Heard back from Scott, one of the mods. Good news, he said he'd be willing to kick in some prizes for an art show contest! As this grows, it could potentially turn into some of the Lat G sponsors offering prizes or discounts on parts or whatever and will be a win-win for everyone. To run a contest we need some official rules that we will post as a sticky thread as they are solidified with an invitation for everyone to join in.
I've been basically the guy running things for the monthly show, but I'm always open to your input. Take a look at my thoughts and feel free to throw in your thoughts and ideas. I'd like to see this officially start out with working on the first contest through the month of January, posting entries the first week in February. Here's my thoughts-
I'd like to see the monthly art SHOW grow to involve all skill levels and styles of art, i.e. hand drawn, digital art like Illustrator, 3-D, photography, car models, etc. I think beginners to professionals should be able to feel good about participating. With that in mind the CONTEST should be open enough to include most every style as well. To keep it easy to be judged I was thinking that within the monthly art show there will continue to be a theme car, which I think should be the subject for the contest. If we leave it open to anything that we post in the show we'll be comparing Camaros, Mustangs, Cudas etc. to each other. I'm afraid the winner will end up being the guy with the best rendering skill or whatever car the judges are most partial to. That will leave behind the beginner level guys and those that like to draw only certain types of cars. Those not interested in doing the theme car are welcome to post whatever the subject in the show portion.
I'd like non-art guys from the general forum to vote, we can prolly set up the monthly contest as a poll. Doing this will get a fresh point of view, keep us from voting for ourselves
, and for those of us doing this to feed the kids we can get a little more exposure outside of just the art guys that visit here. As word gets out all of this will generate more traffic on the art threads and ultimately more traffic for the Lat G forum which is a great way to say thanks to Scott and the mods for recognizing us as car artists. I will post a couple day prior reminder every month in the general discussion area to have folks come over and vote. I think the vote should be based on design ingenuity including vision, modifications, color, rim choice, etc. If we base it solely on who has the coolest drawing, again some folks who may be at a lesser skill level will get left behind and give up.
I like cars of all styles although I am a bit partial to G machines. It seems that the art posted here generally gravitates that way too. I think however it's cool to open the contest to cars other than G-machines, for example what if we said one month do a 32 Ford. The range could be from a traditional 3 duece flatty hot rod to a ballistic road course machine with a full racing chassis. I would really like your opinions about this, and ultimately I will leave it up to the moderators and go with what type of traffic they want to bring to the forum. Although I like to look at automotive "fine art" I don't think that's the right genre for the contest, and I think we should leave that for just posting in the monthly show. Again, those voting will be notified to vote only on the theme car based on the voting parameters.
I'll continue to take charge of posting the monthly theme car and show announcement. Sometimes it will be open like trick out a "delivery vehicle" and sometimes it will be specific like trick out a "63 Mercury Comet". I have some fun ideas, but I'm sure you guys do too. Either I can continue to pick a car every month or you can PM me ideas. I'm also open to having the contest winner picking the car for the next month or something like that. You guys tell me how you'd like to see it done. To keep it fair to us, I'd like to see theme ideas come from artists to avoid folks trying to weasel free art of their car. I would encourage all that participate if you're concerned about folks stealing your art to put a copyright symbol or something to protect your work as well.
I think most importantly this should be an opportunity for all folks to have fun and make friends, rub shoulders with other artists, have a little competitive fun and get a little exposure. We've got to be supportive of each other and NO POOR SPORTS allowed! With the general forum guys voting it should keep things pretty fair. Overly competitive whiners and complainers will quickly be invited to not participate in the future, this is supposed to be a fun thing.
I will try to take some time to go back through past threads and PM folks with a link to this thread that have posted but aren't currently active. That should help spark interest and opinions. I'm pretty wordy here so I'd suggest not using the "quote" option, just simply reply with your thoughts. Thanks!!!