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lonecreature
Oct '16
1


Hello,

My name is Simon, and I am the author of The Creature's Cookbook here on Tapas, though saying I am the author chafes a bit. The book is my diary, you see, and I am its central subject matter.

But never mind that.

October is by far and away, my favorite month, because I am a monster. Yes, really, the real kind of monster. Though I spend most days carefully painted and dressed to blend in, during this season, I am free to be myself. October is the month I celebrate my monster-hood, and so...I would like to propose a competition!

To all you gifted artists, you avid amateurs, you comic contributors, I offer you a challenge: look through the scattered pages of my cookbook or Simon's Snacks, and summon up your muses! It will be your task to illustrate my life. You may make use of anything you wish, and submit as often as you like. Your art will be judged by your peers through "likes", by the staff at Tapas, and most importantly, by me. The winners - for I dearly hope there will be many - will have their art included in the book or short story from which they drew their inspiration. Your art will be available for all to see, an integral part of my experiment forevermore. You will be, my gentle readers, published artists.

Think of it as a pairing, of sorts.

Please submit your illustrations by uploading to this forum post, vote on the submissions of other artists, and please, as always, be polite!

  1. The Work Must Be Original:
    You must be the creator of the art that you submit to the competition. Your art must be your own original concept and not a copy of anyone else's copyrighted material. (If your image infringes upon another's copyright it will be disqualified.) Upon submitting your work, to this competition, you are solely responsible for any infringement on copyrighted materials.

  2. Copyright:
    The artist retains all copyrights to their artwork without exception.

  3. Multiple Submission:
    There are no restrictions to the number of contests in which the artist participates, nor the number of pieces they may submit, nor the number of prizes they can win.

  4. Submission Deadlines:
    Artworks may be submitted until midnight Pacific Time on 10/31/2016. No artworks will be accepted past the posted deadline.

Note: It is best if the images submitted are no smaller than 800px X 800px

  • created

    Oct '16

  • last reply

    Apr '19
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doublethickcustard
Oct '16

So, with all due respect (and I mean that honestly, I'm not trying to be rude with my question) But are you asking for artwork that you will publish in this work in order to complete it (which will then sell for a profit, I am assuming?) that you will not be paying artists for the rights or commissions for because submissions for it are a competition? I understand I may have misread or misunderstood this description?
Usually when media such as this is being printed, artists will go through a process of submitting to it and being judged for approval or rejection anyway, unless they are initially approached for hire. If this is the case and I'm correct, and your competition was aimed at helping artists gain exposure while having some good fun, then exposing it through a non profit medium or one where the artists are reimbursed for their time If there are proceeds might be preferable approach perhaps?
I suppose, I'm not understanding whether this is a request for a working collaboration, or a not profit competition - in which case its completely normal for there to be no paywalls, money or publishing profits involved smile

Marvin
Oct '16
1

I agree with @doublethickcustard. As a professional illustrator, I've seen my fair share of "do this for free to me, and if I find it good enough compared to others who will have freely given their time and energy too, I'll reward you by giving you exposure in my project, for which I might get paid with real money and you'll get paid with many thanks and again, exposure !!! It's not as if I was asking you to work for free, it's just drawing, you like doing that, it's not work for you right ? So ! What do you say ?"
It's tiring and we have to change that kind of mentality, not encourage it.

I mean, if you've been in this forum for a bit, you've probably seen quite a few authors looking for artists to illustrate their work for free. Adding the word "contest" on your ad doesn't make it more legit, on the contrary since some people will give energy for no result whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong, giving exposure to fellow artists is a great initiative, I do it myself whenever someone sends me a fanart, I put it in my comic's gallery with a link to that person's profile or comic and I did a contest once but there were tangible rewards for the winners and though I put their entries (all of them, not only the winner's) in my gallery for everyone to see, I didn't use them in my comic.

When Tapas began their book section, I was hoping to see partnerships between authors and artists blossom so I really understand the initiative. But I STILL think the artists should get a small part of whatever profit you make out of this (now if you don't make any, forget everything I said).

And one last thing and my rant is over, I'll promise : you might wanna be careful with the way you phrase your announcement.

Here I read "I'm flattering you even though I haven't seen a single of your drawings so that you'll be more willing to take the challenge (talking to your ego here) I kindly "offer" you, aren't I nice ?"

"exposure exposure exposure even though you have no idea how much exposure I currently have with my book"

"I wanna make sure the drawings I get aren't crappy and the staff is behind me on this" The staff knows about this contest ? It doesn't feel like their way of doing things...

Anyway You want illustrations for your book. That's fair. Then you can say : "Hey, those of you who like my story, just know that if you wanna make fanarts, I'll make sure to include them in my story or in a special gallery" (who knows, maybe you'll meet a fan who'll want to create a real partnership with you).
Ah... but you want good quality drawings... That's fair too, I understand. But as soon as you add quality constraints and specs, then you have to pay the artists. Organizing a contest just to keep the ones you like is unfair.

Sorry for the rant, I'm sure you don't mean anything wrong with this (and maybe there are things I didn't get in your message) but I just wanted to give you an illustrator's point of view.

lonecreature
Oct '16
1

I do hope that the following statement addresses all the concerns listed above in a fashion that is satisfying.

Let me begin by saying that I recognize that art is a powerful and meaningful thing, and that people who create it are often not given their due. Tapas Media is a platform especially concerned with giving artists a means of distributing their work, by enabling them to upload comics and create "followings". In no way are we asking for any free labor or product. Your image, should you choose to create one, remains your work to do with as you please, with the added value of being included in a published work which is already whole and complete. We are not seeking illustrations. We are offering the book as a space to exhibit. I do recognize, that to professional artists, "fanart" contests are inherently problematic, in that fans will submit freely what should, by rights be "paying" a professional, but that is why you can choose not to participate. This contest was directed toward readers of the series which is interactive by its very nature, and welcomes the involvement of its audience. Links to the contest were posted on DeviantArt, as it was our belief that there may be some artists who would take particular interest in the challenge, and that the subject matter would appeal to their aesthetic. Since this appears to create a conflict with the artists who use their talents as their livelihood, and do their business from that site, I will remove the listing immediately.

I shall now address the notion that I, in any way, will be "screening" the submissions. This is simply untrue, and was perhaps and understandable misinterpretation of my remarks. For that lack of clarity, I apologize. The votes will be in the form of "likes" from peers and other readers. The staff at Tapas and I will only be registering our opinion in that form, and each of our individual votes will have just as much value as any other.

Neither I, as the author, nor Tapas, as the venue, want anyone to feel taken advantage of, but there are legal constraints as to how prizes are given for competitions. This is why we offered the right to have the image positioned amid the pages of the book, rather than simply to let the images sit on the forum post as fodder for discussion. It was our belief that this reward would be preferable.

I apologize for any improper wording or lack of specificity. I do sincerely hope that no further offense is taken. I know that you do not know, nor shall wish to, I suspect, but if you did, you might see that no offense was meant.

DeadAccount
Oct '16
1

The winners - for I dearly hope there will be many - will have their art included in the book or short story from which they drew their inspiration. Your art will be available for all to see, an integral part of my experiment forevermore. You will be, my gentle readers, published artists.

I agree with everyone else's concerns, but also, let's assume that exposure is a legit prize for a second (which it isn't, btw) How many readers do you have? How many buy your books? Which publisher are you with besides Tapastic? We don't know this stuff. We don't know if the value of the exposure would be any better than just posting a thing on twitter.

We live in a time when exposure is extremely easy and cheap to come by. There's social media, but then there's also review sites, youtube, podcasts, there's anthologies. Hell, there's anthologies that will both provide exposure and pay for the work, or at least offer physical copies.

I held a fanart contest for my series in the past and it went great. However, I
-already had a small, but dedicated fanbase and people were invested in characters.
-offered physical goods as prizes - books and commissions
-didn't use other artist's work for any commercial purpose. If I decided to publish them, I'd contact the artists and offer them royalties or a flat fee of sorts.

voshxdaemon
Oct '16

Inspired by Part 2 of "The Innocents"

I found the seduction of Francesco especially chilling and... rather delightful. There's something to be said when a monster begins to play devil's advocate, and of course, I always find some titillation when I learn a deserving villain is savvied into eating his just desserts. Well done!

2 years later