GCA 2007 (It's over! We need suggestions for next year!)

[Mr McGrumpypants]

House? Sexy? ...Whatever floats your boat.

[omfg_nachos]

Whaaaaat?
I'm sure others would agree with me.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

I just got the brilliant idea of creating another thread in the Promotions subforum of Art Discussion, where people are posting promotional threads for their comics. What say you?

[omfg_nachos]

Vergessen Held

I just got the brilliant idea of creating another thread in the Promotions subforum of Art Discussion, where people are posting promotional threads for their comics. What say you?

Sounds good to me.

[Yume Yokohama]

Hmm…sounds interesting maybe I can get my friend to draw more pages, to the Sweet Tooth comic, before the dead line.

[Bella Roi]

You're handling the thread well.

Let's not allow any sprite comics unless the sprites are original.

In the Application post (author name), mentioning only Smack Jeeves might confuse a few people. Not everyone uses SJ, after all.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

I also mention DrunkDuck.

Vergessen Held

SmackJeeves/DrunkDuck/Whatever

I think that applicants will get the gist of what I mean.

But agreed on the sprite comics.

[Ethma]

Vergessen Held

I honestly don't know if we'll be accepting applications that have Gaia characters in them...

I'll have to look over the applications later, since I have to go to an appointment.

Thanks to waltze for donating items to sweeten the pot! Don't expect special treatment for it, though. mrgreen

Also, shounen-ai and shoujo-ai are NOT getting their own categories; we're only having one Romance winner, not a winner for heterosexual pairings, shounen-ai pairings, and then shoujo-ai pairings.

Special treatment? Never crossed my mind =) I'm cool that way.

At any rate, since you only needed ten items and i couldn't remember which items i offered, I just sent you ten really nice, but pretty random items ^^

How do you intend to make sure that we're the real authors? I'm curious (not worried, since I'm pretty sure that I'm me--actually, here an easier way: my latest news article confirms that I am, in fact, me. )


Also, why are people intimidated by me? O.O I'm pretty confident in my skill, but when it comes to my comic, I take a lot of shortcuts and make a lot of mistakes. I'm not so sure I'll do well, because VH and MB are hawks, and, from experience, will see my mistakes, plot holes and poor decision making very easily. >_< Chin up, I just wants me a critique I can learn from.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

Fan-wise, your comic is the most popular on SmackJeeves. That would intimidate others who might want to enter.

EDIT: Also, I post comments on the newest comic page.

[Bella Roi]

I saw. I'm not blind after all. It just seemed a bit unnecessary.

People ought to know that this isn't a popularity contest in the sense that the author with the most fans will automatically win.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

I added something to the Judging section to tell people that we're deciding the winners, not the number of fans.

EDIT: Also, does a score out of 10 in both art and writing along with the critique sound good enough to judge entries on? Or do we need something else?

EDIT 2: I've confirmed that waltze is the author of RAnSOM.

[Ethma]

You could always introduce a points system. *shrug*

When I last had a contest on deviant art, the way it worked was this:

The contest required the following:

That it had one of my characters, and one of the participants characters in it.
That it be a completed drawing.
That it had a background.
That it had a rubber pig named Dracula in it.

For the first three, the participant could get ten points for each--we'd rate how how close it was to what was required and then add all those numbers together. The pig was worth 1 bonus point =)

So we'd take that score, and each judge would do the same thing, and the scores would be added together for a point based rating.

Then all that was left was ranking.

(we also had ten bonus points each to give out--even if a picture isn't technically very skilled, even if it's a very amateurish picture, there are elements that sometimes just make you like the picture, regardless. Each judge could divide the bonus points up however they liked, and no one told each other what they gave the bonus points to until after the ranking was done and winners had been chosen. Now, i doubt you'd implement the bonus points, because comics are a bit different, and you want to be as unbiased as possible)

Just a suggestion, maybe not a very good one.

I've just always felt that numbers feel a lot more impartial when you have to do some active math to arrive at them.

[Mr McGrumpypants]

But this is about comics, not pictures. sweatdrop

[omfg_nachos]

I think what she meant is that we should score on a points system, than average all the judge's scores, to come up with a final score. Or at least, thats how I took it.
For example:

Scorecard
Writing: Any number, 1-10, with .5 point increments, 10 being flawless writing, 1 being complete drivel, 5 being nothing special.
Art: Any number, 1-10, with .5 point increments, 10 being professional and creative art, 1 being poorly drawn stick figures, 5 being nothing special.
Originality: Any number, 1-10, with .5 point increments, 10 being a completely new and refreshing concept, 1 being an almost plagiarized story, 5 being nothing special.
Total Number of Points: The combined amount of points, with, say 30 points being the best possible outcome.

Each judge would have that scorecard. Than, we'd average the total number of points for each scorecard, and we'd use that to rank the comics, which would end up looking like this:

Generic Comic #37: 29 Points
Generic Comic #108: 27 Points
Generic Comic #4: 26 Points
Etc., etc.
Generic Comic #37 would then be the winner for either that category, or the entire contest.
Its just an idea.

[Ethma]

Vergessen Held

But this is about comics, not pictures. sweatdrop

I know, but it's easily adaptable. This way you could also allow people with slightly less than 20 pages to enter, and people with more to be on even grounds.

For example:

required:

20 pages: Only have 17? You get 17 points. Have 42? Maximum 20 points, sorry.
Technical skill score: Out of 20.
Pacing score: Out of 10.

etc.

All you have to do is make a list of things that are essential to a well crafted and essential comic. Things that you think all comic artists should consider when creating something, and give each its own individual score.

It also makes it easier for you to break down a critique on each point.

Plus, this can be done without the judges seeing each others results until the scoring is done, or letting each other influence each other's results (not that I think you would).

I'm bad at explaining, so here's a small chart thing.

What it was important to have:

pacing score: Judge 1 gives 4/10, Judge 2 gives 7/10, Judge 3 gives 6/10
writing score: Judge 1 gives 8/10, Judge 2 gives 8/10, Judge 3 gives 9/10
effective use of space: Judge 1 gives 8/10, Judge 2 gives 8/10, Judge 3 gives 9/10
anatomy: Judge 1 gives 3/10, Judge 2 gives 2/10, Judge 3 gives 5/10
dynamic action and movement: Judge 1 gives 4/10, Judge 2 gives 5/10, Judge 3 gives 6/10

SO

pacing score = 17 out of a possible 30
writing score = 25 out of a possible 30
use of space = 10 out of a possible 30
dynamic action= 15 out of a possible 30

rating = 67 out of a possible 120




So the critique could be broken down like this:

pacing score = 17 out of a possible 30

---here is some ways to improve your pacing, and why we think it needs improvement.

writing score = 25 out of a possible 30

---writing is clearly your strong point, here are some suggestions, and what we liked.

use of space = 10 out of a possible 30

---blah blah, some tips

dynamic action= 15 out of a possible 30

---blah blah, more tips.


Obviously, a critique would be a bit more detailed than that.

Ranking would look like this:

1st place - Comic name, rating 92

2nd place - comic name, rating 74

and so on.



Still, only a suggestion =P


EDIT: Anarchy Rabbit probably just explaine dit better than me, one post up domokun