Lenh

Yeah I guess 'Underdog Award' needs more explanation than it's worth. I'm hoping/thinking the multiple choice option will bring out recognition for the entries people like but don't want to choose over their #1 favorite (which is what I'm trying to get at there).

Source Portraits: Karel (Sealed Sword), Saleh, Innes ---- 48 hours to vote! ---- Trying some new voting options. For now, only 'Personal Favorite!' votes will decide the winner. First gets to decide on an optional theme and a mug for the next round, and the remaining top five get to choose one mug each, after the theme and first mug has been chosen (so there'll be a total of five mugs and one theme for the next round). Once Best in Theme is actually implemented we can look into how the votes should/shouldn't be weighted between categories. The timeframe I'd like to keep is two days for voting, then one day for #1 to choose mug+theme, and another day for #2-4 to choose the remaining mugs. (We'll see what happens this round and adjust if necessary.)

Just a reminder, 1 day left to enter!

Thanks Siuloir~ ^^ Lady general round~ 12 colors! Guess there's room for some colors in armor/hair/accessories or something. Closed the poll, here's the final result: (Edit: Very minor update to the general lady, wasn't happy with the skin-tone armor and the mismatch with the hair so I changed it to Bluish-Purple and Yellow-Orange scheme. She's still got derpface and messy shoulders but oh well)

^ Maybe ^^;

I can try drawing/painting a map out if you like. [spoiler=30 min derp map] Using these brushes and some paper texture. Can probably certainly downscale so a full continent can fit in, and add more ridge detail/consistency than what's going on right now. If there's a particular style or something you want I can probably do better with a style to emulate/reference too ^^.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the colors 'w' In other news~ < Yarr! ] It was fun~

2nd one is beautiful, 1st one has a tragic backstory (voted for backstory).

Winner of the contest will choose the next set (and should select an interesting/spliceable combination). Winner of the contest will choose the next theme and a mug, runners-up will choose the remaining mugs once a theme has been decided. --- I went and changed the rules of round 99 already, we'll see how it goes and tweak things as necessary. I'll probably just fill in the blanks, ask for more mugs from entrants, or roll RNG if there aren't enough mugs.

That's what we're trying, Solum. I'm not sure how it'll go with multiple voting categories but we'll probably play around with it on the fly and see what options work best. Yeeeep, this pretty much. I can mince things until the end of time but ultimately it's just whatever the participant is willing to try out. Yeah, please keep it within the realm of splicing, but no, don't worry about satisfying or forcing other people's threshold for splicing/notSplicing, just find the threshold you're comfortable with personally. There's not a ton of stuff to lose by not getting popularity votes and this contest should be friendly/fun more than anything. I'll try to define some of the techniques I've seen used just to introduce them to people. Some of it can gateway into mod/FC territory so I want to have it written entirely separate from this contest. For the contest itself I'll keep the ruleset general and compliance complaints on a private case-by-case.

WIPs are a nice gesture by people to make it easier to source the pieces but it's not exactly easy to maintain a WIP (and sometimes it's not any simpler than the final piece), so I'd rather keep it voluntary. Ciraxis, I resisted defining my personal threshold/verificationMethod because even that's flexible at times. I'll think over just changing that rule to something more precise like "Don't manually draw in sections / add new shapes by hand (a.k.a. 'customing'.)". Would there be any value in defining the type of modding/splice stuff that goes on, like a tutorial on stuff that seems controversial at first glance but has gone through rounds without a fuss?

Noted on the themes. We can try the winner of this round choosing a theme and a mug, and runner-ups choosing the remaining 4 mugs (once 1st chooses a theme). Right now that rule is a judgement call made by the competition organizer (for me: can I tell where it originally came from: can I recognize shapes/texture/patterns, at the threshold of 3x2px chunks). It's in place to prevent anyone from manually drawing large sections. Are you asking for permission to break that rule (which is usually at your own risk to the judge and public opinion, currently pretty lenient according to the poll), or for wording to change so you feel more comfortable pushing the creative edge?

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Redfield, that's about the way I see it would go down. It seems adding more mugs is general consensus so far, and if we change the way mugs are picked we'll probably need more anyways. (summarizing talk to Mew here) Themes sound all right but adding any more rules would be limiting (some points in time it's daunting enough just to make a cohesive splice from a random set). I'm cool with challenges or extra requests, though. Disallowing certain techniques won't level the playing field, just limit it for everyone. So far the best idea has been to add an 'underdog' category where you can vote for a splice you think has promise (but needs a little work) or is exceptional for the particular artist. In that way you can give feedback to both advanced and beginner spriting tiers. (Maybe the winner of the underdog can opt to get a polished version of their splice, too.)

Thank you if you filled out the survey, just curious to hear everyone's on the splice contest as it's been running for a long time (nearly at 100). ^_^ (That and I think it'd be nice to have a general census on people's opinions on customing. I know it's a sensitive subject but the survey is anon, a chance to be honest about the issue and let others know what the general population thinks. If you do decide to post about it here, keep things civil and objective (don't reference any particular artists, mugs, or rounds).) If anyone is interested in compiled results, I've tried keeping track of them here: MS Office Doc (.docx) of splice contest rounds + results: here (2.5MB) Mug Sheet with usage tallies: here (1.33MB)

Karel (Sealed Sword), Saleh, Innes RULES THAT YOU MUST FOLLOW: No mass Customization. You may custom a bit to make your mug look good/making it work, such as reshading, but try not to go overboard. You can use any color palette. You aren't chained to FE colors, go ahead and recolor to your hearts content. Only use the set given, no other mugs. Recommended color limit: 16 (15 on your mug +1 for background). This is a flexible rule, but be cautious with your color count as a general rule of thumb for good pixel art. The winner will be determined by voting. If there is a tie, the poll will be edited to include only the ties, and re-voted upon. Don't vote for yourself or I will cry sad tears devoid of mod power. Hosts may enter contests. Only 1 mug per member. Winner of the contest will choose the next set (and should select an interesting/spliceable combination). Winner of the contest will choose the next theme and a mug, runners-up will choose the remaining mugs once a theme has been decided. Deadline: Sunday, May 4th, 2014. Have fun!

Somewhere along the line it turned into a band-aid.

wins! Since I chose this set (and since I can), I'm gonna go ahead and abdicate the choosing to Kyu in 2nd place. 2nd place! Kyu, please PM next set~

Source Portraits: Rebecca, Lucius, Marisa ------ 48 hours to vote!

Final day to turn something in! Also Happy Easter. :3

Windows (OS) Magnifier You don't need to open it manually, just remember the hotkeys.

The clothing on the dark mage seems all right, not sure if you're asking about matching the mug to the battle sprite (like you did on the mage, pretty neat) but guess you could recolor certain sections of cloth pretty to make it look even more related. Pretty nice work so far and hope to see more, Kyu~ ^^