i know i'm being a hater here but i really think that some of these accents shouldn't have been in the winners' circle.
"Heart of Fire" in particular feels wildly underwhelming: an extremely common design concept, executed with flat-looking art that lacks the rendering necessary to properly give the impression of the glow coming from within the dragon. ("Demonflame" isn't as egregious a choice to me, but the quality is below the level I've come to expect, with the shading on the "horns" feeling really lacking and thus unfinished.)
would have loved to see a win go to "Inferno's Harvest" from Verdes, "Those Were the Days" by ufology, "Conflagrant King" by Straka (no other ridgeback winners), "Arsenic Oxidation" by Uniformshark (likewise), "infernal engine" by 888 (alternate mirror winner), and/or "crownfire" by auroshen (no imperial winners).
and those are just what I consider the most noteworthy + unique + on-theme oversights from among the submissions.
TBH I think they avoided 888's entry because of the current big game Baldur's Gate 3. Which features a fire character with an infernal engine in her chest. Considering their past issues with copyrighted material winning festivals it probably would've faced immediate backlash. (Even if the artist didn't intend it to be.)
DA if that's true, that's a sad way for a fest entry to go. i wonder if had 888 meant for the name to be a BG3 reference? MV and 888 laid out a lot of the 'hidden rules' to skin contests. it would be incredibly ironic and sad they got nerfed for another rule they didn't consider.
i'd be a bit surprised and disappointed if that turned out to be the reasoning, especially given "inazuma" from TCC could have likewise been construed as a genshin impact reference
(i think it just means "lightning," but it's not like the concept of hellfire machinery is unique to bg3—Ghost Rider, anyone?—so it feels roughly comparable to me)
The male tundra winner has the crunchiest lineart especially in the mane section. The red outline on the foot looks like they used the fill tool and didn't bother cleaning the edges up or making sure the line had a uniform thickness before filling. (There's also a weird blur?) Like it's so sloppy IMO.
good lord i didn't even initially notice the horns- theyre like,, painfully flat. i honestly really like the rest of the accent though! (just not a big fan of the pose used)
I wonder if this is staff intentionally trying to pick people that don’t win as often, in response to the community complaining about repeated winners. I always thought that was a bad idea, because it leads to lower quality submissions being picked..
I'm one of the people who has long advocated for this and even with the issues people have with a couple of entries, I'm still into it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nobody has to agree with me, of course, but my personal philosophy is I can accept a few rough around the edges submissions to get some new blood among winners and to boost smaller artists' confidence.
That said, I agree you can't have it both ways. People in my camp will need to accept "lower quality submissions," as you said, winning. I do think it's silly people have complained for as long as I've been on FR salt communities about MV winning everything, and now that we have other winners whose work they like less, they're complaining about MV losing (note: I don't know when MV's last win was, this is my first fest back since returning from hiatus).
You know, I kind of hate when people start threads like this because it feels shitty to have a thread shitting on a player's art where they likely can see it. Especially when it's a perfectly nice accent.
If you are the artist, please don't lose heart. Looking at the list of "what should have been accepted instead" posted in this same thread, people are miffed that the usual winners didn't get picked. Every single "this should have won" pick is from one of the big name artists.
DA from OP but none of those artists except 888 enter festivals regularly? auroshen hasn't had a win since 2018. i think you're getting popular Uma artist and festival winner mixed up, anon
as the person above me said, with the exception of 888, none of those artists have a strong history of wins in festivals?? and only auroshen and 888 are artists i’d consider especially big names in UMAs in general, even if others in the group have shops running.
this is purely my own personal opinion, and it's based on the standards I listed + a general (albeit still subjective) sense of quality in rendering and lineart. and honestly I chose to provide it as a kind of palate cleanser to my being an admitted hater in the op! just wanted to give some positive shout-outs as well.
Yea, I just saw demonfire and yes, the whole head of that accent was unfinished and flatcolored. Staff should have caught that and disqualified it. The tundra accent is more ambiguous.
LOVE this theme in general! it feels laser targeted to my personal favorite things, haha. plus i’m having a great time seeing how many i can guess right in advance.
potentially outing myself with this list, but these were/are my guesses for flowers + exact names after TCC confirmed it was "birth" flowers being used:
- poppy of flameforger (correct) - aster of starfall - marigold of rot - rockbreaker's chrysanthemum - crystalline snowdrop - violet of trickmurk - mistral daffodil - daisy of wavecrest - lily of greenskeeper
- bonus round: "nocturne's narcissus" as joxar familiar
Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-27 01:33 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-27 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-27 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 02:46 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-27 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)"Heart of Fire" in particular feels wildly underwhelming: an extremely common design concept, executed with flat-looking art that lacks the rendering necessary to properly give the impression of the glow coming from within the dragon.
("Demonflame" isn't as egregious a choice to me, but the quality is below the level I've come to expect, with the shading on the "horns" feeling really lacking and thus unfinished.)
sa
(Anonymous) 2023-08-27 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)and those are just what I consider the most noteworthy + unique + on-theme oversights from among the submissions.
Re: sa
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 04:26 am (UTC)(link)Re: sa
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)Re: sa
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)if that's true, that's a sad way for a fest entry to go. i wonder if had 888 meant for the name to be a BG3 reference? MV and 888 laid out a lot of the 'hidden rules' to skin contests. it would be incredibly ironic and sad they got nerfed for another rule they didn't consider.
Re: sa
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)(i think it just means "lightning," but it's not like the concept of hellfire machinery is unique to bg3—Ghost Rider, anyone?—so it feels roughly comparable to me)
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 01:22 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 04:21 am (UTC)(link)but yea agreed heart of fire was disappointing :/
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 08:53 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-30 03:16 am (UTC)(link)That said, I agree you can't have it both ways. People in my camp will need to accept "lower quality submissions," as you said, winning. I do think it's silly people have complained for as long as I've been on FR salt communities about MV winning everything, and now that we have other winners whose work they like less, they're complaining about MV losing (note: I don't know when MV's last win was, this is my first fest back since returning from hiatus).
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-30 05:21 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 05:23 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-30 06:38 am (UTC)(link)so more of a "you can't please everyone" thing than hypocrisy or [shocked pikachu reaction] kinda deal.
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 22:06 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 02:35 pm (UTC)(link)If you are the artist, please don't lose heart. Looking at the list of "what should have been accepted instead" posted in this same thread, people are miffed that the usual winners didn't get picked. Every single "this should have won" pick is from one of the big name artists.
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 08:47 pm (UTC)(link)but none of those artists except 888 enter festivals regularly? auroshen hasn't had a win since 2018. i think you're getting popular Uma artist and festival winner mixed up, anon
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-28 21:52 (UTC) - Expandsubthread op
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)this is purely my own personal opinion, and it's based on the standards I listed + a general (albeit still subjective) sense of quality in rendering and lineart. and honestly I chose to provide it as a kind of palate cleanser to my being an admitted hater in the op! just wanted to give some positive shout-outs as well.
Re: subthread op
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-28 21:51 (UTC) - ExpandRe: subthread op
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-28 22:20 (UTC) - ExpandRe: subthread op
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-28 22:24 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-29 02:00 am (UTC)(link)If you're reading this, artists: You got picked for a reason, and it means staff thinks that your work represents the flight!
Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-29 05:07 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-29 19:37 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 00:06 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 21:55 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 03:08 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 17:49 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) - 2023-08-30 21:54 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-29 03:35 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 07:44 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 11:08 am (UTC)(link)Re: Flameforger's Festival 2023
(Anonymous) 2023-08-28 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)potentially outing myself with this list, but these were/are my guesses for flowers + exact names after TCC confirmed it was "birth" flowers being used:
- poppy of flameforger (correct)
- aster of starfall
- marigold of rot
- rockbreaker's chrysanthemum
- crystalline snowdrop
- violet of trickmurk
- mistral daffodil
- daisy of wavecrest
- lily of greenskeeper
- bonus round: "nocturne's narcissus" as joxar familiar