First the quote: "Artist of the Month is highlighting a talented Renderosity artist that has been nominated by coords, mods, and admins and voted by the community." Is this supposed to be a joke as the Hot20 is? I've browsed through this months nominees and I have seen, imo, 2 talented artists. The other 8 have all similair galleries, the ones every one who owns poser can do (if he wanted to do so), in other words, something I wouldn't regard as talent at all. The more I do browse through the renderosity sections, the more I wonder if this place is for real at all. By the way this ins't some self promoting thing, I do NOT consider myself to be talented when it comes to Poser. My handdrawn comics my be slightly talented (at least I was told so by a number of people), but my 3D images (mainly made with Poser these days) aren't what I would consider talented (not art), but just very effecient. Poser saves me a lot of time. Also I'm not denying that there isn't talent around here or cannot be found in the Poser galleries. I've seen some outstanding talent here, but none of them makes it as AOM.

/me pops out the popcorn.

Aeikema, your post is going to generate some flames! Quite a lot of people take the AOM seriously, and your implication that it is a "joke" won't be taken lightly. Maybe you could have phrased your concerns a little more diplomatically? :)

The best way (in my opinion) of bringing forth talent one deems overlooked is to mention their names in these forums. Then, maybe people will see fit to nominate them instead, and question their exclusion from the nominee list.

That being said, I really can't think of any better way to come up with an Artist of the month other than by some sort of voting process. And based on the nature of such a process, combined with the typical paucity of votes, it's unlikely that everyone will approve of the final winners.

Message edited on: 08/25/2005 16:10

Then vote for one of the two artists who you feel is talented. Or if you feel you don't want to vote, then don't. Or, if you have someone in mind who you think is more talented than any of the nominees, why not post a link to their gallery so we can all check them out?

This hot 20 thing always feels like kids fighting over crayons to me. Like what you like and pass over what you don't and stop fighting over the stupid plastic trophy. You're going to break the handle.

I just looked thru the first three galleries on the list,Boy where have you been browsing? I see plenty of outstanding worthy work in the running. -3dz

Well gee aeilkema, you really know how to hurt a person. I was thrilled just to be nominated this month and consider myself a winner for that honor alone. I consider the other people on the list to be top notch artists and am glad to be in their company. Sorry you feel the way you do.

I do not care for some of the subject matter, but some talented people are on the list. I wish POSER was more the focus than PhotoShop, but Oh well. Just Vote. And only 1 vote per person ... unless you have Clones :)

shrug Art is subjective. Personally, I can't see a bad choice in the bunch. Also, in the end, is all the fighting over who's in the spotlight worth it? If it truly isn't worth our time, it will weed itself out.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, even if 90% of the population can do it. What i disagree with is that most people who get voted into the Top 20 are put there by friends, ie, if your intermittent at posting to the galleries very few people look and appreciate your work, where as those who post regularly get high amounts of applause. Sadly this also applies in the real world too, and i see no way around it, apart from getting more friends..lol.. Do i now sound like a looser???? roflol and i laugh at my own jokes...

aeilkema, aren't you just the diplomatic one, always making certain to take into account people's feelings...especially on such a subjective subject, where almost everyone will have a differing point of view...

now what exactly are you trying to accomplish with this post?? nothing positive I gleen, because 1) you have offered no positive suggestions to change what you see a wide spread error in judgement, ie: even though a large group of people saw things differently than you, you did not offer up suggestions of artists you believe more deserving, and 2) you have, at the VERY least, without good reason, offended and/or hurt 8 people with your personal assessment of the situation...

Message edited on: 08/25/2005 18:56

Ditto.

Well, I think everything and everyone sucks. Nobody's talented, people use too much postwork (which is, of course, eeeeevil), the Hot 20 sucks, people have no taste, tits get the hits, pink ponies are more eeeeeevil than postwork, and yeah, it must be that time of the month around here.... ;-P On a serious note, this concept of "talent" has always kinda mystified me. I know that some people have more natural ability for some things, sure, but people hold up "talent" as if it's some mystical, magical fairydust or something. I gotta tell you, skill, practice, and education frequently count for a hell of a lot more in this world than "talent". I know LOTS of very talented people who have never achieved a damn thing with their oh-so-excellent talent, and a lot of folks with mediocre talent but lots of skill and determination who have succeeded greatly. Now let's argue about something REALLY important, like operating systems or mail programs or something. Sheesh. bonni

Wow, I just looked over those galleries, and I think there is some fantastic work there. Not all of it was in my taste, but all of it was good work, IMO. There were so many great images by so many of the contestants that I had to fight with myself to finally break down and vote for just one of the artists.

In a way, any contest submitted to a community vote may end up in a popularity contest. What could be interesting is that if a team of artists/moderators, a kind of jury, would explore the galleries and try to oust new talents. And then, show them up to people. Just 0.2 trying to be constructive

I meant "showing them up to people" for the Hot 20 vote, not talking about the other ways used here to show unknown artists...