29 replies to this topic

[ZeroTigress]

For previous loading screen art discussion, click here.
For previous contest discussion, click here.
 

More rules does not mean less artists will participate. It'll just mean the participants and host will be on the same page, rather than the host keeping certain rules secret until it's too late. If the host has a certain concept of what the winner of the contest should be, then that should be outlined in the rules so participants know what the host is looking for.

Rules & Guidelines
The lack of strict and clear-cut guidelines is nothing new in the realm of contests on iRO. Looking through threads of past contests is pointless if this rather common issue can't be spotted, so a thread to discuss rules for future contests is a better way to go about it. Here's a list of possible loopholes you may or may not want to cover when compiling your contest/event:

Originality

Spoiler

On the issue of the usage of art not made by the artist in a contest entry, if a contest's rules do not state:

• The artwork must be 100% your work.
• No copyrighted images can be used in any way.

Then the loophole has left submissions open to concept art usage as well as the usage of other elements not drawn by the artists themselves. I will agree on the the whole crediting issue, as you should credit those elements that you didn't draw to their respective artists. If you plan to create such a collaboration, then all artists involved should be noted, too. Films, TV shows, and (console) video games do this ALL THE TIME, so artwork should not be treated any differently.

Eligibility

Spoiler

On to the next issue regarding wanting to have certain artists participate, if a contest's rules do not state:

• Participants must be 13 years or older; OR
• Participants must be actual artists, no commission clients allowed; OR
• Winners from previous contests are ineligible for participation; OR
• Participants from previous contests are ineligible for participation; OR
• Members of <group> are ineligible for participation; OR
• Members of <company name> staff are ineligible for participation; OR
• etc., etc., etc.

Then it is your responsibility to consider ALL entries as possible winners instead of excluding people from winning after the fact. Participants are setting aside time and effort to work on their entries and not telling them ahead of time if they are even eligible is a huge slap in the face. Eligibility guidelines should be the FIRST rules to be listed in a contest so people can know if they should bother with the contest or not.

Old vs. New Works

Spoiler

On the issue of the usage of old artwork, if a contest's rules do not state:

• The artwork must be done specifically for this contest.
• Old artworks cannot be submitted as entries.

Then the loophole has left submissions open to the usage of artwork that was made long ago, which can give participants an edge over others that have yet to have an artwork that fits the criteria of the contest. Old artwork can be tweaked and improved while new artwork takes longer time to complete. Keep in mind that this cannot be strictly enforced unless you know the entire art history of each individual participant to be able to recognize when an old artwork is being used. You'll be mostly reliant on people to report violations of these rules.

Prizes

Spoiler

On the issue of where the contest prizes go to, if a contest's rules do not state:

• Prizes are nontransferable.

Then the loophole has left prizes open to being transferred to non-participants. Of course, it's up to the contest host and/or judge(s) to decide who should be rewarded so prizes can be made account-bound or allow the winner(s) to give their prizes to someone else.

Entry Judging
Judging is another common issue in regards to iRO contests. The biggest problem regarding judging is that the judge does not judge according to the contest rules. There have been cases where the winners were chosen despite breaking one or more rules of the contest, which should've made them ineligible for winning. Having someone win when they did not follow the rules is very demeaning and insulting. This can quickly earn the judge and the people involved a very bad reputation. Judges need to adhere to the rules as well, not just the participants.

In contests, people want transparency as to why the winners are winners and the losers are losers; it's only fair, after all. In televised contests, judgement is carried out through a points system as well as a panel of judges. Only a few contests on iRO has ever done this and it should be more common to do so in order to minimize frustrations on both sides.

For iRO's loading screen contests, perhaps it is better to have category slots for winners instead of overall winners. Such categories could be:

• Best Background
• Best Character Renditions
• Best Concept of Theme
• Best Composition
• Best Use of <color, object, etc.>
• etc., etc., etc.

It would probably make things easier to judge if certain elements are being compared from entry to entry instead of overall artwork to artwork.

Please discuss what you agree or disagree with concerning contest rules on iRO. Try to avoid drama and be as objective as you can.

Edited by ZeroTigress, 13 February 2016 - 02:44 PM.

[SpecialTurtle]

I am writing this from my phone, so I apologize for any errors.

I do not think it's fair to not allow certain artists to not participate just because they won previous contests. But I think adding certain categories would help to give other artists a better chance seeing as alot of us have our strengths and weaknesses.

I think all drawn art should be 100% yours, no exceptions. If someone is caught taking an art that isnt theirs, it should be automatically disqualified. Any references like symbols, etc., should be sourced. Collaborations is kinda of unfair to me too only because not everyone have a friend they can collab with. But that's just my opinion lol. There are art contests that allows it.
As for judging, a lot of times, it is based on a point system from what I've seen. And also, as Ak had done, they usually post a comment on why they gave chosen those winners. I think that would help people understand why it was chosen aside from it "looks good".

[ZeroTigress]

I understand your sentiments concerning contest rules. The issues of rules changing in the middle of the contest has been brought up before and it's an issue that contest hosts always seem to forget. Contest rules need to be thought of more carefully and so far a lot of these contests seem very rushed, whether because of deadlines or because of anxiety. It is unfortunate that some people feel they can't confide in their peers in compiling their contests, but that is what this thread is for. Hosting contests and events is a stressful activity and there's not much references to go on in compiling rules and guidelines. So I hope this thread would be somewhat useful to anyone considering hosting a contest or event in the future and to collect feedback on past hosts. I think that would be more useful than having to look through threads of past contests and events.

As for the contest rules themselves, I'm going to have to play devil's advocate and defend the fact that if it's not restricted in the rules, it's considered free game. Anyone who has played RO (or any online game) long enough would know that if there's a loophole or exploit, it will be abused. So the best course of action is to cover up any possible loophole, whether you think it should be common sense or not.

[SpecialTurtle]

I think having a thread to discuss this is very helpful to those who will be hosting in the future. Not only will it give some insight from other artists but because everyone have differing opinions, it can help release some unanswered questions in the air.

I think it will be helpful to have a dedicated mod for these contests. Oda is very busy, so he can't fill these duties. But having someone unbiased to overlook these things would help. It's someone they can go to for help of they can't get it from the community. Anyone can host these contests, but having an oversee-er would be extra helpful.
Idk maybe lol!

[Xellie]

I feel like you're over complicating it.

 

A couple of issues from the previous thread worth considering

 

- It's discouraging to new participants and boring to see the same 2~3 people winning every time.

 

- I don't understand why using official RO arts (even if RO2) as an element of an artwork is an issue. Art as I've come to understand it works in multiple mediums and that can include elements not made by the artist. Now, I'm not saying it's cool to go around ripping off other artists/fanarts, but official concepts as elements? Why is that a problem?

 

My thought process here is that it opens entry up to the people who are less skilled at drawing/painting/colouring but are still creative. Design is a skill of its own and there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be something that anyone can CHOOSE to incorporate within reason. (read: RO assets only)

 

- The talk about skill etc in the other thread was strange to me because I saw many entries that didn't fit the extremely simple criteria of the subject. Great pieces, but would I have chosen them myself? No! It did not fit the specified criteria and that itself is a skill.

 

- over complication of the judging process will lead to many less contests. People should just relax and have fun.

[ZeroTigress]

I feel like you're over complicating it.

I think my lawyer friends refer to it as "covering your butt."
 

It's discouraging to new participants and boring to see the same 2~3 people winning every time.

It is discouraging, but when the art sector of the iRO playerbase is in the stark minority and the amount of active artists are even smaller, there's really not much that can be done about that.
 

I don't understand why using official RO arts (even if RO2) as an element of an artwork is an issue. Art as I've come to understand it works in multiple mediums and that can include elements not made by the artist. Now, I'm not saying it's cool to go around ripping off other artists/fanarts, but official concepts as elements? Why is that a problem?

My thought process here is that it opens entry up to the people who are less skilled at drawing/painting/colouring but are still creative. Design is a skill of its own and there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be something that anyone can CHOOSE to incorporate within reason. (read: RO assets only)

Because some people consider it cheating because they're getting help from paid Gravity staff. Also, they're not giving credit to those paid Gravity staff, so it falls under the "passing it off as your own" issue. If you're using assets done by other artists in your piece, it's considered a collaboration and collaborations should be properly credited to every artist that took part in the artwork.

If you're doing it for fun, it's whatever. But the issue here is that people are submitting such works to a competition.
 

The talk about skill etc in the other thread was strange to me because I saw many entries that didn't fit the extremely simple criteria of the subject. Great pieces, but would I have chosen them myself? No! It did not fit the specified criteria and that itself is a skill.

Art style doesn't always equate to skills. Some people would say Picasso has the skill of a 5-year-old with his cubism style when he in fact is very capable of doing realistic paintings.
 

over complication of the judging process will lead to many less contests. People should just relax and have fun.

Considering how big issues have arisen from hosts not thinking things through, it's hard to relax and have fun when the rules keep changing on you.

[EveGenesis]

From what I know

-you don't always see same 2-3 artist win almost every contest, you can definitely see it. The winners are never the same, even if so it just mean they are able to meet the criteria or the judge preferences.

-for those that say it discourage new artist, is it okay to discourage older artist as well? Older artist also put in the same effort as new artist do. Is it okay to discourage them?

-judging criteria should always be posted in the first post, even if the judge decided to change the criteria last minute, they should change it in the first post before the event end. If they don't change the criteria or anything, they should follow the criteria that is already set.

-having a penal of judge from the community is great. Let's say we have 3 judge. Even if there is biasness it would even out more than one judge. (Judge score total)/3 so it'll average out.

-having a set criteria is better than none, at least at the end. There would be no drama, because the rules are already set.

-for xeilie, everyone view is subjective. You may not like it but other people may like, so that's why I suggest a penal of judge will be more fair.

-I don't mind if artist use other art, and the rule did not say it need to be original. But at the very least they should source it. I don't like people claiming my art and selling it for money (example) of course that's a subjective view.

[Xellie]

The rules change a lot because people are fussing. Every host is bombarded with mimimimimimi

 

I would ask when the same 2~3 people are winning 6/5 contests held, why do they take it so seriously?

 

You said "Design". Design is not the same as content. If you specify that it must include an element created solely by the artist, that's fine, but if EVERYONE has the option to include official elements, it's not cheating because someone decide not to.

 

You can't invalidate someone's artistic takes just because it doesn't fall simply into "you didn't draw this all yourself and we only want it to be 100% content drawn and coloured by you even though its impossible to compete against the same 2~3 people everytime!" Broaden the criteria and more people will take part.

 

Art style isn't the only skill, correct. Being able to stick to a theme is a skill. That's why some people got upset in this latest contest.

 

Stop nagging the hosts and they'll stop changing the rules. It's fine to ask why an entry wins, but it's just all for fun at the end of the day and for most entrants here, if they don't win this one, they'll win the next one, or next two, or next three.

[ZeroTigress]

The rules change a lot because people are fussing. Every host is bombarded with mimimimimimi

I would ask when the same 2~3 people are winning 6/5 contests held, why do they take it so seriously?

You said "Design". Design is not the same as content. If you specify that it must include an element created solely by the artist, that's fine, but if EVERYONE has the option to include official elements, it's not cheating because someone decide not to.

You can't invalidate someone's artistic takes just because it doesn't fall simply into "you didn't draw this all yourself and we only want it to be 100% content drawn and coloured by you even though its impossible to compete against the same 2~3 people everytime!" Broaden the criteria and more people will take part.

Art style isn't the only skill, correct. Being able to stick to a theme is a skill. That's why some people got upset in this latest contest.

Stop nagging the hosts and they'll stop changing the rules. It's fine to ask why an entry wins, but it's just all for fun at the end of the day and for most entrants here, if they don't win this one, they'll win the next one, or next two, or next three.

This is precisely why we're having this discussion. You say you want the hosts and participants to relax and have fun, but when the rules of the contest keeps changing, that's when frustrations arise and the fun dissipates. You don't like being punished for breaking unwritten rules on RO, no? This is the same issue when contest hosts aren't clear and comprehensive with their rules. If we have the ability to make future contests less stressful for both the host and the participants, why not be proactive about it?

[Xellie]

I do think the rules should be set in stone at the start but I do not think they should be so complicated.

[ZeroTigress]

I do think the rules should be set in stone at the start but I do not think they should be so complicated.

Please elaborate on how things will be made more complicated by this discussion. If anything, simplicity in the rules is what caused complications to begin with.

Without guidelines on eligibility, people will enter contests not knowing that they were disqualified before they even started.

Without clear content rules, people will do whatever they can to win. Anything not listed in the rules is free game.

Without judging parameters, the contest can't be considered completely and wholeheartedly fair to every participant. Lackluster judging can allow people to win contests even in the face of breaking established rules.

What we are trying to accomplish here is NOT to force every host to comply with the guidelines being discussed, it's to give hosts an idea of what they should or shouldn't do in order to maintain order in their contests while keeping it as fun as possible.

Edited by ZeroTigress, 04 February 2016 - 07:45 PM.

[kokeshicat]

Good thread, i just hope explanations and discussions would be civilized and all guild/personal related issues are cast off for a moment. 

Reply here as an ARTIST. If you wish to include personal grudges against a certain forumer, feel free to pm the person or do so in iRO1 discussion thread where everyone could grab popcorn.

 

--------------------

 

1. Format and deadlines should be properly indicated. This is to avoid squishing the artwork for loading screens and for easier compilation for whoever handles this in the iRO team. When I first came here in the forums, this is the first thing i looked at. Not every contest rules have these. With my experience on hosting an event on our previous forum, this is very important because it helps to know whether the participant adhered to the rules -- even just the teensy bit part of the rule.

 

I have no qualms though on the deadlines, its usually properly indicated in the mechanics that i've seen so far (and dug so far). 

 

While i understand not everyone has photoshop or photo editing softwares or people doing traditional works, it is highly recommended to have someone as a helper/ volunteer for that event to take care of resizing/ placing the artwork in the properly sized canvas. 

 

as for format we could have it something like this (for digital)

 

Resolution/ Canvas size: (width x length of canvas size) 1280 px x 960 px 4:3 aspect ratio png file

source: Fier's Christmas Event 2015 

 

 

considering this is to be viewed on computer screens and not printed, we could have 72 dpi as resolution for that. I personally feel bad if artworks especially traditional ones get squished. Please work on a landscape canvas (you could probably convert pixel size to inches which you could draw lines using ruler as guideline when doing your artwork traditionally.

 

2. Stick to the theme. While I do not know of the traditions/events celebrated in the iRO community, please have just 1 theme for the contest (unless you would like 2 then please state it before hand). If you feel you'd like to have 2 themes in that particular contest, but you've already published the mechanics and theme then I suggest making another contest for that or scrapping that latter theme instead. This way we could avoid having confusion among the participants. 

 

3. Don't allow commissioned works to be entered. Why? Contests are a test of skill. While you could credit the artist for doing that artwork, it doesn't really help you in improving your art skills. Concept yes, but not the drawing, painting skills, etc. I'd understand more if it was a collaboration work knowing people have specialties. Not everyone could do background art, or character art. Also its like disrespecting other participants who made their own artworks from scratch.

 

4. Collaborations should be properly credited. Because we don't want to assume you stole or used someone's art without their permission. 

 

5. The use of official Ragnarok online art/ assets is allowed as long as its credited. I actually want a limit on this rule. For example the use backgrounds are allowed since I can see almost everyone draws character art. Sprite artworks however is good too, though it would be nice if you'd still edit those things to fit the theme (I get my sprites from Angevon-- i don't know though if he still releases those stuff).

 

6. Mechanics should be stated beforehand. If you're accepting traditional and digital art pieces in a contest then provide 2 mechanics at least (or indicate if you just wanna use 1 set of mechanics for both categories)

 

7. Categories should be expanded. Its about time we do this. Lately we've got digital and traditional art entries and yet both mediums par with one another whereas both mediums are not equal. There are people skilled in traditional art yet their skill could not par with the winning digital piece because they could not render traditionally some effects achievable only on digital art. 

 

we could have:

 

Best in Traditional Art

Best in Digital Art 

+

Best in Composition

Best in Chibi art

etc.

 

 

Its still up to the host what to use for the categories. As long as its properly indicated in the mechanics. 

 

8. Create a panel of judges for every contest. Event host included or not, we need this to avoid problems in the winning entries. This balances out the decision made and the feedback for every artwork.

 

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" 

 

while you may find a certain entry beautiful, to the other judges, it might not be. These judges represent the community as well and it will help discern if the artwork is worth the prize or not. Their feedback helps too and it would be nice if after contest the feedback will be indicated as well-- or pm to the winner if you think you wanna include that so that they could improve on those points (maybe just hide the judge names to judge no.1, 2, 3, and so forth). Choose a panel of judges carefully, probably people who are in the art industry or someone who has an eye for good art or known to be critical on judging. It highly depends on the host!

 

9. Participant eligibility should be discussed forehand. I agree sometimes its tiring to see the same people winning everytime but we couldn't blame them don't we? They're skilled at it. They can't downgrade their skill just because they want others to win. That would be unfair to others. But If you wish to expand more and gain participants then this should be indicated in the mechanics. Its friggin important! We don't wanna waste people's time do we?

 

There are artists skipping certain contests because they won on the previous contest-- let them be. Probably its because they wanna rest and do something else that month or they just wanna skip. There are people joining again and again because they wanna improve through this. Probably the adrenaline rush of the contest helps them on their process. 

 

IMO, There's no right or wrong here. As long as you indicated the eligibility in the mechanics then participants will respect the host's decision. That's how we roll outside the community either. (e.g. 1st degree family members/ relatives are disqualified from entering the contest.)

 

----

 

Go through the contest rules once you've drafted it. Reread and have someone from iRO team/ authorized event hosts check it. Don't change the rules just because the community said so. Thorough checking is a must!

 

Bottomline here is as long as rules are properly indicated and explained, participants will follow.  It also helps a lot in eliminating pieces that do not follow the rules and in judging-- therefore avoiding confusions. 

 

If you have the discipline to follow the rules and regulations then you are deemed fit to enter. 

 

The fun is only taken away when there's too much nagging due to poorly constructed mechanics/ contest rules. I would like to highlight this last few sentences because there are people who pm'd me about the last event expressing their feelings about the turnout. A newbie got discouraged thanks to the nagging (but i must say she shouldn't be-- and i'm still convincing her to continue drawing and to not let that get to her) but even so I am particularly disappointed with how people reacted on the previous event and I hope my feedback/suggestions would help in any way they could. 

Edited by kokeshicat, 04 February 2016 - 08:26 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

Thank you for the feedback, it's nice to see what other parameters that hosts can consider when compiling their rules.

More rules does not mean less artists will participate. It'll just mean the participants and host will be on the same page, rather than the host keeping certain rules secret until it's too late. If the host has a certain concept of what the winner of the contest should be, then that should be outlined in the rules so participants know what the host is looking for.

[EveGenesis]

So i was saying having few judge is kind of always better than one. I make an example below of a table.

 

 

 

The judge or new host don't really need to use this, this is just an example. They can change the criteria and add additional items that is not on the table. But doing something like this will make judging more neat and tidy. Using words to explain how much score is hard so a point system will make it way simpler. 

 

Additional comments in this table is meant for judges to think why a participant should get a point or should not get a point. Also, you don't need to show this to everyone, it just to make judging simpler and if there is any explanation people need, you can always refer to this table and the additional comments.

 

 

[ZeroTigress]

Nice table, EveGenesis. I think this would make judging a little easier for hosts who have to go through a lot of entries and it would allow them to log their reasoning to explain themselves to participants.

Perhaps have a checkbox next to each participant to filter out those who broke the rules and therefore can't qualify for the final judgments. Or I guess the host or judge(s) can just cross out the names for that. Either way works.

[kokeshicat]

as i've said on my previous post, i used to manage events like these and made a template on Google Docs (using google forms, which connects to google sheets) and presented these to my team for judging). I had edited these out later on to fit the time frame of judging x.X 

 

Spoiler

This is just an example. I've created this since my manager was a busy body so this helped him a lot on participating during the judging,

 

Basically I always ready a template that i could edit anytime. I've included the mechanics above the form, what's the limit score per mechanics to tick and some simple instructions when filling up the form.

 

this is just a suggestion, forgive my OC-ness. I just wanted to keep my events clean and orderly as much as possible. x.x

 

[Myzery]

We had internal discussion about this already.

So far I think we have a sweet spot or we're close to it.

 

 

Moko was just new, that's it.

She's intelligent and knows (hopefully) what to expect now and how demanding the community can be.

We're always going to have sour apples, but I don't believe that was Kali's intent and I'm only mentioning her because people were out with pitchforks.

I firmly believe she didn't care about winning or losing but sincerely thought other entrants were better.

Opinions are our own and we shouldn't be criticized for expressing them as long as they are tasteful and respect others.

I can see how the winning artists might have thought they were being looked down upon since you usually draw your own conclusions on the intent of written words.

 

When I have things up to be judged, I use google documents.

I take care of things in advance like having backup judges or someone to break ties.

 

 

Any kind of in game bias needs to leave the room when you judge or host events.

I do not consider anything from entrants other than the material that was submitted.

 

We will have new rules about borrowing property from others since I think the Rockheir situation was rather over the top and should have played out in private.

 

 

I have also personally suggested that we sometimes have a "novice" bracket.

This would include all of the lovely paint pictures that pop up to grab participation prizes.

To me, the artists that put effort in for the sake of trying to actually win deserve better prizes than someone like myself that put in 20 minutes of mspaint scribbling in.

I feel like prize grabbing is a mockery, but I'm not hating on the people who do it, because it's been allowed.

 

I will personally also be having a "crude" category.

Entrants will receive normal prizes, but I want to see your worst ms paint drawings.

I want to see the effort you put into making them look like your 2 year old brother drew it with his foot.

 

 

Whether people realize it or not, all of this art is free advertising for the game we all love.

There should be no drama what so ever, the artists should feel welcome, not alienated.

 

 

I can say with certainty that there will more categories moving forward so that everyone will feel like they have a spot to compete.

It'll be up to the specific host(s) on what the categories will be, but you all will have a chance.

 

[ZeroTigress]

For the record, Akreis is not the first host to disqualify entrants after the fact, as ceinchase did the first instance of such in her creative feast contest. Of course, the lessons of that contest were not learned since it required a lot of digging around to get that kind of information. And to be fair, these contest threads are all over the place, so newbies like Akreis can't get a good gauge of what kind of rules to consider.

People on both sides are upset because of confusion, which led to strong emotions and negative words being tossed all over the place. This has been an ongoing issue concerning contests on iRO and it's something that needs to be addressed instead of swept under the rug time and time again. Such discussions shouldn't be held in the contest threads as those get lost once they're unpinned and we end up repeating history and going around in circles. Although I rarely participate in these contests, I feel as upset as both the host and the participants when things do not go as planned. It's time to stop repeating history and finally create a channel for general contest guidelines, whether art or otherwise. If we want contests to be better, we need to have the initiative to change the status quo.

[Myzery]

I think we need a general rules template people can just copy and paste into their contest threads.

In the future, I will offer guidance if needed to new people and I encourage others to do the same.

 

Hosting also takes kind of thick skin since people will try to pressure you or belittle others.

I have had some PMs trying to bargain for prizes or asking why "-_-" entries won over theirs.

It can be stressful I assume, especially when it comes from your friends or if people insult you.

 

[ZeroTigress]

For anyone thinking that hosting an art contest is stressful, at least you didn't have to host an event with over 100 participants.

Just putting it out there that it could be worse, but not that bad.

[EveGenesis]

I think this thread should be pinned later, it's not to mock anyone but it is to be use for any future host. They can use it to improve guild line and rules, how to better organize any event later. They can receive help from other host that organize events before, but if they can't they can always refer to this thread. There is a lot more failed event than the one now, even Halloween 2014 contest is one. (prize shouldn't be  named first, both participating price and winning prize). This thread is for improving the quality of the other event at the very least.

[ZeroTigress]

Changed the OP around to simply explain possible loopholes. I don't think it's helpful to just compile a list of rules for hosts to copy-paste since a set of rules is not a one-size-fits-all for every contest/event. If there are other loopholes that should be discussed, feel free to add input.

[fIower]

So i was saying having few judge is kind of always better than one. I make an example below of a table.

 

 

 

The judge or new host don't really need to use this, this is just an example. They can change the criteria and add additional items that is not on the table. But doing something like this will make judging more neat and tidy. Using words to explain how much score is hard so a point system will make it way simpler. 

 

Additional comments in this table is meant for judges to think why a participant should get a point or should not get a point. Also, you don't need to show this to everyone, it just to make judging simpler and if there is any explanation people need, you can always refer to this table and the additional comments.

 

This is great^ And a table like this is usually standard in competitions. I don't agree with dividing prizes into categories--that's still subjective, not to mention complicated (with no clear winner O.O). A table divided into criteria like these would be fine imho: Skill-40% Relevance to the Theme-30% Use of media-20% Originality-10% etc. 1 winner, 3 runners-up and 1 audience favorite.

[ROCKheir]

The audience favorite part tho would be very easy for those who've been around for a long time and/or have a lot of friends in-game and irl (fellow iRO players). The newbies and "not-so-popular" ones would find it really hard to earn the spot methinks. Just a thought. ^^

[fIower]

^It's a good way though to engage the community and encourage more artists to join (or at least raise awareness that competitions like these exist). A good way would be having people vote on social media for their favorites.