Vote now for your Favourite Fan Cover Artist

See my sig and click it, that will give you the idea who you should vote!

I would have entered if I wouldnt have to do a cover on a Transformer that nobody cares about

Vote for Doublecross #905 by Tim Pugh! Its the Law...........................please please please, i need the votes or i'll die!

What the effing Deuce is with that site?! Its slower then Siebertron was just after the switch over! I cant see any of the drawings because of the speed.

Spotlight Gnaw?
Who would want to read that?
Unless it has somethin about how the Quints enslaved the Sharkticons.......Maybe I do want to read it!

But i just noticed something.
On the current winner for cover entry on Spotlight Cosmos I noticed that Cos is standing by one of the characters from Infiltration.Will SP Cosmos tie in with the current Devastation Comic series like some other Spotlights do?

Satan's Camaro wrote:Spotlight Gnaw?
Who would want to read that?
Unless it has somethin about how the Quints enslaved the Sharkticons.......Maybe I do want to read it!

But i just noticed something.
On the current winner for cover entry on Spotlight Cosmos I noticed that Cos is standing by one of the characters from Infiltration.Will SP Cosmos tie in with the current Devastation Comic series like some other Spotlights do?

Well these are fake spotlights, not ever going to be released (or maybe some will one day) and the brief said that the characters can be from G1, WW or the IDW universe so i guess we can let that Cosmos entry off. Personally i voted for a different Cosmos entry.

Sonray wrote:What the effing Deuce is with that site?! Its slower then Siebertron was just after the switch over! I cant see any of the drawings because of the speed.

The effing Deuce is that there currently is a *lot* of people trying to view a lot of threads heavy with mostly locally-hosted images. I'm not surprised at all that the server is chugging. May have to wait until the initial rush dies down.

Well If I knew better, I think I would have done it better. I did Bombshell. (Ana Del Campo) I got no votes . Oh well, at least I try my best.

Anyone else having inane troubles registering for the IDW forum?

The IDW forums are set up that the administrator has to hand-approve every registration, and there's so many new people trying to register that there's a long backlog.

Pretty silly setup to me; I would think it'd be less time-consuming to delete the few spammers that bother registering than it would be to process all those registrations all the time. But, eh.

Well,I haven't registered for the IDW forums, but I took a look at Bombshell and Air Raid, and well I have to say that the artwork looks amazing!

Jeysie wrote:The IDW forums are set up that the administrator has to hand-approve every registration, and there's so many new people trying to register that there's a long backlog.

Pretty silly setup to me; I would think it'd be less time-consuming to delete the few spammers that bother registering than it would be to process all those registrations all the time. But, eh.

Well, that does seem rather retarded...

I hear now they're only letting people register who agree to vote for Sureshot #2202. It's some kind of Australian by law or something.

The fact it's my piece of art is purely coincidental...

Hi:
Nice thread! Good to see lesser known characters been give the Spotlight and not just the popular ones. My love for Transformers goes beyond the "core characters".

Since I have to register to the forum to vote (and I am lazy and has no time) I will "cast my vote" here (for whatever it is worth).

>> Spotlight: Divebomb
>> Spotlight: Onslaught

These are the two Spotlights I am more eager to see and as of the covers my votes goes for:

Spotlight: Divebomb - #801 JOANA LAFUENTE OLIVEIRA AMARAL
Spotlight: Onslaught - #1504 NATHAN DAVIS

Good luck to everyone who submitted an entry!

NightFall wrote:Well If I knew better, I think I would have done it better. I did Bombshell. (Ana Del Campo) I got no votes . Oh well, at least I try my best.

I feel your pain. I did Dragstrip (Cameron Brown) but only got 2 votes. But like you said at least we tried our best, and at least we met the deadline

BLIX007 wrote:

NightFall wrote:Well If I knew better, I think I would have done it better. I did Bombshell. (Ana Del Campo) I got no votes . Oh well, at least I try my best.

I feel your pain. I did Dragstrip (Cameron Brown) but only got 2 votes. But like you said at least we tried our best, and at least we met the deadline

I did Sureshot and got 3, but we still got over a week to go people, there might be a late rush. Don't give up hope yet:)

Well, I wish mines wasn't so horrid. At least you all have some votes, I'm wishing for a vote. I so wanted to go to round two. And for some reason I can never log in that site. I'm pretty sad about that , I always wanted to do their site monthly art contest as a member. Oh well, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

Vote FIRST GEN aka Steven Serrano for WEIRDWOLF.

I had a pencil, pen, sheet of paper and a scanner to work with, so bear with me.

My drawing is no where near the best but I believe I caught the essence of the Spotlight cover, which some of the much better drawings seem to be lacking.

NightFall wrote:Well, I wish mines wasn't so horrid. At least you all have some votes, I'm wishing for a vote. I so wanted to go to round two. And for some reason I can never log in that site. I'm pretty sad about that , I always wanted to do their site monthly art contest as a member. Oh well, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

You should drop either Richter or the board admin an e-mail; I know I had to do that before mine finally got put through and working.

It's too bad this contest is making some people feel bad because they're getting little if no votes or feedback. An unfortunate downside. Nevertheless, I've been seeing some spectaular pieces out there. Woot.

I'm in the Spotlight Getaway camp, ##1106 Lindsay Smith. And when I first saw the polls, I had 2 votes and thought "Aw man...". I was pretty disapointed. Then people started giving me feedback and said they liked my stlye, that it stood out, etc and everything and then I felt great. I may not win, never expected I would though I wished I would get past the first round, but it's nice to know that some people were enjoying my work.

All I can say to people who are feeling bad about how their piece is doing, is to just have fun with it. Don't feel bad. You did your best, and that's all you can expect from yourself. It was fun to enter, the anticipation of the polls going up was huge, and everyone was excited as hell to see the entries. It's all in good fun, so let's just roll with it.

In case anyone was curious, here is a link to my WIP for my Doublecross entry.

http://timshinn73.deviantart.com/art/Doublecross-IDW-Cover-WIP-7539669

Might give an idea how I put the whole thing together.

As for commenting on entries, I've tried to visit as many deviantART pages as possible to comment on entries individually. IDW's boards were a little slow early on, so I thought commenting on DA would be quicker. If I haven't commented on someone's piece yet, I'll try to get around to it soon.

I think it's important to keep in mind, entrants range from all ages and skill levels. If you feel a little bummed you haven't received comments or votes, turn that into motivation to get back to work and try harder. The important thing is to enjoy what you're doing.

Have fun, enjoy everyone's art and be happy for those who advance in the contest.

Neko wrote:It's too bad this contest is making some people feel bad because they're getting little if no votes or feedback. An unfortunate downside. Nevertheless, I've been seeing some spectaular pieces out there. Woot.

I'm in the Spotlight Getaway camp, ##1106 Lindsay Smith. And when I first saw the polls, I had 2 votes and thought "Aw man...". I was pretty disapointed. Then people started giving me feedback and said they liked my stlye, that it stood out, etc and everything and then I felt great. I may not win, never expected I would though I wished I would get past the first round, but it's nice to know that some people were enjoying my work.

All I can say to people who are feeling bad about how their piece is doing, is to just have fun with it. Don't feel bad. You did your best, and that's all you can expect from yourself. It was fun to enter, the anticipation of the polls going up was huge, and everyone was excited as hell to see the entries. It's all in good fun, so let's just roll with it.

The one thing I'd like to learn is how to make the picture (inks I mean) look so crisp and clean. Is it the pen used? I never did inks before, Im a complete novice to it and I dont have any photoshop type programs to work with either.

Yours is an awesome piece Neko.

First Gen wrote:The one thing I'd like to learn is how to make the picture (inks I mean) look so crisp and clean. Is it the pen used? I never did inks before, Im a complete novice to it and I dont have any photoshop type programs to work with either.

I do my inks on a lightbox using a separate piece of Bristol paper on top of the pencils. I ink with Pigma Micron pens and a brushpen. I ink most of my work freehand, but do use rulers or french curves from time to time if need be. All of these items can be found at your local art store.

I scan the inks and clean them up and make adjustments in Photoshop.

One thing that will help you achieve a crisp clean look is speed and confidence. Inking slowly causes wobbly lines and the ink can even puddle in spots. Don't be timid. It will show in your inking. Tons of practice will help build speed and confidence. Practice with different size pens. Work on using different line weights when you ink in order to add emphasis and impact.

Since you don't have Photoshop at the moment, I suggest gettin' your hands dirty. If you can learn to ink the old fashioned way, using Photoshop in the future for tweaks will be a snap. There's always the option of using Photoshop at a print or office shop. Not the ideal choice, but still a choice.

Just keep at it. Draw and ink all the time. Use reference. And remember to have fun.

Ah so that's what I do wrong, thanks tim!
Next time I'll use speed!

Posted by Dark Monkelus on January 24th, 2008 @ 7:34am CST

I hear now they're only letting people register who agree to vote for Sureshot #2202. It's some kind of Australian by law or something.

The fact it's my piece of art is purely coincidental...

Actually, I reckon the voting system must be a bit screwed. I was looking at the Sureshot entries (simply because it's first in the list) and there are 2 that a fairly clearly better than the rest. Yours (Dark Monkelus) and Richard Bartrop's. And the more I look at them the more I like yours (#2202).

So I don't understand how you only got 3 votes and some others got 11, unless some of the others got a few of their mates to vote. And the fact that it's so hard to sign up to vote means there is just not enough votes cast.

Anyway, if they actually authorise my registration in time you've got my vote. Good luck man.

timshinn73 wrote:

First Gen wrote:The one thing I'd like to learn is how to make the picture (inks I mean) look so crisp and clean. Is it the pen used? I never did inks before, Im a complete novice to it and I dont have any photoshop type programs to work with either.

I do my inks on a lightbox using a separate piece of Bristol paper on top of the pencils. I ink with Pigma Micron pens and a brushpen. I ink most of my work freehand, but do use rulers or french curves from time to time if need be. All of these items can be found at your local art store.

I scan the inks and clean them up and make adjustments in Photoshop.

One thing that will help you achieve a crisp clean look is speed and confidence. Inking slowly causes wobbly lines and the ink can even puddle in spots. Don't be timid. It will show in your inking. Tons of practice will help build speed and confidence. Practice with different size pens. Work on using different line weights when you ink in order to add emphasis and impact.

Since you don't have Photoshop at the moment, I suggest gettin' your hands dirty. If you can learn to ink the old fashioned way, using Photoshop in the future for tweaks will be a snap. There's always the option of using Photoshop at a print or office shop. Not the ideal choice, but still a choice.

Just keep at it. Draw and ink all the time. Use reference. And remember to have fun.

Wow, my first mistake was inking over my pencil. didn't even think to ink over on another sheet.

Im going to invest in some of those pens you recommend and hope for the best, lol.

Thanks a million.

Actually, I reckon the voting system must be a bit screwed. I was looking at the Sureshot entries (simply because it's first in the list) and there are 2 that a fairly clearly better than the rest. Yours (Dark Monkelus) and Richard Bartrop's. And the more I look at them the more I like yours (#2202).

So I don't understand how you only got 3 votes and some others got 11, unless some of the others got a few of their mates to vote. And the fact that it's so hard to sign up to vote means there is just not enough votes cast.

Anyway, if they actually authorise my registration in time you've got my vote. Good luck man.

Thanks man, regardless of the winning to actually have people take time to give my art a go is worth the entry on it's own, I appreciate it alot.

First Gen wrote:Thanks a million.

You bet.

I ink over my pencils too. But that light box idea sounds interesting. I need to see into getting one.

What I do is erase as much of the pencils (after inking) as I can and then scan it. Once in Photoshop, I use the spounge tool (Mode set on saturate)and I clean the image until all I have is crisp clean lines. Sometime the smuge marks are so dark the program darkens them so I go in and carefully erase them.


And thanks First Gen!

Neko wrote:I ink over my pencils too. But that light box idea sounds interesting. I need to see into getting one.

I'm certainly no artist, but... I find that the combination of a clear plastic clipboard and a properly placed flashlight makes a not-bad makeshift tracing setup.

I knew I was doing something wrong, I just ink onto the penil and hope to god I don't spill anything:)

Just noticed this topic now-So passionate plea time.

I really really really needs some votes, i am second place in my group but just barely-so i need all the help i can get.

If u havent voted in the Scourge group yet please vote Brian Donnely, all the info is there in my sig. I am good enough and dedicated enough to make a real career in comics-but first i gotta get off the ground. And to do that i need help from each and every one of u.

Thanks

p.s. here is a tasty pic just to make ya all happy

GrimSqueaker wrote:If u havent voted in the Scourge group yet please vote Brian Donnely, all the info is there in my sig. I am good enough and dedicated enough to make a real career in comics-but first i gotta get off the ground. And to do that i need help from each and every one of u.

You're in luck... I already ended up voting for yours. (And posted some reasonings why and criticisms in that IDW thread, just in case you missed it.)

well if we're getting desperate...

Vote me in sureshot group, go on you know it makes sense makes sense (for reasons I haven't yet thought of, I just want to go head to head in the next round with 'Squeaker).

Nice one though Mr Grim, 2nd, that's enough to get through!

Dark Monkelus wrote:Vote me in sureshot group, go on you know it makes sense makes sense (for reasons I haven't yet thought of, I just want to go head to head in the next round with 'Squeaker).

(looks up Monkelus' pic)

I... didn't vote for yours. :> I thought it was awesomely done, but I have some feedback in the Sureshot thread as to why I didn't vote for it. FWIW, if there was a contest for *interior* art, and you can do smaller sequentials too, I think you'd have a good shot.

And I thank you for the comments, it's kinda true and as I said before, the learning is a big part of why I entered.

I went through hell trying to decide what composition to go for, and after one sleepless night too many worrying about the contest being 99.9% full of depictions of Transformers firing randomly in to the distance deciding on something as far away from that as possible.

Dark Monkelus wrote:I went through hell trying to decide what composition to go for, and after one sleepless night too many worrying about the contest being 99.9% full of depictions of Transformers firing randomly in to the distance deciding on something as far away from that as possible.

I can definitely appreciate that line of thought (doing something different from everyone else). But, IMHO the fact that it's supposed to be a Spotlight is a pretty good dictate of what approach to take. This is what my line of thinking probably would have been:

1. What are the spotlight character's main personality traits/hooks?

2. How would the character react to the other two characters in the prompt (and to a lesser extent, how would they react to him/her?)

3. Which of those traits/reactions is the most actiony/eye-catching?

Sureshot's a pretty easy character, I think... he's an arrogant ace marksman, something that naturally lends itself to some actiony poses. I think Daniel Fogarty handles this pretty well all around - we see Sureshot doing what he does best, with Streetwise just running in after chasing his target, only to be beaten to the punch by Sureshot's sharpshooting. Octane does sort of come off as "random Decepticon", but to be fair, Octane's own personality hook isn't exactly one that is very "static visual".

I just might have played up the arrogant part of Sureshot and had some fun with it. Streewise could be in robot mode, skidding to a stop as if he'd just been running pell-mell, with a confused and/or annoyed look on his face. Meanwhile, Sureshot's still shooting Octane, but he's standing in an almost relaxed pose, a bored/hoity-toity look on his face and one arm held palm out to Streetwise as if to say, "Appreciate the backup, but no worries, I've already got it well in hand."

Or something of that ilk. Every Transformer is unique, so if you take the chance to try and sell their specific angle, you shouldn't have to worry too much about getting stuck with all generic layouts.

My category (Cindersaur)...

http://idwpublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3154

My craptacular image...

http://www.idwpublishing.com/images/TF_contest/cindersaur/Cindersaur_-_Matthew_Brown_-_Large.jpg

See I didn't go simplistic, I went uber detail, and am getting squashed, because of it, and I think the scan is off...

It was fun, but a bit of a confidence shatterer.

0% of the vote and only 1 overall vote--gotta' vote for me...

tigertracks 24 wrote:See I didn't go simplistic, I went uber detail, and am getting squashed, because of it, and I think the scan is off...

You're not kidding, I may be wrong but there could be more detail there than there actually is in real life.

Don't worry about it though, you've got the best name in the world!

Dark Monkelus wrote:

tigertracks 24 wrote:See I didn't go simplistic, I went uber detail, and am getting squashed, because of it, and I think the scan is off...

You're not kidding, I may be wrong but there could be more detail there than there actually is in real life.

Don't worry about it though, you've got the best name in the world!

Thanks, I'm thinking Dark Monkelus is the best name ever...

There's no reason for this post other than to keep this thread alive and remind you lovely people that there is still a week left to vote for your fellow Seibertronians.

Dark Monkelus wrote:There's no reason for this post other than to keep this thread alive and remind you lovely people that there is still a week left to vote for your fellow Seibertronians.

Indeed-Keep jobs local, Vote Sieb!!!!

damn straight, though at this point I'm really wishing I also had me an army

Hello Everyone.. or will only competitors be reading this?

If otherwise, a call to arms to vote. For whoever, but vote.

Us artists'd appreciate it. And many a woman and an ethnic has died for the right

yehh


Sumit Sarkar DoublecroSS (an ethnic)
http://www.kriksix.com

kriksix wrote:If otherwise, a call to arms to vote. For whoever, but vote.

Us artists'd appreciate it. And many a woman and an ethnic has died for the right

yehh


Sumit Sarkar DoublecroSS (an ethnic)
http://www.kriksix.com

Damn right, I'm gonna stop wearing a bra until I'm at least 2nd place. Sureshot, Matt J Brown #2202. Bra-less