Willmark:
The Staff and some of the members of the site have been discussing the content of the next Artisan’s Contest. In the queue it would be Artisan’s Contest IV. We generally alternate between Golden Hat and then Artisan’s Contests and since Golden Hat VIII just ended…
For those not in the know Artisan’s Contest has grown and evolved as we have tried to make it a contest on par with the Golden Hat. It became its own contest from the desire to have another contest that members of the site can participate in that was not solely about models. Each time we have run it, we have tried something different with varying degrees of success. The previous times it has not gone well and participation has been less then what we have hoped for.
So with that in mind you will find a poll as We’d like to see if the site is in favor of scrapping the Artisan’s Contest, keeping it, or other. If you vote “other” please add your proposal below and tell us what you’d would like to see. About the only thing to not suggest is models as that is what Golden Hats are for obviously.
Other then that throw out any idea you wish to. We have a few ideas, but do not want to unduly influence anyone.
GRNDL:
I think the Artisan’s contest fills a desperately needed void: a competition for those who aren’t necessariy modelling/painting/art/craftily inclined. I think we need it, but I think it needs some reworking. I have a feeling that people think that using art to submit will generally result in an entry that is more likely to win. Also, I think wading through reams of text entries is a mentally trying thing for a judge to do.
I have no idea how it can be twiddled, but I think it needs some twiddling… I’ll get back to you if I think of anything.
orcboy:
Yes keep it and get on with it already. 
Loki:
Yes keep it going, i have never taken part in one and would like to
Ubertechie:
Willmark
I think a competition that those of us that are greenstuff inept can enter is fantastic - however what that entails I am not sure - but certainly would be interested in taking part even if only to make up the numbers
Kera foehunter:
i think we should keep it
Pyro Stick:
You should keep it but it definately needs to be reworked. No more of this reading through huge portions of text describing how to build something. I would like to see more terrain building contests (now that ive got metres of foamboard and a hot wire cutter lol).
Xander:
One thing that has been discussed is having a creative writing contest for lore, or short stories, or even rules creation for a special character or similar.
Anyone like those ideas?
two_heads_talking:
@ xander… Yes, I like those rules. seperate the written from the modeling would be a good way to achieve that no?
Ubertechie:
Reply
Xander - whilst those are all good ideas - i think having it open to any form of article could be interesting that way thoose of us that like to write tactics pieces, battle reports and analysis of other armies can all pitch in as well. The success of GH is probably due to its fairly loose constraints therefore making the Artisan contest equally loose would make sense as well.
e.g. to follow on from GH make the next Artisan - write an article about warmachines - it can be anything from a short story through to a tactics article the constaints are it must be between X and Y words long and must relate to both warmachines and Chaos Dwarfs
Xander:
Simply an article about war machines? Certainly we need some constraints or else what is the contest even about? The GH is a painting and modelling competition, but it’s nature it is constrained in that way. “An article” could be pretty much anything including text and images, and thus painting and modelling as well, computer graphics work, drawing… etc etc.
Do you have any more clarification of what you intend?
so.sad:
I did vote other since I think it should be kept but definetly needs adjustment.
My suggestion would be: link the artisan contest and golden hat for a greater good or long term goal.
for example such a long term goal could be to create a CDO Chaos Dwarf Armybook.
In this case several contest links would be necessary and they could look like this:
- find a general topic for the contest couple. For example “special choice”
- Have an Artisan contest on this topic. This would be open for all kinds of entries like
- Written entries featuring existing special choices (background)
- Written entries featuring new special choices (background)
- Statline changes on new/existing units (perhaps together with a battlereport to justify the changes)
- Paintings featuring new/existing units
- etc.
I do recognize this is an ambitious idea but I like it
Ubertechie:
Simply an article about war machines? Certainly we need some constraints or else what is the contest even about? The GH is a painting and modelling competition, but it's nature it is constrained in that way. "An article" could be pretty much anything including text and images, and thus painting and modelling as well, computer graphics work, drawing... etc etc.
Do you have any more clarification of what you intend?
Xander
Xander I think that was my point that it should be nice and open but constrained to the written form. However that form could be anything of the following (as examples)
A short story about how hellcannons are forged
Expirmental rules for a new warmachine
Tactics guide to using our warmachines
Thats what I was thinking and by making it reasonably open ended you stand to attract the maximum number of entrants. These things can all take considerable time and effort to get right (the battlereport i posted this morning took me a couple of hours just to knock togehter and that was a rush job).
However I guess the staff needs to decide what direction to take the Artisan competition in and what they want it to represent that is significantly different to GH
TLTG:
Personally I don’t think it has to link to GH. I kind of like the idea of it being its own separate entity. A judge should leave it very open, so you can get a wild variety of results. If I say terrain, we could wind up with two people who build terrain, three people who write tactics about using terrain, one person who writes a terrain creation tutorial, one person who writes a short story about an attack through difficult terrain, whatever. That would be really interesting.
Although part of me also thinks a competition to have the most interesting battle report would make for a good contest, and generate a lot of fun reading for those of us who sneakily browse CDO from work or school.
Pyro Stick:
One thing that has been discussed is having a creative writing contest for lore, or short stories, or even rules creation for a special character or similar.
Anyone like those ideas?
Xander
I like the idea of writing Short Stories but i dont know how many people would want to read through them all. Creating rules is something that only a small amount of people would be interested in, and again, not many people would want to have to read through them all and it would be quite a hard thing to judge.
GRNDL:
re: Creative story writing…
Then in that case, you could make the competition a “drabble”. 100 words, exactly - no more, no less - to tell a story… Its challenging and kind of fun if you like writing at all.
Revlid:
The main problem, as I see it, is that the Golden Hat is a modelling/painting competition that inevitably attracts the best of the best. Putting up the Artisan’s Contest in a manner that competes with the Hat, in any area, only drags down both - certainly, models are not a requirement to enter the Contest, but realistically only the entries with models or good artwork can win.
Therefore, we need to separate the Artisan’s Contest as far as possible from the Golden Hat, making it vary from Contest to Contest, but never touching on models. An Artisan Contest could cover…
a) Artwork
b) Drabbles
c) Short stories
d) Special Characters
e) Tactics Guides
…in a similar format to the Golden Hat, but never infringing on it.
This would be my idea.
Grimstonefire:
I honestly don’t know which option to vote for, but I will add here that all the things mentionned don’t have to be part of a competition at all.
Terrain/ rules/ stories etc. All these things could just be things that people did anyway and put on the site.
An idea to consider.
TLTG:
Competition is a strong motivation for many people. I am far more likely to spend time creating something if I can compete with it. That’s one of the reasons I am drawn to Warhammer in the first place.
Creating special characters would be another really awesome sounding challenge, by the way. You could generate a real wealth of interesting characters and broadly varying perspectives, and someone working on a homebrew army book could pick their favorites to include! Sounds rad.
AllEvil:
I would be all for getting rid of it if it meant more Golden Hat competitions.