Three_grr has come up with a fascinating challenge for September.   Think niches, hidey-holes,caves...secret little places.  We've all had one, for ourselves or our treasures.  We've had them in our minds and in our worlds.  This month, show us yours.

The challenge begins immediately and entries will be accepted until Sept. 28, 23:59 Renderosity time. 

This challenge is for everyone, regardless of their creative tools. Anyone can enter, whether they are using 2D, 3D, fractal, animation or any other software;  whether they are photographers, writers or even musicians. 

The challenge arena is open to all.  Join in, test your creative tools against all the others!

Let's run this until the last week of September, I will give you a day or so heads up and if anyone needs more time they can let me know.  You may enter an existing work if you like, but we would prefer to see a new work created for this challenge... it IS a challenge after all!  You may enter more than one work, but remember that in the voting, each entry will be judged separately.  Please, please, please put titles on your entries, especially if you have more than one.  Place your image, story, link or other art in this thread.

Let the Challenge begin!!!

~Viv

Congratulations to three-grrr and what a lovely pick for a theme!  Pity that my dollhouse wizards' castle won't be built for years... because it will have a secret passageway! ;^)  What else, what else....

MY MOST SECRET PLACE

....and Rita, it really is a great choice of challenge!!!

Oooh .. i hope it's not too late .. got really busy and just remembered .. i have this little one, there was a chipmunk in one of the little nooks and crannies in the wood pile. The BigDog was one side of the stack, the little dog, Murphy, on the other side. They worked this pile like crazy, peering in all the nooks and crannies, woofing, snorting, busily changing sides, and the chipmunk took advantage of one of those split seconds when the dogs traded sides, and scooted up the tree that this wood pile was against!
Rita

I'm glad the critter got away!

I took some pictures last night... need to see if anything turned out.

Carolly

My Silent Corner

Can your ears see
Rainbow sparkles on a roaring sea?

Can your eyes hear
When talking hands from voiceless hearts
Tell of frozen dreams and stilled thoughts?

My friend, welcome to my silent corner.

Gun, I adore your fun piece, that is for sure a secret place!! LOL!
Carolly, no matter what you photograph, it always turns out so beautiful!
I love that poem, Thunderstone!!
I hope there will be more posts!!
Rita 

Oooh, Gun, a wonderful hide-away!

WIZARDS' TOWER

The apostrophe is in the right place, since there are multiple wizards!  Lots of them.  (And servants and apprentices and scholars and monsters and guards and ghosts and summoned thingies.)

Please forgive the multiple photos, and the lack of quality.  I do not have a lipstick camera like Peter Jackson's by which to get inside the model.  There are oodles of towers, detailed inside and out.  On the inside, if you could peek through the 1/4" windows, you'd see that every room on every level is full of stuff: shelves, tables, cauldrons,whether exploding alchemical apparatus or quiet libraries, from the dungeons underneath to creatures under the eaves.  There are wheels and pull tabs so you can change some of the effects.  A few buildings have openable walls or lift-off roofs, but most need to be peeked into to even glimpse a few of their secrets.

So... lets start with the dragon's den inside a stalactite-filled cavern under the mountain....

On the left you can see open shutters.  You can also see the scary tree peeking over the wall. 

All the conical caps lift off.  The broken-topped tower has an observatory.  The pennants are held on with straight pins.  I rumpled them a bit because it is always windy on a mountaintop!

You can also see a pull-tab...

I think this qualifies as tiny.

And full of secrets.

Well, the end of Sept has come and gone. What is the word on the challenge? Any champions???

Voting starts when????

This surfer wants to know....

:lol:

Voting starts on Saturday night and 23:59 Renderosity time (US Central).  I'm enthralled by all of these entries, this was a terrific topic!

~Viv

Is the challenge application period over or not?  Today you posted in the poser forum that people should enter, but the end date has already passed...

Voting doesn't start until Saturday night, so that ought to mean another piece or two can slip in under the wire. ;)  As long as everything is in place for judging and tallying equally before the voting cutoff, it really doesn't matter if it was the first or the last entry.

We have reservations to go hiking up to Vasco Caves tomorrow... lovely sandstone with indian pictoglyghs in an area that has been kept secret for decades.  However, I'll probably come home and sleep instead of unloading the camera.

I'd like to see a few more entries, so hope that by tomorrow night we do have them.

A collection of six Secret Places all created in using Bryce.  Hope this entry isn't too late. 

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1735337&member

What an intriguing challenge we had this month!  And what fantastic entries!   It's now time to close the entries and let the voting begin!  The voting will be in this thread, after this entry.  You get to choose your 3 favorite entries, giving each of them 3, 2 or 1 points.  Remember, you are choosing an entry, not an artist.  If someone has posted more than one entry, you need to indicate which is your choice. 

Your vote should look something like this:

Secret - "Place" - 3 points
Hidden - "Treasure" - 2 points
Don't - "Look" - 1 point

Feel free to nominate Honorable Mentions or make comments.

~Viv

hauksdottir - "Wizard's Tower" - 3 points
gunsan - "My Most Secret Place" - 2 points
three_grrr - "Nooks and Crannies" - 1 point

hauksdottir-wizards tower- 3 points
thunderstone-my silent corner- 2 points
andywelder-terragen secret place- 1 point ( it looks very much as a place i visited once)

hauksdottir - "Wizard's Tower" - 2 points
gunsan - "My Most Secret Place" - 1 points
three_grrr - "Nooks and Crannies" - 3 point

gunsan - "My Most Secret Place" - 3 points.
three_grrr - "Nooks and Crannies"  - 2 points.
hauksdottir - "Wizards tower" - 1 point.

andywelder - terragen secret place - 3 points****

**     I have some places like that in Yosemite that I don't share with anyone.****

gunsan - "My Most Secret Place" - 2 points

     that is a very magical cave****
**
**three_grrr - "Nooks and Crannies" - 1 point

******     lots of secrets in a woodpile!****

This was an interesting topic.  I'm a bit surprised that nobody used a diary or hope chest/keepsake box (what kid didn't have a box under the bed or a book under the pillow) but it seems that we'd like to secret ourselves away from a turbulent world.

**

AndyWelder - My secret little place - 3 points
three_grrr - Nooks and Crannies - 2 points
ThunderStone - My Silent Corner - 1 point

AndyWelder - "My secret little place" - 3 points
three_grrr - "Nooks and Crannies"  - 2 points.
ligt - "dog in window" - 1point

Last call for votes!  Voting will close tonight at 23:59 Renderosity time (US Central).  I will tally the votes and post the winners tomorrow.  With luck, we will have a new October challenge this weekend.  Stay tuned!

~Viv

Gunsan's "My Most Secret Place" .. 3 points, becuase it's the most fun!
Thunderstone's "My Silent Corner" .. 2 points, a poignant poem
Hauksdottir's "Wizards' Corner" 1 point
I wish I had boat loads of points to spread around equally because each of the submissions was so cool!

I loved the theme for this challenge!  I know we had a small group of participants, but the quality of the entries was amazing!

Here is the count:

In fourth place, with 1 point:  ligt's "Dog In The Window"

In third place, with 5 points:  Thunderstone's "My Silent Corner"

Tied for second place, with 10 points each: hauksdottir's "Wizard's Palace" and AndyWelder's "Terragen Secret Place"

Tied for first place, with 11 points each:  three_grrr's "Nooks and Crannies" and gunsan's "My Most Secret Place"

Thanks to all who entered!  You all did a marvelous job.  Congratulations to three_grrr and gunsan for those great entries! Rita and gun, would you like to collaborate and come up with a challenge for October/November?

I am looking forward to what everyone will dream up for this new challenge!

~Viv

Congratulations!

It was a small field, but we had nice entries.  Fall with its holidays and seasonal changes can be a busy time.  However more people get inspired by all the decorations and creative displays, so perhaps we'll get a lot more entries this month? :)

So now I've moved up to third place... Well that's an improvement. . . LOL Well I'm off to try my hand at the carnival thingy. and no, it's not for the contest here. It's for my gallery... See ya and thanks!!!

I wonder if Rita is out camping. I cannot get any connection to her, and my head is rather empty just now.
I will try though to find out some of the thoughts whirling around inside my empty brain.
I will come back when I have got in touch with Rita.

BTW, thanks for all votes! After having put 400 grams of salted peanuts in my stomach in two days, I have to say I have spent very much time in my most secret place LOL

Hugs
Gun