HOW WE JUDGED THE CONTEST

12.Aug.2004 I was very impressed that there were 97 entries in the contest. That's a huge amount of cool artwork! But as with any competition, not everyone could be given an award. The more good entries there were, the harder it was to judge and decide who ought to receive an award. And as you all know, the other judges and I had a really hard time deciding here. There were too many good pics to choose from! Some of you, I suspect, may be a little frustrated or disappointed that your favorite entries didn't receive a specific award. That's understandable. Everyone has different opinions and different ways of doing things. So I'm going to try to explain a little bit about how we made our decisions. I'm not, however, going to justify specific decisions. We worked very hard to come to our decisions, and we'll stand by those decisions. :-) Anyway, I'll break this page up into 3 main parts: Information about the judges, and why that's important. An explanation of what we thought was important in a pic, and why we thought it was important. A brief description of the scoring system we used. I hope this will clear up any confusion. Like I said, it was an extremely difficult choice! There were plenty of really awesome pictures that unfortunately didn't get an award. But that doesn't mean that we didn't like those pics. Far from it. We liked too many of the entries. It's why we had such a difficult time! If after reading all of this, you still absolutely cannot contain your dissatisfaction, then please e-mail me (hb1 at hakubaikou dot com) directly and IN PRIVATE. Do NOT post a negative remark on the contest page. There is no need to publically belittle an artist. Awards were based on the decision of the judges. The participants had nothing to do with the decisions, and therefore should NOT be made to feel badly in any way for receiving an award that you personally felt was unfair. This contest was held to celebrate our love of RK, it was NOT held in order to make anyone feel bad. Thanks very much!

::: back to award page :::

ABOUT THE JUDGES

There were eight judges for the contest. The eight judges are very different people with different backgrounds and personalities. They have different tastes. The judges are: Conspirator, Co-Conspirator, Angrybee, s-girl, Calger459, Chiisai Lammy, Fevereon, and hakubaikou. The judges are from several different age groups and have a wide variety of experiences in various art or writing related fields. The judges have different amounts of training in those fields. Some of the judges are mainly writers; others are mainly artists, still others are both. The judges have different degrees of familiarity with the Rurouni Kenshin series. Some of us could probably quote it in our sleep. Others don't know it quite as well. I think it's good to have diversity among the judges. First, the more varied the personalities and tastes of the judges, the more chances a pic had of being noticed for an award. Second, in order for a picture to have won certain awards, it had to make a favorable impression on these very different people. It had to have broad appeal. Third, individual judges' biases tended to cancel each other out since there were so many judges on a panel. Obviously, we all tried to ignore personal biases, but that's not always possible. With eight people, though, one judge's bias wouldn't affect the overall vote as much. If a pic received an award, then you can be sure it was no fluke or accident! It couldn't have received an award unless more than one judge voted for it.

WHAT WERE THE JUDGES LOOKING FOR?

I can't speak for all the judges, of course, but the following things were what most of us seemed to look for. They're not listed in any order of importance, since obviously, different judges considered different things to be more important. For example, some of the judges thought technical skill were the most important. Others thought creativity and originality were most important. Still others thought that relevance to the RK universe was most important. I don't know what each judge decided on her own, but I do know that the following criteria were common to all judges. In no particular order.... TECHNICAL SKILL When people think a person is a "good" artist, this is often what they mean. How well does the person draw? Do their people look like actual people, rather than stick figures or blobs? Can you tell what the picture is supposed to be depicting? How well does the artist use colors? How well does the artist do shading and textures? Is the composition nice? That kind of thing. EMOTIONAL IMPACT / EXPRESSION / STORY / OVERALL MOOD You know how sometimes you look at an artwork, and it just makes you feel a certain strong emotion? Or sometimes, you get a strong message or story from a painting even though that painting doesn't flat out show you the message? This was one thing we were looking for. Art, after all, is a way of expressing oneself, whether it's to share ideas or a message, or a feeling. It's not always just about the technical skills! Did we feel something when we looked at the pic? Awe? Love? Fear? Anger? Happiness? Anything? CREATIVITY / ORIGINALITY Uniqueness was pretty important to most of the judges. Many of us appreciated pictures that showed something that no other picture had shown. Something different, new, imaginative, and exciting. Something beyond what the RK manga or TV series or OAVs showed. We also appreciated it when an artist interpreted scenes from the show or manga in his or her own way, when he or she added a personal touch that made the pic a nice combination of RK plus their own style. RELEVANCE TO THE RK UNIVERSE AND THE LOVE & WAR THEME In other words, how well did the picture fit into the main themes of Rurouni Kenshin? I mean, this was a RUROUNI KENSHIN LOVE & WAR fanart contest, not just a plain art contest. So the more a picture had to do with Rurouni Kenshin and Love or War, the more favorably it would score on this point. Were the characters in character? Did the scene in the picture reveal to us something about the personalities of the characters? Did the scene show us something about love or war? BEAUTY / AESTHETICS / "COOLNESS FACTOR" This one's especially subjective, obviously. Basically, was the pic pretty or beautiful, not necessarily by the classical definition of each. Did it just look really cool in some unexplainable way? AMBITION / EFFORT / COMPLEXITY Effort counts. We appreciated it when it was obvious that an artist spent a great deal of time either on drawing a pic, or a great deal of time on thinking of a cool concept or idea for a pic. Also, how complex was the theme of the pic? Most of the judges were impressed with pics that made us think a bit, or that showed us RK scenes in a brand new light.

SCORING SYSTEM

For the Overall awards, each judge listed her top 5 favorites in order from 1-5 and gave each pic a numerical score. For the Sub-category awards, each judge chose 2 favorites and gave each a score. Pictures were judged by a combination of three things: 1. Total combined score from all judges who voted for that pic. 2. How many times a picture was chosen for the judges' favorites lists. 3. How high or low that picture was ranked on those lists. In other words, pictures weren't just pulled randomly out of a hat. There were numbers and a definite system involved.

AND THAT'S ALL

Okay, I'd better stop here. I think most people have probably fallen asleep by now. This page was pretty boring, neh? But for those of you who were really curious, I hope these explanations helped.

::: back to award page :::

Rurouni Kenshin characters are the property of creator Nobohiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shounen Jump, and Sony Entertainment. This is a non-profit fan-site for entertainment purposes only. Permission was not obtained from the above parties. If any of the above parties or their representatives have a complaint regarding any fan artwok posted on this site, please e-mail me, and I will comply with any stated requests.