Sorry about taking so freaking long, I never did get in touch with Cherppow about these. I talked to him once for like 5 minutes. For all I know he's dead...but hopefully not. Don't worry though - I went over the contest entries with a friend of mine (some of you may remember him as erik10001). Erik is an environment artist working on the upcoming mmorpg Spellborn. He's an awesome artist, and an excellent judge for this competition. Not only did he help me go over the entries, but he also promised to be a judge for the next contest (not that Cherppow won't be a judge again, just that having Erik do the next one will be a little treat). Just a word of warning, the next one is going to be a little different, but we're both really excited about it.
Before I announce the winners, please note that mid-contest I decided on a new rule. The rule is that a person can't win two contests in a row. I talked to Wired and Gentar, and both had already started entries, so I'm waiting until contest #3 to implement it. I don't want to discourage winners from participating, but I don't want to get stuck in a rut either.
Without further adoue (or however you spell that), here are your winners:
2d: Gentar
3d: Wired_Crawler
(and now you see why I wanted to start that new rule)
Below are some things to work on about each, and some general statements at the end. Congratulations to the winners, and huge provs to everyone that entered. You guys really are great. Be sure to take a look at contest #3 when it's up, because it's gonna be rockawesome (really).
2dMentak: The best part about this is that you didn't use any photoshop filters. The worst part about this is that you didn't use photoshop (or doesn't look like it). Next time, just make it bigger, and put in more detail.
LigH: The design is presented nicely, and has a decent amount of detail. Your stone, however, isn't quite right. Stone in nature is typically very matte (matt, mat...?), and yours doesn't seem to be. The highlights are too light, and shadows not dark enough. I know the concepts said they had some shiny stones, but yours don't look shiny either, they just look...plasticy. In the future, try to use less filters, and more simply painting. As far as the concept goes, it's a bit plain. There's plenty of room there for creativity. Also, there seems to be no door, and no sense of scale (adding a door would fix both those problems). If the door is on the other side, it would have been better to illustrate the other side.
Baldur: The concept is ok, and I like that you used some symbols on the stone. The fact that some parts are filled, and some parts are left white hurts the consistency though. Also, you need some lighting. See the general statement at the bottom.
Gentar: This gets an A+ on following the official reference, and creating an interesting design/concept. One thing that's really missing is lighting. Check out the lighting statement at the bottom. In addition, one thing that really makes this piece strong is the difference between background/foreground. The background is toned down enough so that we still see it, but it doesn't take our attention away from the subject (in this case, the tower). Also, while color isn't necessary, it's always a plus.
Farren Kutter: F-+ on presentation. The F- is because you folded it up and put it in your pocket, the + is because you used a scanner this time. Scanner good, foldies very bad. You started to put some shading in from a lightsource, but it could have been taken further. See the lighting statement. Your concept is nice, and we get a good sense of scale (doors are good like that). You did a nice job of following the official concepts. Also, I notice the beginnings of a background similar to Gentar's where it's lighter, but in this case it's so light I almost missed it. A bit darker so we can see it, but keeping it lighter than the tower is good.
Clayzekiel: Concept and design are good. The door and windows are nice (good sense of scale). Your stone texture needs to look less like a filter with some shading painted over the top, and more like some good stone. Reference, reference, reference. Twice. It definitely looks old and beat up, and follows the official concepts acceptably close. The horizontal stone spikes, and the rock borders around the windows/door are nice details, and really help add interest. As far as presentation, the smaller version is a bit small, and the larger version looks a bit pixelated. Next time maybe start even larger than your large version, and scale it down to somewhere inbetween the two so that those pixels disappear.
3dInduane: Your concept is alright, it just needs to be executed more fully. You have 1000 polys, and I you had plenty left over (you could also get rid of a bunch in the ladder). These could be put to good use rounding the slabs out, and giving them a more random surface...so that they look more like natural stone, and less like cut slabs of marble. If you had fleshed the model out a bit, I think it would have matched the official concepts acceptably close, but as it is now it doesn't look very similar. Last, your textures work. See the general statement at the bottom.
Elentor: Yours was just for fun, so it wasn't judged to win, but we did take a look at it. Your textures were alright, but they could use a lot more detail. There can be nails in that wood, engravings on the stone, metal clasps holding things together. Take a look at the general statement at the bottom, but of the textures done this way they were probably the most successful of the bunch. Also, you probably didn't pay much attention to any of the guidelines, etc., but you had tons of extra polys that you could have used to push detail and add some more depth/believability to it. The design is somewhat kran-like, but I think it could match the official references a bit better.
Rast: As far as your textures go, just take a look at the general statement at the bottom. Your concept/model needs some work too. Your concept is a good start, but has some problems. First, the overall design and execution aren't very interesting. You used too many simple shapes (cones, cylinders, etc.). Every single vertex needs to be given the attention it deserves, and the attention it deserves usually entails getting it away from whatever primitive object you started with. Structurally, it doesn't look very solid, and design-wise it doesn't match the official concepts that I said to reference. Last, your terrain needs to looks a bit rounded and such, like somebody melted something. For the future (ie, when it's actually a part of the contest) try to add more variation to it, and make it more believable by adding detail and objects (see Wired_Crawler's for an idea of what I mean).
Lordbug: Yours was obviously unfinished, but for what you have done I think you should try to stay away from your primitive shapes more. Using a box or cylinder to start modeling an object is one thing, but to build a scene using mostly primitive shapes that have been edited slightly is something to stay away from.
Apis: We thought your earlier models were better actually... Not all suggestions are good suggestions I guess.
Your concept is interesting, and fairly close to the official concepts. Your textures need work. See the general statement at bottom.
Wired_Crawler: Your concept and model are ok, but your textures need work. You did good to paint over them a bit, but you could have taken it further. Take a look at the statement at the bottom. In general, the holes look a bit too big I think. It was good to be inspired by the reference, but you would have been better off to create your own version of that material, and make the holes appear smaller. As it is, they look bigger on your tower than they do in that reference picture, and it makes your tower look, well, weak. You did a nice job of throwing some detail on the landscape. Showing that you gave it some effort and thought is a huge plus.
Some general statements of things to work on:
(these applied to a lot of the entries, so I didn't feel like writing them 8 times each, in different words)
Lighting: Every scene, 2d and 3d, has a main lightsource. Whether it's a sun, a huge magical crystal in the ceiling of a hollow stalactite, or some bald guy, the lightsource is going to cast shadows. It's usually a good idea to include said shadows in artwork. After you get lineart done for a 2d piece, or your model done for your 3d piece, lighting needs to be in the back of your mind as you begin working on adding detail and shading/color. Use the shadows to show the rough, uneven surface of the rock, or any other textures you have in your scene.
Filters: Please, please, please stop using filters. Filters are the best way for someone with little to middle skill to make something look better. However, the results they produce are at best mediocre. Some filters really are good (the gaussion blur and noise filters for example), but the majority aren't worth your time. Even the ones that are good should only be used as *pieces* of your final texture. Every inch should be gone over with a paintbrush, adding detail. I would honestly prefer to see someone try and fail at making an entire piece with only the brush tool, than see someone use filters for everything. This doesn't mean you suck if you use filters, just that the only way to get results better than what filters can produce is to rely on them very little.
Textures (specific to 3d): Tender loving care. Attention to detail. This is what texturing should be. Too many people simply found materials on imageafter or whatever and pasted them onto their models. It's ok to use materials as reference, or as base layers for textures, but they should never be just pasted on. Textures make or break a model, always. A good texture artist can make a box look amazing, and a terrible texture artist can make a 603463634 polygon model look like a pile of playdough. A good rule of thumb for painting environment textures is 3 layers. If you have less than 3 layers of detail painted onto your base layer/material, then you don't have enough (more is usually better). Please just take the time to add interest and believability to your model by spending a *good* amount of time on the texture. At first it will seem like it takes forever (probably because it does), but once you see your good texture applied to your model it will all be worth it.
Really great job everyone. Sorry if the little statements sound harsh or whatever, I really try to be as nice as possible when I write them. They're just things to work on, not personal attacks on your mother. Doing this makes me really glad I'm not one of my art profs... If anyone has any questsion about the comments or anything else, just post here or pm me. I'll be glad to answer whatever.
:emerald:
