C.O.W. - Summer Break!!!

**Fozzybar** · June 24th, 2005, 03:53 PM

COW - Summer Break!

**Fozzybar** · June 24th, 2005, 03:53 PM

COW is tired and needs a break!

The last 4 rounds had clearly less entries than the ones before (especially the last one with only 10 entries)...

This break will be a good chance to increase the interest again and make some artists hungry for the next rounds...

We will use this thread for any posts according to COW meanwhile...post your thoughts, comments or discuss anything which is topic related...

Happy holidays COW and thank you to all who supported this activity with his/her entries, comments, votes and whatever!!!

...oh, and THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MATT DIXON for another cool COW-Image

**Pattern Recognition** · June 24th, 2005, 04:17 PM

Actually I think a summer break isn't such a good idea as I have been waiting for my break from school and graduation to participate in this. But no biggie, I'll hone my skills and come here and hopefully have a shot at competing with the others hehe..

**fungi** · June 24th, 2005, 04:25 PM

i think its really sad and lame that your doing this fozzy. at least could you let sombody else take over?

**0kelvin** · June 24th, 2005, 04:33 PM

He's not doing it for his own sake, he's doing it because the interest level has dropped. I think a break could be beneficial.

How long is the summer break going to last? I hope not the whole summer. I miss COW already.

0kelvin

**fungi** · June 24th, 2005, 04:53 PM

interest hasnt been lost, the topic quality has however.

**BrainBug** · June 24th, 2005, 05:58 PM

maybe you could do 2 week COW's till end of summer, maybe more people would join then + you don't have to stop?

**croovman** · June 24th, 2005, 06:04 PM

after like two months of having a test or two every week I'll finally be done with them next week and have time for such cool and fun activities like COW, and you decide to take a break..

mega lame, dude

**GreenTopaz** · June 24th, 2005, 06:08 PM

but the last one was my first one and I was really looking forward to more ;__; now I'm gonna have to wait all summer? aw...

**chimera** · June 24th, 2005, 06:14 PM

i think community activities is overlooked somewhat. people looking for challenges(like myself) are looking in the challenge section... not in the community activities. i'm new to conceptart and think the cow is great.. i was looking to start posting. it is my favorite challenge, or the most useful for what i'm looking to accomplish.

i like the idea of having it bi-weekly, maybe a reminder in the challenge forum might bring in more interest? just a thought.

friday =

weeee

**Fozzybar** · June 24th, 2005, 06:15 PM

Come on, people, there is a life out of this forum...i did this because the interest dropped, just as 0kelvin said...

Until round #14 we had at least 20 entries for each round, here is an overview:

#15 Gluttonous Emperor: 14 Entries
#16 Evolutionary Dead End: 14 Entries
#17 Hill Stomper: 18 entries
#18 Sewer Beast: 10 Entries

So, there is a clear tendency, that whatever the reasons are, members didn't participate like before.

I think that the winners of the last rounds wouldn't have won if the participation were like the rounds before. That's not fair and also not good for the activity...

See it as a Apollo Creed method to light the eye of the tiger in you

No pain!!! Adriaaaan...

And for those who are complaining that they have time now...well there are always people who have the time and others don't...but simply the hot weather is definitely a reason not to sit on the pc for more people...

**Fozzybar** · June 24th, 2005, 06:26 PM

ok, added a poll to see how you feel about this

**BrainBug** · June 24th, 2005, 06:33 PM

you could also just open a topic, and each time there aren't 25 good entries add another week to the deadline,... oh, and end it after 4 weeks so it doesn't get too boring and you can do two of those during summer.

if you do get 25 entries it shows you were wrong

if you don't get 25, well, at least me and a lot of others have a reason to keep checking our favorite part of this forum

**Main Loop** · June 24th, 2005, 07:09 PM

Dang. And I was hoping to prove I can make an original creature for once.

**Fozzybar** · June 24th, 2005, 07:14 PM

All of you...have a look at the activity IDM:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45875

It desperatly needs some attention...it could be a good thing while COW is relaxing...

**OxCreative** · June 24th, 2005, 07:40 PM

Hey Foz, perhaps since there has been a lot of people who get free time in the summer because they have graduated or having a school summer holiday etc it might be good to do a COW SUMMER SPECIAL, i.e. An extended entry time (a few weeks instead of 1) and the topic could be some sort of creature in the summer (like the cow mascot relaxing (v. good btw!))

what do people think of this?

**cartoonfox** · June 24th, 2005, 07:42 PM

doh, just as im about the get into this, now that i have finished college for ever ^-^
but i still voted for that its a good idea, there has been slightley less interest the last few rounds, i'll just have to let the thunderdome keep me occupied ^-^

btw fozzy, when do you think COW will be back?

peace

**Fozzybar** · June 24th, 2005, 08:10 PM

well, i am not sure, but i thought something between 1-2 months...

**oracrest** · June 24th, 2005, 11:31 PM

oh, i get it, Fozz, thats great! "Summer Break" is this week's topic! very very interpretive. I dig it. can't wait to see what people come up with for this one

**Matt Dixon** · June 25th, 2005, 02:20 AM

Seeing as most comments seem to be against the idea of a summer break, I'd just like to speak up in Fozzybar's defence.

As he says, interest in the COW has clearly fallen off. Maybe it's because of the topics ( though I don't see how 'Sewer Beast' is radically different from 'Cloud Dweller', for example ) or summer is here ( it seems as if participation in the forums overall has been a little quiet lately ) but I think it's just as likely to be that people have just become a little bored after almost 20 rounds. A few weeks off should help recharge our creative juices, give us all time to think about ways to improve the COW activity and hopefully discuss them here, and means that Fozzy can relaunch the activity with a burst of forum marketing which will hopefully bring in more participants. I think a break is a good idea.

I agree it's bad timing for anyone who's just joined in or has time on their hands now school is out, but there are other activities on the site to join in with - and there's 18 previous COW topics to practise with until she goes live again..!

As far as things to think about for the COW's return goes -

# I'd like to see some variation in topics. Maybe an occasional open round where everyone can just let their imagination go wild?

# I hope the downtime will give us the chance to organise a higher profile for the COW. There was some talk about announcing winners ( and maybe each new round? ) on the front page. I think that's a great idea for getting updates on the largely redundant front page of the site, and might help bring us a little more traffic.

# 'Celebrity' COWs! It'd be great if some name artists could turn up from time to time to shake things up a bit. I'm sure some of the 'forum fathers' could be persuaded to support the activity once in a while. I know we have several professional contributors already, but the more the merrier!

**Matt Smith** · June 25th, 2005, 03:52 AM

I have seen COW on the forum before but never knew what it was until tonight. I wish it wasnt taking a break its like an advanced DSG and I only wish I knew about it sooner. So COW better take a short summer break because I want to have some fun. Also Shadoman your work looks like its made a big improvement, I havent seen your stuff in along time, but I liked what I saw you post up for COW. Great work.

**Zaknafain** · June 25th, 2005, 04:12 AM

I like matt dixons proposals, especially the last one. I think COW would really grow a lot after such things.

Anyway, regarding the topics, a poll could help. Because if the topic is choosen by a poll, at the end no one can complain about bad topics.

**0kelvin** · June 25th, 2005, 04:19 AM

I definitely agree with Matt Dixon. Let's take the downtime to make sure that when COW comes back it'll be bigger than it's ever been!

Although 2 months is an awful long time. I think a month would be plenty.

0kelvin

**OxCreative** · June 25th, 2005, 05:08 AM

Hey foz, another idea i have is when COW returns you could do a league. So everyone who is interested in cow signs up at the beginning and then points are given for 1st 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th in the poll.

This would ensure more people compete because if they do not enter each week they would fall down to the bottom of the league.

What do you think everyone?

**Matt Dixon** · June 25th, 2005, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by Zaknafain

Because if the topic is choosen by a poll, at the end no one can complain about bad topics.

Oh, I'm sure someone would manage it! To be honest, I think the topics are largely irrelevant - in fact, one could argue that the topics that you might find difficult or unappealing are precisely the topics that should be tackled in order for this to be an effective learning exercise. Particularly so for all the prospective concept artists out there, who can be damn sure they'll be handed uninspiring or generic briefs day after day in their professional lives and will be expected to produce something exciting whether it appeals to them or not. Better get over it now, lads.

Seriously though, one thing we can all do to improve the COW is to show the activity all the support we can - try to contribute as often as possible and promote the activity to other artists, for example. This is the most relevant activity on the board, and it deserves to thrive.

**Uziel** · June 25th, 2005, 05:50 AM

There are other activities you can participate or just start a personal cow with the creatures that are mentioned in the topic idea thread.

I'm sure the COW will return but 2 months is pretty long.
MOOoooo...

I think IDM's interest is much lower than cow. perhaps Davi should start a topic idea thread too. Or make it Industrial & character design to get more variation.

**Fozzybar** · June 25th, 2005, 06:23 AM

Originally Posted by Matt Dixon

# I'd like to see some variation in topics. Maybe an occasional open round where everyone can just let their imagination go wild?

As once decided in the ideas thread i think it's a good idea, but this was changed after the winner was allowed to pick the topic.

Originally Posted by Matt Dixon

# I hope the downtime will give us the chance to organise a higher profile for the COW. There was some talk about announcing winners ( and maybe each new round? ) on the front page. I think that's a great idea for getting updates on the largely redundant front page of the site, and might help bring us a little more traffic.

Well, i sent Andrew and Jason a pm about this idea...they replied and agreed that it is a good idea...i just looked in my folder they replied on May 4th...I think we could arrange this for the relaunch of COW...

Originally Posted by Matt Dixon

# 'Celebrity' COWs! It'd be great if some name artists could turn up from time to time to shake things up a bit. I'm sure some of the 'forum fathers' could be persuaded to support the activity once in a while. I know we have several professional contributors already, but the more the merrier!

This and a few other things i will try to organize for the relaunch, be assured that i won't sit in the sun and do nothing about COW. After the Summer Break there will be new cool features, which will COW help to start with a record participation i think...

Originally Posted by J2XA

Hey foz, another idea i have is when COW returns you could do a league. So everyone who is interested in cow signs up at the beginning and then points are given for 1st 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th in the poll.

This would ensure more people compete because if they do not enter each week they would fall down to the bottom of the league.

What do you think everyone?

As a statistic freak i think this is a nice idea and it wouldn't take much more effort to do this...so what is the rest of you thinking?

Btw the poll idea for picking topics is something i don't like:

1. It's time consuming
2. in most cases a topic will have a lead after a few days, which is like a early kick-off for this round, but every COW should last 1 week, not more not less
3. As Matt said, the topic you don't like could be a challenge...and actually there were no topic which was really that bad to accuse the less participation. "Venomous Bird" for example would have very less entries if we started it in the last weeks, because it's not a better topic than sewer beast. It's more challenging and people were earlier in the mood of taking this challenges of harder topics...

**Matt Dixon** · June 25th, 2005, 06:53 AM

The league's a good idea if it encourages people to make the extra effort to participate to hold their ranking. But...

It unfairly penalizes anyone who is genuinely too busy to contribute regularly, meaning someone's standing could be based more on how much free time they have than actual quality of work. Not necessarily a bad thing, though.

I would imagine there would be a lot of work involved keeping everyone's stats up to date - especially if the return of the COW attracts more participants. How would the league table be displayed?

There's a ( mostly

) friendly, supportive vibe amongst the COW crew, and I'd worry about making things too competetive. I wasn't really sure about the winners poll and stars, but that's proved to be a nice incentive. The difference there is that the vote we have now is just for that week, and everyone starts the following round as equals - maybe having a place in the league to worry about would change people's attitude a bit? Probably not, but it seems like the COW should be about support rather than competition.

Just thoughts. On balance, I think it'd probably be a positive thing, but I don't know if the benefits would be worth the work of maintaining it all.

**Wishes** · June 25th, 2005, 10:31 AM

I think you should NEVER stop. I've seen it at other art/design-forums, the forum just dies...

It's better to have low participation than no topics at all, because people don't come back anymore, they really don't..

**Uziel** · June 25th, 2005, 10:47 AM

I will keep posting on this forum.
And when the COW restarts I'll be there.

Why don't we have a COW after one month then you can show your best creature you came up with during that month.