Category Archives: Challenge Favorites

Sorry for how long it took to get this contest judged everyone. I have no idea where djuby has gotten to. I was kinda waiting for him to come back and then everything got away from me what with it being Christmas time and all. SHould have sorted this out sooner and I apologise.

Anyway, only three entries into the contest before it was closed, but it was very hard to chose between them. I loved the flame effect on Kellkin's second design and the Japanese styling of HerrD's entry, but in the end I had to go with the entry that combined both, which was Melmo44

Ok, I have a bit to say about this weeks contest, specifically, our two finalists.

Now, the winner of each Inspired By Music challenge has always been the person who I felt captured the song they chose the best. Now in this contest we had a lot of entries that stuck to interpreting the lyrics of the chosen song (and in one case the music video), however only two entries, in my opinion, managed to really caputre the feeling, being Tango and Trekkie's entries. And that's not to say that neither included interpretations of the lyrics on the surface level either, Trekkie chose a song about a guy who lives off his horse, hence that's what the picture depicted and Tango's sees a ship on the horizon when the song is called sail away. However, the reason I feel these two entries captured the songs better than any other entry is the way they incorperated aspects of the musicality of their songs as well. Trekkie's song has very echoey vocals with very sparse, twangy and treble filled instrumentation underneath which fits perfectly with the open and sparse background filled with earthen colours. It captures the feeling of the song perfectly. And then in contrast, Tango's song is very heavily instrumented, with numerous layers that flow together and interweave. Starting off with just a piano and vocals, it builds each element atop the last, ebbing and flowing like a tide. This we can compare with Tango's use, or lack there of, of lines. By not using outlines on the items in his picture, he envokes the flow of the song, as their is no boarder between each element that makes up the composition. He also has an aspect of the picture for each aspect of the song. The soft beginning of the song is represented by the sky, with its soft colours and smooth colour fades between the yellow clouds and the blue sky. The more involved verse is represented by the tree, which brings a noticable change with the pink colour palette, but still retaining aspects of the softness of the sky palette with the pink of the branches and the light blue of the rock upon which the tree sits, whilst also increasing the boldness with the magenta leaves. And then the epic chorus is represented by the sea and the boat, which a much darker and deeper in colour than the rest of the picture, mirroring the role the chorus plays in the song and it builds to its crescendo. Whether or not this was all intentional, I don't know, but that is what I felt by looking at the picture and listening to the song. And that made choosing the winner for this weeks contest fairly easy. So this weeks winner is Tango for their picture based on the song "Come Sail Away" by J2 & Seth Bowser. Congratulations Tango.

Honourable Mentions: Zelldevine- Oakold & HerrD- Realty Pupal

Winner: Calvary Red- Congratulations, your Marcury morphed into Jupiturn

Again, we didn't have many entries for this weeks contest, which isn't great. However, as with last week, the quality of all entries was very, very high.

Thing is though, as good as the other two entries were, there could only really be one winner for me. And that would be the person who, in my opinion, used the restrictions of the contest in the most inspired way. And that would be SprocketSauce for their excellent cubist piece Prism.

Well done Sprocket, that's two in a row now.

There weren't a lot of entries to this weeks contest, which I can't say was much of a suprise, the remit was unusual and quite strict. However, that didn't stiffle the entry quality, as all 5 entries are worthy of winning. Christi S's entry had probably the best realistic water effect and I especially liked how she did the rocks breaking the surface of the water. But I also have to give credit to both GJC6664 and Madison for their use of a "paint-brush" effect to achieve their water. Out of the two I'd say GJC's effect is better and less overwhelming for the picture as a whole, though Madison does get points for being the only person to attempt a foreground character. Then we have SprocketSauce's entry which utilises light, darkness and colour mixing alongside some interesting item usage to create an excellent scene. And finally we have HerrD, who also used some unusual item usage to create his sea creatures (sponges, coral, sea slugs and the like) which is something none of the others attempted.

However, despite this being a very hard descision, we do have a winner. It was close, but in the end I have to give the win to SprocketSauce and his entry DEEP DIVE.

Our runner up this week was Avery Maskell for The Persian.

And our winner is Synnburn for their Agent129.

Honourable Mentions: Suleman- Imperial Soldiers & Synnburn- Inkblots

Winner: Legatus- Red Mercenaries