People vote for what's pretty, judges do the judging. To counter your problem with judges taking into account how well executed the art is, I would like to suggest we just increase the weight of the concept criteria. I don't want the judging of execution to be gone entire, because being able to draw your idea properly is also part of the expertise a concept artist is expected to have.
I would join if we had a pixel art contest. Since it doesn't require any advanced tools like photoshop
I just noticed this while scouring for posts about themes and I had to point out, although it's already been said a few times now, concept art is not about the media, but the idea. Concept art does not require any advanced tools.
Anyway, let's get back to discussing possible themes.
Paradise, hell, 7 princes of darkness, Greek gods, Golem, Warcraft 3 super mad mojo killer (elite warrior), ''beast that could be real'' (aka, no gryphon bullshit and what not), Cursed armour, Sanctuary, House-hold Robot..
I personally feel
Paradise and
Hell are too wide concepts, and very subjective. It would offer a lot of variation, but it would be hard to judge what is a good representation, especially because the judges will also have their subjective ideas. Lastly, I don't know if you're referring to designing areas or characters.
Seven Princes of Darkness - I don't know what this is, please clarify.
We had mythology last time, half of the entries were
Greek Gods, my own included. I like it as a theme, and I'd be fine with doing it again, but I don't think now is the time.
Golem/Construct/Colossus is a lovely theme. It offers a wide range of possibilities while still having an established, strong definition of what it is. The downside is we had such a theme for the texturing contest not long ago.
WarCraft themed Elite Warrior, eh, I don't know. It's not my favourite idea.
Realistic Beast, well, where does realistic end? And where does creative begin? I mean, there's plenty of possibilities here, but I'm having a bit of trouble setting the limits. Does it have to be realistic
for Earth, for instance? Then how come it doesn't exist now? What is realistic on a distant living planet? How do you know it doesn't? Maybe I'm just being a bitch here, but I see some trouble coming from such a theme.
As for
Cursed Armour, I think armour designs can be amazing, but in the long run, they're pretty boring when nobody wears them. I would assume these armours would be put on characters, and then the question arises - how elaborate can the character be, and how does it affect the judging? Also, I'd be inclined to call it
Cursed Attire, instead, so as to offer a few more possibilities in addition to clarifying that this is the entire attire of a character, not just the chest plate for instance. Also - how do you define cursed? Does it have to be evil? Does it have to corrupt the user? Is it alive?
Sanctuary is definitely a area theme, and I think it would be cool to concept an area for once, instead of a creature. Though I don't know what others think about that.
Household Robot? Hell yes, I can see this being interesting. However, we'd have to clarify if it's a robot that does one specific household task, or does everything, or something in between.
halloween creep, the personalization of "evil", female orc, thunder god, main boss of next wow expansion, trollface as a regular w3 unit, princess of some race, titan, a regular tool (pc, chair, lamp) as w3 unit, star rider, the pandaren king
Instantly, I think
Halloween Creep is boring, it basically means anything ugly and remotely scary that people could dress up as. Not that designing such a thing would be too easy, but I feel most of the entries would be quite cliché rather than creative. That is, Halloween is defined by what already exists. I can't really see people making something new specifically for Halloween.
Personification of Evil is a pretty wide, well-known and common theme, I suppose, and for good reasons. It's all-in-all a decent choice, though it will again be hard to judge because it's, once again, an abstract idea that is understood subjectively. The objective understanding of evil would be best demonstrated by demons. And although demon can mean so much, it will most likely result in people painting red monsters and sexy women with wings and/or horns. I'm basically saying it ain't gonna work how I would've liked it to work. Also, just let me shoot it out there - painting a succubus for a concept art contest is not creative in any way before you discard the generic design that everyone else use. And that doesn't mean changing the shape of the horns.
Female Orc is not really a theme. It's one half of a theme. Although I can see people being creative with it because there are no female orcs presented in WarCraft III. I don't know much lore, though, so perhaps it says what they do somewhere.
Thunder God, again, we had mythology last contest. It could be interesting if we made it a theme where you had to personify thunder as a god, though, based on mythology's way of doing it, but it had to be your own idea. Not Thor nor Zeus.
Main Boss of new World of WarCraft Expansion is limited to people who know the lore of World of WarCraft. I don't think this is suitable at all.
Princess is a very wide theme that depends largely on attire and fashion (of the time). I think it would be in the same boat as
Cursed Attire. As such, I think it could be fun. It is, however, also fairly abstract (especially if you add fantasy races and other fantasy cultures) and as such, subjective, and thus hard to judge objectively.
I assume that by
Titan you refer to either a
Colossus or a certain group of
Greek Gods. Either way, I already replied to those theme suggestions. If you mean something else, please clarify.
What exactly is a
Star Rider?
Samwise Didier
is the
Pandaren King, you can't make a concept art that deviates. It'd be a fan art contest.
As for designing things for WarCraft III - I don't think it's a very attractive theme, and it is once again very limited by lore. Leave this kind of stuff to Blizzard.
A beast or creature based on Ralle
Intended as a joke, I suppose, and I will consider it such. There's only so much you can do with a moose.
1 - Warmaiden (women who fought in battlefields)
2 - Demi-Human (people who have human and animal physical characteristics)
3 - Cyborg (beings with biological and artificial parts)
4 - Golem (as suggested by Mr.Goblin)
5 - Cursed/Animated Armor (armors that is moved by an apparition)
6 - Angelic (beings of angel-like features)
7 - Elemental (beings of a specific element)
8 - Halloween (as suggested by Ahimtar)
9 - Fallen (corrupted counterpart of a creatures, NOT AN UNDEAD/DEMON)
With a theme like
Warmaiden and I can already imagine all the more or less creative ways to reveal skin people could come up with. The war aspect of it would only be in the background, I suppose. Still, I love designing war maidens, be they prehistoric, medieval, modern or futuristic. With or without cleavage. Preferably without.
I'll just dub that second one
Anthropomorphism. Because that's what it is you want based on the description. I don't think it's a bad theme in itself, but there's so much of this already out there it'd be hard to be creative, if combining humans with an animal that nobody seems to have combined them with before can be considered creative. Anthropomorphism also limits this to animals that exist. So yeah, not such a good theme.
Are
Cyborgs exclusively human, or is any living thing with artificial body parts considered cyborg? In any case, I like it.
Angelic does again tend towards subjective ideas, but it's just as good a theme as the
Personification of Evil in that regard. It's a
justifiable theme.
Elemental is a wide theme with lots of established art, so it's going to be hard not to be affected too much by already existing concepts - which makes it a challenge -, but it also offers so many fun things to do. I'd say
Thunder God, as described earlier, would fit into this as well.
You'll have to elaborate on
Fallen. Are you saying they are opposites of their previous selves? Or are they not in conscious control of themselves? Manipulated by another force? If they're not demons - which is the common, abstract interpretation of fallen - and not literally fallen - undead - you'll have to explain more thoroughly.
Combining two mythological creatures in a way that they adequately represent both, to create a? Sounds fun to me, and as challenging as you want it to be. Anyway, after reading your description, I'm curious as to whether you mean they should represent each part equally in one form, or if it by changing colours/attire should represent two different creatures - ie, without changing shape, anatomy and the likes. The reason I'm asking is you mentioning recycling something to be used for something else, and the the way you titled it
Multipurpose Creature rather than
Combined Creature or similar.
What about a christmas + New year theme?
Not particularly fond of
Christmas and/or
New Years as themes (nor actual celebrations). It is, like
Halloween, pretty established and meant to be cliché. It comes down to combining cliché with something unexpected, though, so it's not as bad as
Halloween. However, this contest will probably not be hosted in time for it to be suitable in terms of timing. And I've already had enough cliché Christmas stuffed in my face since the beginning of October. I can't wait to see something else than red, green and bright lights when I walk through town.
Why not an abomination-theme, not the WC3 one, but the other ones, the wicked, disgusting creatures!
Abomination is probably as common a theme as
Personification Evil, and similarly for good reasons. Personally, though, I don't like it that much. I think it's
disgusting.
So there, I think I commented all the suggestions. My favourites are
Multipurpose Creature,
Household Robot,
Cyborg,
Golem,
Personification of Evil and
Princess. :3
