Reply To: ONE PART, MANY CHARACTERS contest……

All three entries seemed above recent average. A good contest.

First, backstory to consider: I didn’t notice until prompted the tweak on the phrase ‘basket of deplorables.’ I still can’t place it. But as a phrase it had already taken Keric’s minimalist story into the ‘less is more’ category. Randall’s alien would-be tyrant was falling a bit flat until with one fell swoop he did two things. He scared me and tickled me. The ‘handful of geeks’ being the mad-for-power-alien-despot-wannabe’s last hope made me laugh. Then the notion of giving superhero powers to a bunch of disenfranchised tech wizards who, needless to say, wouldn’t behave well enough to be welcome on this forum . . . the phrase ‘toddler with a loaded gun’ comes to mind. Brr-rrRRRrr. Concision with the rest of it would’ve made it tie or top Keric’s. Christi’s? It’s very interesting as a concept. The idea that farmers were in chapel at sunrise kind of jolted me. Maybe sunset or second sun’s rise or moonrise would’ve made more sense?

Second, background: Keric? You broke my heart. A mostly whited-out tree would’ve won you this contest. Two to three layers, man. I used the dog as a background, thinking ambiguity—more on that later. Randall’s background was complete, but not as interesting or 3-d-looking as Christi’s.

As you all know, my own judging is heavily weighted into ‘misusing’ items. That’s a one for findable with or without prompting / questioning. That’s at least a two for “abuse,” or leaving category in an emphatic manner. That’s a three for incorporating / manipulating in a way that makes it less obvious but still present and belonging to the pic.

All three entries went above and beyond with the mouth. K’s looked slightly more logical for the way they hung, asymmetrically, than the other ribbons, which I took for decoration till told otherwise. See ambiguity section below. The butterfly body was great. If it had been repeated or made a body and not a representation of one, I probably would’ve given that a five.

The horn is where you guys gave me the most variety. I LOVE that horn as a hat. I want one. The horn as a twister representation beat out a ‘real’ shoulder pad and would’ve made a five if somehow it could’ve been a ‘real’ twister. Like out a second window getting blasted by the deity or the faithful or the clergy’s hidden weather machine. That shoulder pad? Had one of them been ‘straightened’ to reveal a [gasp] pollinating bloom, or an arsenic rebreather, or something, it would’ve made a five too.

The fantasy top was obviously the hardest piece to work in. I can definitely say I’m in a hat mood this week. RANDALL, I WANT THAT HELMET. The lava-lamp-candelabra-mounted-on-the-mask-look is fantastic. And I’m not even into world domination. Keric probably could’ve closed the gap a lot by putting a basket pattern on his basket. Or suggesting one with a few faint, well-placed lines. Christi could’ve closed the gap, maybe even tied it with an element to explain the crenelations on her wings. It’s an ingenious use, if the crenelations were clumsy, leaving some—you guessed it, ambiguity. A bit in her story about how Ry was birthed by the deity of the mortise joint? A window box demigod or something. I’m not sure.

Bells here means presence by virtue of item or holistic effect contributed. Pivotal, all of you. Nothing extraneous about the three items themselves. K only got that half point up because no items were representations, and he had no ambiguity of the design itself.

Whistles is about minor pieces or features like placement, posing, shading, highlighting, etc. Keric posed and placed very well with some items, not so well with others. That right hip could’ve been hidden by an address card or something, and the one cat seems wrong in the basket. Randall’s is a standard front-facing and bland background, but that hat conglomeration with all those pieces is worth another half point for the alignment. Christi wins that category for the layer of people and the work it took to make a stained glass window.

The emotional content was incredibly different, but the item’s contributions to it were about the same. Uplifting to adorable to baleful creepy. Good range this time.

[drags over soapbox and steps up] Ambiguity. The first ambiguity I saw in Keric’s piece was whether Dan is a real elf or a costumed messenger. The neat thing was I didn’t care. Then I wondered whether the dog was an escapee or hoping that the basket was his next meal. Subject or background? I did care about that, but found myself using it to Keric’s benefit. Christi’s stained glass window. I didn’t know whether this was actually a painted window or a mosaic-style. I gave her the benefit of the doubt because it was a cool piece. That crenelation on the wings could’ve MADE the myth if it had been somehow made indispensable instead of a big question mark. Salvador’s shoulder pads were also a question mark, but not as big a one as the thing covering his hands / claws / tendrils. Was that an expanding energy bolt headed straight for us or some kind of a healing muff taking care of his mentioned injury? The muff / bolt actually lowered the net possible emotional score by making the context of the whole pic ambiguous. Ambiguity is not an artist’s friend, and it is sometimes very hard to eliminate or predict. [steps down and shoves soapbox aside]

Very close this time. I would very much like to see some of those distracting supergeeks from Randall sometime. I’d like Keric’s text so I could add a Christmassy background and use it for my Christmas cards. I’d like that myth detail from Christi.

But most of all, I’d like Christi’s next 3 items and deadline, since she won. Congratulations!

 

Backstory score: …..C3…..K4…R3.5

Bkgd score:………..C3.5…..K1…..R3

Mouth:……………C4.5….K4.5…..R4

Fantasy Top: ….…C3..…K3.5…..R5

Horn: ………….….C4..….K5…..R3.5

Bells: ……………C4…..K4.5…..R4

Whistles: …………C4….K3…..R3.5

Items-story:………C4…..K4…..R3

Emotional:…….…C4….K4…..R3.5
………………………C34…K33.5.R33