P.O.W.! Challenge 36--Final Poll

[Ilaekae]

http://photos.imageevent.com/aljmary/conceptarts/CA-POWexLOGO.jpg

Final Poll: P.O.W.! 36: Five Covers...

We hit the mother-load with this one--nine people turned in 45 pieces, and we had a lot of good starts that I'll post later that didn't make it to the polling.. You're voting for all five covers by one artist. the specs are included below that we all had to work to to give you an idea of what was needed.

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Cover A. Title is "FRACTURED." Theme/synopsis is Sci-Fi--A world has/is evolved/evolving with a slight post-apocalyptic feel to it that includes disparate races/species/etc. being forced to live together in as normal a situation as possible after they have all been stranded/dumped/voluntarily escaped to the world. This is NOT a "Us vs. Them" scenario. Think of it as a "We're all in the same boat so let's get along" story.

Audience is adult/young adult/hopefully attractive to both genders.


Cover B: Title is "BUTTON PUNCHER." Theme/synopsis is high-school coming of age/love story/drama where one of the two main characters is a 16-year-old professional assassin. Feel is romantic, humorous (ya'think?!?), and as serious or cartoonish in approach as you want.

Audience is Teen/young adult/hopefully attractive to both genders, with slight leaning to the female reader.


Cover C: Title is "SHADOWS." Theme/synopsis is horror/mystery, with a primary character who has a history of incredibly bad luck, but comes to realize that it is actually due to someone/somethng just out of the his/her peripheral vision that is actually manipulating his/her life for some unknown reason. Story is spooky, bloody and messy in both plot and lifestyle. The horror is more psychological than "CREEPY Magazine" blood, guts, and gore, even though it's loaded with all of the aforementioned.

Audience is older teen/young adult/adult due to gore and such.


Cover D: Title is "THE SEEDLING." Theme/synopsis is a young person--age 5-6--who has been raised in isolation from other children and is suddenly exposed to a new family, city life and school for the first time. The little one is extremely shy and reclusive, and story is concerned with how our little person slowly integrates into society.

Audience is preteens to adult, and cover should be attractive to both extremes.


Cover E: Title is "THE FIVE STARS." Theme/synopsis is stereotypical fantasy/swords and sorcery/mis-matched band of heroes on a quest kind of thing. Any approach is cool--Asian, LOTR, African, ancient, modern, whatever floats your boat. Be as creative in approach as you want--you know how this type of story works.

Audience is Teen/young adult/adult/hopefully attractive to both genders, with very slight stress on the masculine reader.


This is an exercise in interpretation, originality (in approach), and marketing. You aren't doing a neato drawing/illustration. You are executing the primary first selling image of a mass market item that won't sell if no one picks it up. It's both illustration, conceptual art and graphic design. I'm the client, so if any of these don't sell and i can't afford my rent, it will be YOUR fault...and I will break every bone in your puny bodies before selling you into slavery. Enjoy.

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The voting will be open for roughly two weeks. Vote for one artist (and NOT yourself), and just to remind you--the theme is "Five Covers..." with any interpretation you felt appropriate to your story.

Artists are posted in alphabetical order...

[Ilaekae]

arttorney...

[Ilaekae]

blackrobin...

[Ilaekae]

j.s. sabastian...

[Ilaekae]

kyurai...

[Ilaekae]

Nike...

[Ilaekae]

Razorleaf...

[Ilaekae]

skorpi...

[Ilaekae]

The Crazy Dude SRD...

[Ilaekae]

Waterbird...

[The Crazy Dude SRD]

Thank you again Ilaekae for the excellent challenge and learning experience.

I found it was extremely difficult to vote for one artist... mostly in part due to one or two hit the nail on the head and drove it home with one or two pieces... some of the others were close but not quite.

So for my vote I went with the person whom works in total followed all criteria and held the impact that as a 'buyer' would want in their cover art.

It was a tossup between Razorleaf, Sabasian, Nike, and Skorpi. And I really couldn't choose so I let fate decide with a gambit of coin flips. And Lady Skorpi you have some luck on your side today.

Really fantastic work from everyone...

If I could pick individual pieces that most worked with the individual cover ideas...

Skorpi's and Razorleaf's Fractured both get my vote, because they both convey the union of different species that strive to survive in the unusual circumstance they share.

Sabasian's Button Puncher gets my vote just barely over Skorpi... (only by a nanometer ma'am) Mostly due to the action involved, I just like the fact that she used a jock as a trampoline...

It's also a tough choice on the Shadows... Sabasian, Skorpi, Waterbird, Nike, and Blackrobin all give a stand up performance, each one I would buy... so I'm gonna cheat a bit and go with 'em all but I'd say Waterbird gets issue one, followed by Skorpi, Sabastian, Blackrobin, and Nike respectively... (not saying that anyone is any worse or better... I think they all would make a great series and sorta tie together... sorta

For the Seedling... Its a tossup between the longing face that Razorleaf presented us and Skorpi's little lady at the doorstep. Too tough to choose...
DAMNIT I CAN'T.

Sabasian, Skorpi, and Waterbird all did a fantastic job with the Five Stars, I'm gonna have to go more for Sabasian's because it shows more possible action than the other two...

I still wanna give props to those who worked their asses to the pelvis and honestly a great show everyone. To quote Grandmasta Spect
YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU ALLLLLLLLL RRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!

[Razorleaf]

Excellent challenge Ilaekae .......

Arttorney - I really like the graphic design aspects of your entries
blackrobin - yours are excellent, classic style all the way!
j.s. sabastian - great art work
kyurai - I really like the direction you took your pieces
Nike - very nice, each one is different and makes you want to look harder into them
skorpi - very nice pen work. Yours are bright and clear with a real connection to comic design
The Crazy Dude SRD - really great B&Ws, very creative. I'd pick one up just to see what was inside
waterbird - very nice watercolors, your shadows is excellent!

It is very difficult to choose just one artist .... but here are my favs:

waterbird's Shadows
Crazy Dude's Five Stars
skorpi's Button Puncher
Nike's Button Puncher
Kyurai's Fractured
j.s. sabastian's Shadows
blackrobin's Five Stars
arttorney's Shadows

I look forward to the next one :)

[arttorney]

Too hard. I want more time before I vote. JS Sabastian- I wanted to vote for you for little touches like the hearts floating up off that woman in Button puncher, etc. Look at how you made fractures in the letters of "Fractured" and you've exaggerated the foreshortening on the gun a bit in Shadows (drawing attention to a focal point). Why didn't you put an artist name and "Capow" on your stuff? I'm one of those pricks that cares about little stuff like that.

Waterbird- your Shadow is so forkin' cool I can't believe it. (I'm a big fan of film noir)

Skorpi- There is a great deal of difference or customization among your entries. I can see you thought about this a lot.

Razorleaf- in your Button Puncher your guy is great. He looks kind of like the sort of dufus that could go episode after episode and never actually figure out that he's dating an assassin. lol (Like woah! Why'd you shoot that guy?)

This is all I can remember at the moment. I'll be back for more comments. I will get to everybody in as much detail as I can. I personally think the criticisms are the good stuff, far more informative than votes or stars.

[Razorleaf]

Hahahahah arttorney, thanks. I modelled both the characters of my Button Puncher after my kids. The assassin is my 20 year old daughter and the dofus against the wall is my 15+ year old son. He was kinda upset I made him look so blah but he got over it hahaha. In real life he's the cool guy that all the girls want to hang with. :)

[Nike]

Thanks again for this challenge, Ilaekae! It was great practice and I think I have learned a lot by doing these five pieces. It was also interesting to work with a big size. I tend to post my pics much smaller usually, and I found out it's much easier to make a smaller sized pic look good as such a large ones where you can spot the mistakes easily because the details are still beig enough to actually see them very well, haha :)

It was really hard to vote for one artist only here... Great work everyone! That being said, I voted for skorpi, because I really liked the way she approched the different covers with different styles that in my opinion fit very well to the target audience of each cover.

arttorney – I really like your ideas, you always had the full layout in mind. Shadows is standing out, the simplicity is working very well – it’s an eye catcher and I can imagine this as a book cover very well. Regarding the others I’d recommend limiting the use of different textures – textures are great, but I think in the button puncher for instance there’s too much going on – the eye needs a place to rest, too.

blackrobin – I like these a lot – you have a beautiful painting style and a good feeling for layouts. What I miss a bit in yours is the connection to the target audience in the button puncher – it’s beautifully done, but I’d rather think of a dominantly male target audience seeing that cover. My favourite is the Shadows cover – great idea!

js. sabastian – I really like the action going on in your covers, especially in Fractured and Button Puncher-. Your painting style looks great, too – could be a tiny bit cleaner in some parts (but I know time is n issue, mine are pretty messy, too). in the Seedling it’s a bit hard for me to connect to the topic description – it would fit well to some kids gang adventure though. It’s a bit of a pity that the layout aspect (publishers mark, title placement in some, author/illustrator) is missing.

kyurai – these are looking good, my favourite is Fractured. I’m not sure if some of them – like Shadows (which I really like as a painting) – would work well as comic or graphic novel covers though – might be me.

Razorleaf – I relly like yours – especially your button puncher. Cool to read that the characters are your own children! I like teh retro concept of fractured a lot – it looks like a collage. Maybe an a bit stronger defined and similar light source for the heads might make it even more interesting? Shadows I like a lot, too, as well as the Seedling. The five stars concept is really nice – I think the character needs a bit more work though – especially because the forms of the creatures are very well defined, which somewhat stresses the fact, that these are bit unclear at some parts of the woman – the neck – the hip – the pants. Great work though on all the five, you would have been my second pick :)

skorpi – great work, really – for me, your entry summed up what the challenge was about – different approaches for different target audience, original ideas very well executed, and you thought about the layout aspect, too. Hard to say which one I like best – they’re all so different, which I really like :)

The Cracy Dude – Really good ideas, pity that photoshop didn’t do its job – the pieces are all very sketchy still which makes it a bit hard to compare to the others. Fractured and five stars are my favourites!
Waterbird – amazing what you did in such a short time! I like the watercolours and the layout elements a lot – how you placed the title, the capow ... really great. Topic wise, some of the covers are working great for me, like shadows, in others, like Fractured, I find it a bit hard to connect to the description.

Again, great work everyone! Now I’m really curious to see Ilaekaes work!

[Hari Gopinathan]

All these entries are really ****in awesome !!!!!!!!!!1
There s very little to choose between each of these.
My personal favourites that I didnt vote for are SkorpiWaterbird and Kyurai Really awesome stuff you guys.
Love the shadows cover by Waterbird,
the button puncher by Skorpi
And fractured by Kyurai(more like a magazine cover than a comic though)

And finally my vote goes to Black Robin for the sheer impact of the images. Button Puncher is so friggin RADICAL !!!! And I love the painting style. Even the five stars aint half bad. Not too sure about how well you dealt with attracting the prescribed audience and stuff.. But the cover look really awesome. You rock . Kep up the good work.

Oh and good work everyone else!!! Rock on!!!!

[arttorney]

Blackrobin- Did you pay careful attention to trim and bleed marks? The words are usually dangerously close to the edges on your pieces and the two pistols in button Puncher (important elements of the piece) seem to fall mostly outside the live art area. I like your art and I would hate to see some machine cut away a cool part of it.

Kyurai- Fractured and Button Puncher worked the best. cell phones, pistols, and young love. Great teenage combo. Shadows and Five Stars I thought could have used some more contrast either in value or hue.

Nike- again liked Fractured and Button Puncher. Something about the Shadows woman's nose is not doing that much for me. I'm not saying no nose ever looks like that but instead that I personally not drawn into this book by her face and I think it is more the nose than the eyes. Noses are the bane of my own portraiture. I don't blame anime people for blowing them off. Rough edges in Seedling and exceeding softness to Five Stars I thought.

Crazy Dude SRD- I think there's a ton of potential in all five. Time was clearly your enemy. I can't remember at the moment if you had been talking about specific calamities in your life, but I think I remember there were computer issues. I try to get some work every day toward a big goal like this if I can and sometimes I have to let one go even if it hurts so I will be sure to give time to the other four as necessary. I would love to see you finish up the colors on these and post them in the non-competitive comics section.

I think that's everybody, though I'll check again in a day or two to see if I have any more comments.