Contest The Great Triathlon Challenge Two: Angel's Aerie

I just voted already. :P I tend to go with first impressions...

 

Wooooww amazing work. Looking at the materials used is making this so much simpler for me. It is telling me a lot about how much time and effort went into these! I'm just loving some of the innovations people had in theirs~

 

Some awesome entries! Wow wow wow for Entry for fun #3! That is stellar! Good work everyone! We are in the last stretch! Congrats on making it this far! And OMG can I just say ROFL at entry #91 ! > <---- in a good way! Well played!

 

Holy cow.... I think.... I'm gonna faint ...

I'm not even sugar-coating it to be polite or friendly on a public forum, but these entries are absolutely stunning. You can really feel the creator's heart and vision in each one. I really mean that. I didn't vote until the last hour for the wing challenge, and it may just be the same for this one too. I need a lot of time to pour over and appreciate each and every entry.


......... And dear lord I hope people click the more photos thing. I didn't realize the photo of the doll in the niche would be the one to show up on the voting page and that's my worst one hahaha .


(I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if my contest alias has a big, fat "0" next to it in the voting results for this round... but even if that's the case, I think it would be totally justified. My entry looks like baby stuff compared to these!!! Geeze... I think I really did go too far out of the box XD).

 

That's exactly how I'm feeling at the moment!
Although I did notice that an awful lot of "niches" are chairs. I understand chairs in niches, but can a chair by itself be called a "niche"? (Partially saying that to make myself feel better about my entry, since I was worrying about having enough walls to count as a niche...no offense meant to those who made chairs...)

 

But aren't they fantastic chairs at that ? They all have great vision. I think that was a really difficult part of the challenge to navigate. My impression was that niches are less than a furnished room/set, but more than just a chair.... but also must include a chair/seat/support... so the logical thing would be to kind of build on that. I know finding that perfect balance was was really hard for me to figure out too when I was constructing my entry x_x.

 

Holy Moly that was difficult... massively inspiring.. and a bit disheartening... I am quite simply stunned!!! Amazing work everyone!

 

OK, I can't find the entries for part 2. I feel like once someone points out where they are it will be a "duh..slap to the forehead" moment for me.

 

It took me a while too but they're stickied to the top!

 

THIS. Exactly this.

 

Wow. All I can say is, we have some seriously crafty talented people here! Are you guys professionals?!
Yeah, voting is going to take a while, and I'd better get used to the idea of "0". XD
Excellent job everyone!

 

So much creativity! I'm proud to be a part of this amazingly artistic community.

 

Wow, these are so great. I was relatively confident with my first entry (well, confident that I wouldn't get zero votes, not that I'd get the most votes or anything!), but in this I'm just totally outclassed, these are amazing.

 

Oh yes, I won't deny that! I liked a lot of them.

 

I think the range of interpretations of what a niche is is what makes them all collectively wonderful. Whether the doll was standing amongst walls, sitting on a chair in the niche, or the niche was built into a chair. It would've been rather repetitive if we all had the same take on what a niche is.
Some of my favorites aren't what one would consider a "classic" niche, some of those I would never have thought of. It's all about how it exalts the doll to me!

 

Not QUITE as hard to CHOOSE as for the wings. Which is not saying very much LOL Such creativity! I loved so many of them

 

Thanks everyone for making it so hard for me to vote! It took me about an hour to select four final choices~ ^_^;;

 

Wow. WOW. Seriously, these look awesome! Choosing only four was so hard. Good job everyone!
Now...on to the next challenge...

 

Oh gosh, even though we get an extra vote this time I'm no closer to voting today than I was yesterday XD!! All the while the mixed feelings about my own niche continue to swirl. On the one hand, I love that I actually managed to sit down and complete a project (which is something I often have trouble with)... and include some tributes to some of my family members who cheered me on (which they enjoyed ).... on the other hand.... well... the competition is so amazing I know I'm toast XD. Every time I scroll past my entry again I am massively regretting not taking more flattering photos after spending so much time on it.

Can't I just turn all my unused dollars in from the budget into extra votes ? hehe!

 

We are definitely keeping these threads open after the contest ends so we can all gush over all of the entries we didn't have enough votes for and ask questions about how some things were made.
I am really thrilled by the lack of attrition this year, do you guys think that it was more motivational to have the voting results remain undisclosed until you had already finished the second round?

 

Erm. . . yes and no. If I had seen my results before the close of round two I might have dropped out. . . but only if my friends did as well. On the other hand, seeing how far behind I was might have spurred me to try harder. But I'm not going to kid myself either way.

If it weren't for the likely toxic fumes, I'd still want to hold a Viking funeral for my niche. I had to discard all my fancy ideas for design and materials.

 

I think seeing my votes helped me work harder in the final round to catch up.
Although, you guys are all truly very talented!! So many wonderful niches! I wish I had a vote for each of you...

The fun entries were very cool as well!!!

 

Singing to the choir again? I really can't imagine pulling any points myself, in the midst of all of these, and it won't bother me in the least because LOOK what we were all competing with!

I mean REALLY, people -- there are some serious works of art in here!

I actually ended up with two for one category in which I had NO way to make a choice, so finally voted for the one that I figured might get the fewest votes of the two -- you know, just to even things up.

Bravo, all. I am absolutely in awe.

Yep. That's exactly where I am with it. On the other hand, look at the company which we have all collectively kept! THAT'S something special all by itself.

(I'm going to keep telling myself that...)

YES. I most definitely wouldn't have completed part 2 if I'd seen what Part 1 had in store. Not that I ever had any expectation of winning one of the prizes, because I'm just not a good artist - but as a soul that craves approval and seldom gets it, I take these things far too seriously. It's my Achilles heel.

I thought about it, though, and decided that the theme of this year's contest means something special to me. This is why I entered; I'm celebrating my One True Doll and all the nuances therof; and for that reason I'm going to stick it out to the end and be able to say "look, you! See what I did for you?"

 

I'm having a hard time deciding-- I have way too many favorites, and too few votes to allocate. I'm a bit disappointed that one of my faves from round 1 dropped out. I was looking forward to their next creation. But life gets in the way, sometimes.

For anyone bummed over their round 1 scores, please don't give up! Only four people can win the whole thing, but that's been true since the start. That doesn't mean that the other entries don't have worth. There is huge value in competing, even if you don't win. Ask any athlete.

 

I'm with those who think seeing the votes is motivation to work harder! Round 2 was a disaster for me, with health and life stuff getting in the way, but after seeing the round 1 results, it's motivated me to make sure my round 3 is the best I can possibly make it, and it helps that i can mostly do it sitting down in bed!

Really though, however the voting was done, I'd still have tried my hardest to stay in the competition, in small part because the prizes are awesome, but mostly because I love challenges, and being new here, it's a good way to get involved with the community and get to know people a little better. I'd never in a million years have thought to make a book for my doll, wings were something i was already planning, and I've already made a display shelf (albeit way simpler and less fancy!), but a book is something totally new to me, and despite having to start from scratch twice and redo lots of bits, I'm really enjoying the process.

 

I'd say yes. And maybe it was even better to show (all) the results after the last challenge. It would have been more exciting/motivating that way, but that's my opinion.

 

I second the idea of waiting until after the last challenge to show the results.

 

Yeah I'm having a really hard time convincing myself to even start on the third challenge after seeing my results for challenge 1. I'm also regretting the direction (and one of the photos) I went with on the aerie... and after spending almost every non-working awake hour on it last week I'm exhausted.

I have a good idea for the third challenge, I just haven't even started yet. I'm enjoying this a lot and knew I had no chance of winning anything, but still...

 

I voted! Took me a while to look through all the entries and the multiple pictures that went along with each one. Again, though, I voted for my favorites, and then assigned them categories. There is such an overwhelming display of talents and efforts that trying to do it all logically would have taken weeks. Good luck to everyone trying to finish the third challenge. We can! I know that even though I'm not getting the voting results my dolly wants, I'm really encouraged by the wide variety of crafting concepts and everything that I'm learning or refreshing. And my doll is happy to steal back the attention from the newer arrivals.

 

I voted exactly the same way! I looked through the thread until I saw one that interested me, then if I still liked it after opening the extra pictures I kept it open in a separate tab. When I finally got to the end I had about twice as many entries open than there were categories so I chose my favourites. It was hard though. I could easily have voted for my top ten, but top four was tricky! Glad we get even more votes for the next challenge because there are so many aspects to this one - being able to make a book, create a narrative, take a nice photo and a gif.

 

I voted! Really tough choices again! Like some others, I narrowed it down to the four most extraordinary entries, then fit them into the categories each fit best, and it actually worked out quite neatly. I have a feeling the voting for this round may favor quite different entrants than the first round, so I'm glad most of them didn't give up after the first round. I think this is really going to be a race to the finish!

 

I also voted, this was even harder than the wings to me. It was very clear how much work went into each one and I really wanted to reward the obvious attention that went into these things! Great job everyone.

 

Both rounds of voting have been quite a challenge, what a lot of creativity!!!
I do wish we could vote for all of our favorites, though only put them once into a category, so that everyone got more feedback on how much we appreciate their work. Then there would still be the top vote collectors but all of those amazing entries I had to set aside would get a nod of appreciation. In the meantime, just know I am amazed at all the time, creativity & effort everyone put into their entries.

 

I don't want to see the votes for Round 2 until after the deadline for Round 3. Seeing the votes makes me a nervous wreck and I don't want to be distracted from doing the best job I can on my book.

 

Oh and to answer St. James' question, I think people are more motivated to do their best not knowing the results. I think it's a good system to find out how you did in the previous round on the deadline to submit the next round. That way you don't get discouraged and it doesn't result in the low scorers dropping out and it just being a contest between the initial high scorers.

 

Thank you so much I am really looking forward to seeing who made what! Everything is so good!

 

The entries for the second challenge are spectacular! I'm totally outclassed.

As a first timer to the Triathlon, I found it discouraging to see my score for the first round before the entire competition was over. I'm not terribly interested in making a book and I know I don't have enough free time to fiddle around trying to figure out how to do the things required to finish this challenge, since I work fulltime. I don't feel there is any incentive left now for me to continue, especially when I have plenty of other projects I'd much rather spend my time on. Good luck everyone, and I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

 

I felt the same after seeing the results, but I did a lot of the work on Sunday before they were announced so I decided to finish and submit it. I'm not sure whether it's better to know, so that you can avoid wasting time, materials or money if you aren't doing well and aren't keen on the next challenge, or if it's better not to know to keep you motivated to get through it all. Fortunately, all these challenges were right up my street so I was happy to carry on regardless!

 

I enjoyed not seeing the results! It made it a lot more exciting and motivational to finish the second challenge. I do think maybe concealing the results until the end of the final challenge may keep even more people in the challenge who may have dropped out after seeing disappointing results of the first round. With that being said, I really hope those who didn't get a lot of points will have a chance to receive feed back. Perhaps people will open threads with their submissions so we can discuss and give comments? I know that there were plenty that were spectacular but maybe didn't fit the criteria as well as others but that doesn't mean that they weren't beautiful or even great entries. I hope people can enjoy the journey and are pushing themselves to try things they wouldn't normally do and complete the project of this magnitude is quite an achievement! This is an epic contest! Definitely a test of crafting stamina! If I were to make a suggestion, I wish there were a couple of days down time between challenges. I think at the end of this I'm going to be seriously burnt out! Fun times everyone! Keep up the good work!

 

In the past, the round one votes were revealed before the second challenge was even announced, so this was sort of a compromise for those who like to know the score. If we do a Triathlon next year, maybe we'll save the vote tallies for the end. It would certainly be easier on the staff managing this section!!

 

I admit that I entered with the mindset that if the first round was terrible, I would just quit to save myself time and potentially money . However after realizing the dates were intentionally set to discourage this, I was kind of like, "Well played, mods, well played" and decided to go for it.

I then thought I'd drop out after Challenge #2, but after putting in a silly amount of hours and losing a lot of sleep, bits of flesh here and there (hee), and even a little weight over my monstrosity of a niche... even after seeing the results of challenge 1 it's kind of like, well, after coming 2/3 of the way, I might as well keep going, right ? Plus, the discussion with other members has been some of the nicest I've had in all my years on DoA AND I've actually learned quite a bit about crafting. I'm so excited to bind my first book! This is a useful skill even outside of the contest.. I know what my impossible-to-shop-for mom is getting for the holidays this year !!! The fact that this is the first and almost certainly the last chance I'll ever have to participate in the triathlon in its full three challenges was also quite motivating as well though... so I can't say it was entirely based on the votes/dates. I guess there was a mix of reasons/motivations from the interest of the challenges and overall favorite-doll theme, friendliness of the competition, and personal motivation... but staggering voting results did play a pretty important part as well.

Third'ed. Even though entries are submitted under an alias, I found it kind of embarrassing to see the results so soon... and with the embarrassment I feel over my niche I almost don't want to see those results... but I guess that's part of the deal when entering a contest.

 

Am I the only one who likes to see the voting as soon as possible? For me, it would be more discouraging to wait until the very end for all the tallies, I'd feel as if I were working in a void!

 

yeah I was definitely chomping at the bit to see the voting results of the first challenge lol.
personally though I decided to participate mostly because the theme really inspired me, so while potential prizes would be super awesome, I'm in it for fun more than anything; so seeing my not so monumental number of votes wasn't discouraging for me since I knew I'd want to finish either way just for me whether I ranked highly or not.

 

No, I really wanted to see the votes as soon as possible. Though I'm not sure it would have changed things much. If I had a high score I'd have wanted to work really hard to make sure i was in with a chance of winning, and a low score would have been motivating to make something awesome to get more votes next time. Maybe if the top scorers were like 200 points ahead I'd have been more likely to give up as there was no way to catch up, but as it is, the votes were close enough that it's still anyone's game, and I'm playing for fun as well as a possible chance at a prize.

Voting in this round was way harder than last round for me. Last time there were entries I loved and I loved them because they fit the categories so well. This time there were a dozen or so I really liked, but it was all because of the aesthetic appeal, so i had to decide whether to just try and give them a vote in whichever category i thought was closest, or try to ignore that there were so many amazing ones I couldn't vote for and instead just pick the best in each category, even though there were others I liked better overall.

 

(emphasis added)

GREEN with ENVY!! Wish I'd done that!


What I'd love to see is the inclusion of a little blurb describing the rationale for the parts of the contest -- like maybe a one or two sentence text block in the entry that gives a little idea of the backstory if there is one, or what the parts of the submission represent, or the art style being invoked if that's the case.

There were a couple of the niches that I *know* mean something special to the contestant based on comments made along the way...but I have no idea what that something special is. Those things might have given another dimension to the voting - like "which entry best fulfills the theme the artist was going for" not just in artistic or technical skill but in imagination.

Orrrr it might have just made it harder to pick

 

Bahaha, believe me it was a surprise to me. I wasn't skipping meals for the sake of the contest (in fact I think I ate more than usual... and was even spoiled with pizza on my last night of summer holiday XD). It was probably just the constant motion and muscle power required to build my niche for hours and hours on end.

I also thought when we had to fill in the statement form about our niche that it would appear on the entries thread. I would've liked to see that too (I thought I had seen something like that on previous triathlon contests) and agree it would help a lot when figuring out which best realizes the artist's concept but oh well. I'm just super looking forward to the end when we can ask specific questions about entries and shower their praises :3.

 

The third round will display the description of the entire concept!

 

Ooh! That's really exciting. I have also been wanting to know about people's concepts and background stories for their different interpretations of the challenges. I'm so glad that will be included in the final round!

Also, I think I'm also one of the few people who was anxious to see the voting results as early as possible. I was planning to stick it out the whole way anyway, just because I wanted the personal challenge. I'm just terribly curious.

 

Okay, I just tried voting and got this:

Should I try again or not?

 

I would Xtal... if you can access the entry form, then you haven't submitted!!

 

Try logging out and back in. If that doesn't work, the next step would be clear browser cache and cookies. Let us know if this doesn't work!

 

Finally got my vote in... I think this round was even harder for me to choose than the last one, in spite of the smaller number of entries and greater number of votes! At this rate, I might not be able to vote at all for round 3.

 

I got it to work by using a different browser.

 

I was in such a rush this morning to finish up my entry for Angel Lore that I nearly forgot to vote X______X!!! ARgghh it was hard. I couldn't vote for every entry I wanted to.

But if I think of it from another perspective, every entry I did vote for deserved it so there. I'm secretly wishing the entry I voted for aesthetic appeal gets a lot of votes . I can only imagine the photographs don't do it justice.

 

DANGIT I KNEW I WAS FORGETTING SOMETHING.

Darn, darn, darney darn darnit!! Aw, and there really was some super cool niches I totally wanted to vote for, gah! I wish there was a day or even a few extra hours left after the week's contest ended so I could have time vote after I stopped sweating over making my own entry... OTZ

Well, about seeing the voting results, I would have been really frustrated at not being able to see the results of the first contest until the very very end, like it would have driven me crazy, I'm sure, hahaha. But I appreciate that the results weren't released immediately either because it does build some anticipation and make it so it doesn't distract you from the second challenge. I think a week-long wait to see voting results is just right.

I'll be honest though, I was pretty dejected and more surprised than I should have been at seeing the results for my wings. I'm really proud of my wings and thought I did a stand-up job on them, if I do say so myself, so while I wasn't expecting to be around the top, I was hoping for somewhere more middling than being so close to 0, XD . I should probably be thankful I didn't actually get 0, but I was so confident I had done a good job, and I was really proud of my collage photos, even though I hated my front image, and felt icky about my back image. I sprung back within about 10 minutes, so it didn't kill me or anything, but man, competition is harsh, huh? Hahahaha, that's how it goes! I still love my wings =3 .

ali

 

Wouldn't it be lovely if they would all play nicely together?

almyki you weren't alone in being dejected after the first round - but I figured on that one LOOK at how many of us got crap-for-votes! There were so many entries that I'm sure even some of the best got nothing like what they really deserved.

I'll second that. I've had some of the nicest chats with people over the past couple of weeks! I have to say the awful disappointment of what happened to my third round kind of makes me want to crawl back into my hole and die, but I keep thinking about what a blast the first 2 weeks were