The ALVINLEEART.COM DIGITAL COLOR CHALLENGE has been concluded and we have come to terms with the five finalists by our board of judges. There were a plethora of submissions to review and after much consideration and many great entries later these are the pieces of work that we found were not only well executed but stood out from the crowd. We want to thank you all for your generous submissions and hard work put towards this contest, it was greatly appreciated! Three of these finalists were actually featured earlier during the competition and still remained in the running for the grand prize. Congratulations for making it on to the voting session, your work speaks for itself! We apologize for the delay of the announcement of our finalists but as you can understand we had hundreds of submissions to review and as the deadline drew near the competition grew more intense. It was a difficult decision to make as we butted heads, argued for specific submissions and debated for days but I hope you are pleased with our final selection.
Vote for your favorite submission now!
NOTABLE SUBMISSIONS:
These are some submissions that we felt were above average and definitely worthy of being noted. These were all very well done and just barely made the cusp of our final five. Here they are for you to see!
Jorge Maese
Fifi Xu
Ryan Burt
Laura Galiffe
Andrea Errico
Muhammed Ansar Ali
Neeraj Menon
Stephen Hetrick
Claudia Madez
THE FIVE FINALISTS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)
Color Challenge Finalist, Danny Araya
Danny Araya
Silver Spring, USA.
http://danielaraya.deviantart.com/
Color Challenge Finalist, Raineiro Cobos
Raineiro Cobos Castro
Bogota, Colombia.
www.raineiro.com
Color Challenge Finalist, Nala Fontaine
Nala Fontaine
Montreal, Canada.
http://nalafontaine.deviantart.com/
Color Challenge Finalist, Seth D Jones
Seth D Jones
Shepherdsville, USA.
Color Challenge Finalist, Fabian "Monk" Schlaga
Fabian “Monk” Schlaga
Kassel, Germany.
http://monk-art.deviantart.com/
Jorge Maese
Fifi Xu
Ryan Burt
Laura Galiffe
Andrea Errico
Muhammed Ansar Ali
Neeraj Menon
Stephen Hetrick
Claudia Madez
October 12th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Although I’m pretty bummed I didn’t place in the final five, Congrats to the finalists. I’ve cast my vote for Monk!
October 12th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@ Site Admin
would it be too much to ask what was the opinion about it? just for my own sake
October 12th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
@Istebrak
You had a good submission, almost made it to the notable round. The green/blue halo effects you used was a little over the top.
@Sagi Agreed. We should have set up an auto-responder, however, we couldn’t because of the way our email was set up for the submission and contest form. However, we did receive your submission though. Your submission was similar to Istebrak, too much use of effects; Ryu’s Fireball, Akuma’s eye, Sean’s fist pump with electricity, Chun-Li’s blurred kick. Where as the background flames and overall character skin colors were too raw, you should have focused on refining them instead of the effects.
October 12th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
It would be nice to at least confirm receipt of submission. Considering some were sent tips of how to arrange their work it stands to reason to at least you hit ‘reply to all’ with a ’submission received’ email.
An auto-reply would have been good too…
October 12th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Monk did an amazing job, his piece really stands out amazingly. Though I have to say all the other entries look great aswell. Shame I wasn’t able to paint my entry, no time found. Wish I could have made it.
Also, on a side note, I think people seem to have underestimated Raineiro Cobos piece. If its in the Top 5 then it must have something that caught the judges eye and be above all the other pieces that didn’t make it into the top 5. I really like its simple look, framed by a light blue silhouette and having highlights due to Ken’s flaming dragon punch. I never thought that such simplicity could make it so far and look so great.
October 12th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
congratz all
October 12th, 2009 at 11:54 am
As both Alvin and I has stated, this has been a tough decision for us. The final five was deliberately chosen by the judges (including myself), and specifically by Alvin. Keep in mind that Alvin had a “vision” for this piece, and those 5 finalists made Alvin tingle the right way. I agree that some of the above notables are very well done, infact, there were a lot of other submissions that were eliminated even from the Notables that were also well done, but fell off due to position.
@Michael Rayner: I know you don’t agree with some of this, I know you have a right to voice your opinion. However, some of your comments you made should have been kept to yourself. It would have been better if you talked about why you felt some of those pieces were better to you. Unfortunately, your post was moderated until Alvin approves of it.
Just to recap on some of my comments about the final 5. Now keep in mind that these are my own comments andNot Alvin’s comments.
Daniel Araya: All the characters look fantastic in this. The great: I particularly like the skin tones; Dudley’s very strong shadows around the brow, Ryu’s overall complexion, Akuma’s ferociousness and the overall lighting of the entire piece. There is a certain realism in this one and that’s what makes it so strong. The not so good: It’s a little plain as an entire piece and lacks overall punch, we wondered how it would have felt if Daniel used a stronger more exciting palette.
Raineiro Cobos Castro: I know most of you don’t like this piece at first glance, but this piece was highly regarded in Alvin’s eye. The great: It takes tremendous skill to pull this off with only 2 tones, especially if you analyze where the light is coming from to render each character. Because of this, this is why it made it to the finals. The not so good: Because of the direction that Raineiro chose with this piece, it’s also it’s biggest problem, it doesn’t appeal to everyone and sells itself short to those that can’t see it’s true brilliance.
Nala Fontaine: The great:The colors Nala used and the creative idea to use the fire throughout made this piece look spectacular. The overall execution on this piece was it’s best value, and that is why it’s here. The not so good: the character and understanding of lighting was Nala’s weakest points, some characters look flat, a little too soft with the airbrush and some lacked contrast to make them pop out more ie; Yang, Akuma, Dudley, Remi, Ryu don’t look their best compared to other finalists.
Seth D Jones: Seth’s piece was obviously going for the Street Fighter IV look, and we like it. The great: the heavy blacks, the monotone feel to it with exuberant colors on the shoryuken flame vector pattern. Some of the characters looks simply awesome; Oro looks like a beast in the night, Sean with his massive pumping fist, Elena and Ryu with a very smooth sculpture look.The not so good: We wanted to see more from the background, which simply looked like a circular gradient, it would have looked more interesting if there were some sort of cloudy mist or ink pattern behind ie; Cassie Fuertez.
Fabian Schlaga: The great:The overall direction with the fine art approach; paper texture, noise effect and the watercolor effect on the shoryuken patterned tips as well as the smoke at the top was a nice touch. I absolutely like the how some of the characters look, Urien’s expression with his wrinkled face lines, Ibuki’s softness and lighting contrast, Oro’s skin texture, Makoto’s hair, Twelve’s purplish glow the list goes on. The bad: Some characters look too overly saturated with color; Ibuki is too blue, Dudley is too purple. Ryu and Alex and Sean are a little flat and bit too yellowish and would have likely looked better if they were colored the same color palette as Elena, Makoto, and Hugo were. I also felt the shoryuken flames had a bit more effects than it really needed.
Anyway, those were some of my comments during the judging. Would love to hear some of your comments and critiques, especially if you disagree! Notables as well..
October 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
fifi xu top 5 for sure.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Well, maybe next time.
This certainly was a good experience.
It’d be nice tho if jury could write down exactly *why* they’ve chosen these submissions over the others? The fact that they stand above the rest isn’t good enough imho. Just to be fair to those who didn’t make it and worked equally hard on their pieces.
Also: voted for Monk.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Yeah I liked Fifi Xu too!! But fabian was the best of the finalists.
October 12th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Updated Daniel Araya: made an error and posted the initial submission instead of his latest revision. Very subtle changes though…
October 12th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I really liked Stephen Hetrick’s allot and believe he should be top 5..but in the end the Monk man went beyond the call and really knocked it out of the ball park…stunning colors Fabian!!
October 12th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I really think Fifi should havr made the finals.Those colors rocked.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Oh well… I’ll just have to try harder next time.
Thanks for the opportunity Alvin, and to all of your staff and judges.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I’m not one then too bad!