I will voice my opinion here as well, because I'm seriously disappointed in this contest.
I'm disapointed in the contest like most of you and especially how it's been handled.
1. The official rules were poorly displayed and most people obviously didn't read them at all, hence a flood of multiple submissions from each contestant and many more infringing upon third party rights (photomanipulations using copyright pictures of Transformers, Linkin Park, the moon etc.).
2. There was no feedback at all in between concerning the obvious breach of rules.
3. The only feedback that we got were a couple of features that were randomly chosen and a few of them also infringed upon third party rights (which really pissed me off since I'd have to assume that they're not sticking to their own rules here...).
4. I don't really get rid of the feeling that they didn't even look through the submissions carefully. And obviously they didn't even look through the submissions which had been most popular & with the most views/comments/faves (so WHY did people have to favorite them when it didn't matter anyway?).
I don't want to sound arrogant, nor do I want to boast when I say that mine is one of the most popular artworks (and I was actually one of the few who stuck to the official rules and created an ILLUSTRATED ARTWORK on my own without using any images that simply don't belong to me) in this contest, but when I attended that Summit in Hamburg I showed Mike my artwork. He had never seen it before and even asked me if I took part in the contest. Needless to say I was kind of disappointed by that reaction. They obviously didn't even notice it, although Mike loved it. His reaction to the piece itself was awesome at the Meet&Greet, but yeah...you get what I'm trying to say, right?
Here's My Artwork if you give a crap...
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/174...ock-d3ifdot.jpg
I'm not saying this, because I'm pissed that I didn't win (you can believe me or not, it doesn't matter). But I would really, REALLY love to know how they chose this winner! It seems to me it was too damn random and many good artworks I've seen on there have been simply ignored.
And these are just some of the important rules the 'winner' broke:
1. He submitted 9 versions! (only ONE was allowed!)
2. He also added a watermark which wasn't allowed either.
3. He didn't use ANYTHING from the download file. (The picture you see in the official announcement is NOT the original version he submitted. I'm guessing the band/management changed a couple of things or told him to change them afterwards)
4. He used an already existing wallpaper and just added a couple of Photoshop filters. Here's the wallpaper: CLICK!
I'm not okay with people bashing the guy who won though. It's not HIS fault that he was the lucky one who got chosen. What he did though was breaking the rules multiple times (even the ones that WERE displayed in an obvious way like the download file rule). I'm not saying anything against the artwork, although I have to say it's a kick in the balls/vagina for the great artists that took part to lose against something like THIS! People spent hours, even weeks to design/draw their stuff and I cannot wrap my head around this decision (especially with Mike AND Joe being artists themselves and should recognize a cheap Photoshop filter when they see one!).
But if this is the overwhelming design the band was looking for. Great. But in my opinion...I just don't get it. Sorry.
So, yeah. My two cents about the contest. I'm still kinda miffed about all of this, but nonetheless I'm proud of myself and about what I've created. It'll take a good spot in my portfolio. But needless to say, this was the last time I took part in a LP contest.
