Holy Shit! I won something!!!
It's become a tradition for me to enter the Renderosity Halloween art contest each October. I also try to enter some of the other contests that pop up which either have cool enough prizes or that appeal to my artistic style. Recently a contest came about where the winner would be on the cover of a metaphysical/spiritual book by the name of "The Book of Thoth." This is not THE Book of Thoth as in Crowley, but it caught my eye none the less... especially since I always wanted to illustrate book covers. Well, I never had much luck with previous contests, but I thought I had a decent chance at this one. I didn't win first prize, so no cover for me, but I got an honorable mention!!! That got me some prizes, and more importantly I got some recognition. I am ecstatic!! :)
I think part of the problem is that I need to recalibrate my monitor. My old one had really screwed up gamma so all my stuff looked dark on my screen and too bright on others. Now I have a great monitor, but I seem to have my settings so that things seem brighter on my screen. So, this being a peice that was mostly in dark value anyway a lot of details got lost on some of the monitors I viewed it on. Unfortunately, I didn't get to test it out like that until after the contest had stopped taking entries due to time constraints. At any rate, it's a big boost to my confidence and makes me believe I can keep winning, gaining exposure, and making something of my talents other than designing business cards and such. YAY for me! :)
I figured I would post a copy of the image and a couple of the others. On this version of the Thoth entry I messed with the brightness/contrast a little (still on my monitor.) It may help, but for those with a dark monitor it still may not show much detail. I'll also post the Halloween entries from this year and last. Each year the Halloween contest has a theme. The theme title is also the title of the entries I made for that year, as listed below. Click the images below for the gallery link. Click the image there if you want to see the full size. :)
Dawn of the Dark
"Dawn of the Dark" Halloween 2005 Renderosity contest entry.
Wake the Dead
"Wake the Dead" Halloween 2006 Renderosity contest entry.
The Book of Thoth
Entry into the Book of Thoth cover contest.
I think part of the problem is that I need to recalibrate my monitor. My old one had really screwed up gamma so all my stuff looked dark on my screen and too bright on others. Now I have a great monitor, but I seem to have my settings so that things seem brighter on my screen. So, this being a peice that was mostly in dark value anyway a lot of details got lost on some of the monitors I viewed it on. Unfortunately, I didn't get to test it out like that until after the contest had stopped taking entries due to time constraints. At any rate, it's a big boost to my confidence and makes me believe I can keep winning, gaining exposure, and making something of my talents other than designing business cards and such. YAY for me! :)
I figured I would post a copy of the image and a couple of the others. On this version of the Thoth entry I messed with the brightness/contrast a little (still on my monitor.) It may help, but for those with a dark monitor it still may not show much detail. I'll also post the Halloween entries from this year and last. Each year the Halloween contest has a theme. The theme title is also the title of the entries I made for that year, as listed below. Click the images below for the gallery link. Click the image there if you want to see the full size. :)
Dawn of the Dark
"Dawn of the Dark" Halloween 2005 Renderosity contest entry.
Wake the Dead
"Wake the Dead" Halloween 2006 Renderosity contest entry.
The Book of Thoth
Entry into the Book of Thoth cover contest.