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Competitions
by sq2
as appeared in oOze issue #2
The First Competitions
Nectar
was one of the first competitions
in the ansi scene. It was introduced by Nootropic
(now known as Dieznyik) in early 96. The logo competitions
were probably the first decent chance for ansi artists to
actually compete against other artists. Nectar was ran monthly;
at a preset date/time, artists would meet on irc and negotiate
the upcoming competition. A title, or name, that the artists
would have to draw around would be randomly selected, however,
as competitions evolved the 'random' component disappeared
:) The artists would have a set time, usually an hour, to
jump to their OS and draw an ansi. Artists had to get all
their work in before the deadline, by sending it to whoever
was running the competition. The working time was usually
extended and toyed with, until sufficient entries were collected,
so generally the competitions were run under very soft time
limits. The runner of the competition would zip up all the
entries and redistribute them throughout the channel, and
artists would vote. Many voting techniques have been
employed, such as: 1. artists voting on their favourite
entries 2. the person in charge of the competition selecting
their favourite entries 3. no definite winner being selected.
The third option would result in a small pak being released
with all the entries available for the public to see.
here
is one of the ansis from a pic compo. as you can read on
the left he was ripped off. this is from the darklands compo.
drawn by dieznyik/iCE
The
competitions were originally logo competitions, but
after a while ppl starting experimenting with full screen
pics. Time limits got extended to 4 hours on occasion,
anything so that artists had enough time to draw works of
up to 200 lines.
Abuse
of the Competitions
The
competition idea got out of hand from then on. People
who couldn't get any decent ansis for their board decided
to run competitions, and get heaps of good artists in on
a channel like #darklands. They would end up with
a bunch of logos/pics for their board, simply by offering
a chance for artists to compete. Sometimes prizes were offered,
such as modems, other ansis (drawn by respected
members of the scene), etc. Half of the time the prizes
never came through.
one
of my logos from the darklands compo. it came about 3rd,
coz the rules changed and allowed pics... originally it
was a 'logo compo'... c'est la vie.
Basically
the whole concept of competitions are almost down the drain
now, i, for one am very hesitant about entering any
competition, for the fear of being ripped off lurks
in the back of my mind. The idea has sort of worn off, the
same ppl show up to the same competitions, and it has gradually
faded out. With a bit of spark we could generate a huge
competition and get things on the road, but the smaller
'on the spot' competitions are uncommon now. Perhaps if
someone organised a massive competition a few months in
advance, and had it advertised in various artpacks the idea
would work out.
this
is from another compo, as you can see it took 25mins. It
came 1st equal.
The
question to ask about the current competitions is, who wins?
The person who gets voted #1, and bathes in a little glory
for five minutes, before everyone jumps off irc and forgets
about it or is the person who runs the competition, and
ends up with 50 ansis supporting his board?
oZ96
Demo Competition
Australia's
first major demo competition was held in Sydney in early
1996. Demo Competitions have been running for more than
five years now, but oZ96 would have been one of the first
to feature an ansi division. All the local ansi doodlers
had a chance to compete in a new ansi division, part of
the graphics competition. The rules were laid out by Maeve
Wolf, and were pretty basic for the first competition. Ripping
was allowed, ie comic book rips, but it wasn't very encouraged.
BINARY files were allowed, so pictures of 160 chrs wide
were possible. As with any division of a Demo Party, artists
were required to censor any links to their own name, as
to make voting as fair as possible. However, one thing
had been ignored however: the voters.
That
was the biggest problem, the voters had no idea what ansi
was. It's not too hard for an ansi artist to pick what
a good ansi is, but for some reason the voters at oZ96,
a selection of asm coders, dp2 artists and screamtracker
3 musicians, had no idea. i guess it had to do with
the fact that they didn't have much experience with ansi.
A somms or an ld! pic would most likely end up with a ranking
not equal to our, ansi artists, expectations.
this
is an extract from the winning ansi.
The
best method of voting for an ansi competition, considering
the fact that most scene ppl aren't aware of the qualities
of good ansis, is to have a panel of judges that are
experienced in the field. This would raise the problems
of biased voting, but if you keep all artwork unsigned,
the problem shouldn't exist.
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