You're welcome! I hope you have a bit of fun with them....

and thanks to Jani for all her handholding with the new merchant..she's been an absolute star.

zai

Yep..I know exactly what you mean on that one...that gave me pause for thought too. But I came up with an idea for it so I may do it. I guess it's a level of validation as well...since I come from the commercial graphics production side of things (magazines...websites, etc), being able to place well in an artistic competition shows me that I've achieved at least a certain level of competency. I'm not really marketing myself as an "artist" YET..just prepping to, so entering widens my portfolio AND evaluates it at the same time. If I can't get at least "something" in or place within a certain range, I know I still have some work to do. I suppose it's personal satisfaction as well...although I wouldn't go so far as to call it vanity. My favorite books right now have to be the Ballistic ones though. They are gorgeous...let's hope this one comes out as well.

Heya bonni... Nice to see ya.. Yanno..I don't really expect any paying work from Rendo gallery posts really..or any gallery posts. But since I'm making the effort to contact publishing houses and such directly, it will help me to be able to have somewhere that I HAVE been published. When someone sees your site for the first time, and you have a few things there such as "as seen in" such and such...it helps with credibility. When you're new..every little bit helps. Besides...it makes me work harder and spurs ideas for me. It helps me learn to work under pressure. I know that if one of my pieces is good enough to be judged acceptable by an independent jury...it can't be all bad. It inspires me to keep working. There was a max of 5 entries I think...so even if we entered as many times as we could, it couldn't cost us more than $60. I've got all the hardware and software I need..I just don't have a whole lot of exposure...so..it was perfect for me. Once I feel capable enough of entering for CGTalk books (Ballistic) or Spectrum, I'll certainly do that too. It's also a lot of fun during the competition to see what others are working on...getting feedback...getting to know other people, seeing how others interpret the same idea, etc. But I HAVE come to the conclusion that in most cases I will choose to enter things that are NOT voted on by the community. Too much chance for favoritism etc. If this had been a community based vote..I would have never entered....shades of Hot 20. I guess the upcoming Daz contest is one where I'll have to bend that rule though. It's not the exposure I'm after there...it's the BOXX...:)

I think it's been said before...it's a juried competition with entry fees. That's standard practice in the graphics industry and has been for years.

I have no problem paying for an entry. If I make it, 50 bucks was cheap for such exposure. If not..I've got a $50 write off and some good practice under my belt. I charge $50 bucks an hour for my work...so I look at it as I took an hour's break. I entered 4 pieces. If they get in, then when someone asks me for "references" I will be able to say "I've been published here...here..here...", etc.

A few weeks back one of my pieces was chosen for inclusion into Aphrodesia's Art of the Female Form book as well. It cost me $80 to enter. One of my 4 entries was chosen and will be included. There was no guarantee I would get in, but I did. The judges were some major names and they thought that piece was good enough to be included. It's not vanity publishing...I had to compete to get in with 1000 other people.

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. For a newer artist, it's a great chance to find some cheap exposure. If I were to purchase a space in one of the illustration annuals, it would cost me a hell of a lot more...from 100's to 1000's of dollars. A single page ad in a magazine these days can cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000 and runs ONE time.

These books tend to hang around on people's desks. And even if you get no calls from them, when you have to sell YOURSELF to someone..a client or on your resume...you can say..."Here...see...I was good enough to get into this book...or this book...etc. etc." It's not THAT much money and its NOT vanity. You want to become well known..you put yourself out there and see if you cut it...or not. Here's an example of one of the best known comepetitions for books like this...Spectrum: Q: Why do you charge entry fees? A: Unfortunately, nothing in life is free. The entry fee helps to off-set the escalating expense of doing Spectrum each year. Postage, printing the Call For Entries posters, advertising, costs associated with the judging event, etc. all adds up. Though our costs go up annually, the entry fees have remained virtually unchanged since the beginning. Spectrum is very much a co-operative effort, with the arts community joining together to make this high-profile showcase possible. And, unlike some other art annuals, there are no additional publication fees for works selected for inclusion in the book (others can charge up to $75 per accepted piece in addition to the entry fee). Artists accepted for Spectrum receive a copy of the book their work appears in without charge: contributors to many of the other art annuals have to purchase their copies. Rendo isn't unique in how they're doing this.

Message edited on: 09/01/2005 01:10

Thanks Tammy....I think we've got it all sorted out now. I have a few more to send up this evening but I think I'm all set. I think the publishing date on the other contest is before Spring so that one is out since it would conflict and the others...hopefully Rendo judging will be over before their deadline ends. Overlapping content probably wouldn't look so hot...lol.

Me again.... Well..I tried again and this time it worked. Only..there's some inconsistancies in the instructions. It asks for 2 images..a TIF and a JPG. On the upload page it tells you to rename the TIF and upload the TIF, but it doesn't say to upload the JPG. I just uploaded both..:: I'm assuming that's correct. Also...the first set of instructions says your bio can only be 300 characters....yet the box you fill in says up to 5000 right under it and the Image Description box has no stated limit. I probably went a bit over not realizing...hopefully this won't be a disquallifying factor... If so..is there some way to edit it? Also...I sent an email to Lillian but haven't heard back yet on this one. It asks for images that have not been printed before. I have an image that WILL be printed soon, but hasn't appeared yet. Wondering if that is OK to submit. Or..alternatively, is there any time limit on images being submitted to other contests until after the book comes out and if so..how long. It's been known to happen that contests require you NOT to make the image available anywhere else for a certain length of time. When you have a lot of work you have to pick and choose your entries so they don't overlap each other's rules I guess.... Anyone?

Short answer no...not really..bandwidth has to do with how many pages are being served/images served/queries run, etc. You could have 2 pages open in 2 windows and be signed in under 2 names running 2 different searches, but it wouldn't be any different than one user having 2 pages open running 2 searches. Same difference. Unless one found a way to have all 170000 people logged on at once doing things I don't see how it would affect bandwidth at all.

I should be getting mine any day now and will post back if it works. I understand about the finding OS X a pain at first...it made me absolutely nuts...but now that I've had it a year I wouldn't go back.

Y'all will hate me...but my advice wold be to get a Mac..all my Poser probs have disappeared since I moved it from the PC to the Mac, except for some interface quirks. It is however a G5 with 3 gigs of ram. No crashes on renders, Firefly gives me no problems, all my "pc only" content loads right up (sometimes have to convert the thumbs is all), no crashes during cancels or figure changes, and I can load content on the fly without restarting Poser. I can also have a HUGE Photoshop files open (we're talking over 400 MB) and about 6 other apps as well and switch effortlessly between them even WHILE rending a 8x11 300 dpi image. Every time I get on a PC I immediately want to tear my hair out, even in Word. Just my 2 cents...

I agree with you about the non-postworked gallery..but do have one comment. I don't think the size thing is an issue all that much. I tend to work large no matter what, so usually it can be reproduced at least at poster size, then I shrink it down to post. What's the use of doing all that work if it's not "useable"? Maybe other people don't mind, but being from the print industry, doing work on a low res image is the same as throwing my time away if I can't use it later for high res print. You've got a good point there... (zai...the overly-postworked artist)

Congrats to everyone! So much talent on display...I'm looking forward to learning Painter more in depth as time goes on. I can at least say I picked the winner the minute I saw it when uploading my entry...it quite deserved to take top honors! I'm just honored to have been close...next contest please!

My thoughts exactly...my team runs 2 online stores ..one with close to 50,000 products and one with 32,000 products, both of which update nightly and include on the fly php delivery as well as static pages for the search engines. And one of them actually downloads data from somewhere ELSE, then compiles it and updates OUR server. If yours can't handle it it seems time for a server upgarde pronto..they don't cost THAT much to upgrade. Weren't we told some months back that bandwidth and server capability was "no problem"...ad nauseum? I HAVE noticed a speed increase, but might want to look at the trade off of alienating shoppers...

ack....nightmare... you've broken one of the BASIC rules of online marketing...more than 3 clicks to a product and you're NOT getting a sale...along with the fact thatthere's not even mini pics to pull you along deeper... see post #8 for clarification...PICTURES sell...not a lot of type..until the buyer is ready for it...you probably lost about half your browsing shoppers and alienated the other half...I'd do a SERIOUS rethink before keeping this scheme in place without thumbnails to welcome visitors as the few on the side are just not enough to even catch my eye. If one had to navigate a real store like this and read complicated instructions before even SEEING any merchandise...one would quickly shop somewhere else methinks....just my 2 cents

Hrm...well..there's always postwork to cover any hair or clothing problems when one chooses NOT to purchase items from certain sites. Might not be as simple as buying a hair "set" or an outfit, but there's no end to the creativity of a paintbrush methinks...best of all...postwork fits everything!

Now if someone came out with auto adjusting graphics tablets and custom airbrushes designed for the different MilFigures.....hey where's Dodger anyway?

erm....isn't Netscape dead? Mac's new preferred browser since OS X is Safari...which although I'm not real fond of it yet, does work. I'm surfing now in IE 5.2 and not having any problems. Microsoft's monopoly aside...you're going to alienate your users even further by supporting a browser like Netscape as the preferred. When the "preferred" is less than 2.5% of the market...someone might want to rethink it. I mean...I know we're not a majority, but at least try to use the preferred browser of the minority people..lol.