*** April 2010 Challenge Voting - Brewhome ***

[Zar Peter]

A though choice and a great competition.

Did anyone ask about the weird percentages already? I think it's a problem of the multiple choice votes. (And I'm ashamed my 10 year old son discovered this before I did)

[Greason Wolfe]

Looks like it is using the number of voters as a divisor instead of the total number of votes cast. Never noticed it before. Will have to look at some of the past votes to see if it does the same thing.

GW

[Ascension]

Yep it's the multi choice. Plus some folks only cast one vote so that messes things up as well.

[mearrin69]

Awesome stuff. There weren't enough votes...as usual. I voted for Ascension (awesome map and want a tutorial! Liked your initial results too, though the final is cool), Djekspek (even though it wasn't quite finished I barely noticed until I spent a minute looking at it), and Calydon (nice map and I love the coins and such). Really great maps this time around, guys - I'm addressing that to everyone, not just the ones I voted for.
M

[Katto]

Normally I don't take a look a the challenge WIP's, because I like to see the goal and the results. Only when I am in doubt which one to vote for I take a look. So I was worried about the number of maps, the names which created them and three votes. But in the end it was easy to decide. Connecting beer with mapping is very difficult and I know what I am talking about (beer, hey, I am german).
My favourite is RobA's map. It would be perfect if the journey of "Boran Coalbeard" would have been sketched out. Perhaps in the form of a small diary.
Second is Ascension's map because of the details and my third choice goes to Greason Wolfe, because I have never seen this this style before and I love it.
Bravo to the other competitors.

[Gidde]

This was a tough choice! Everyone did a fantastic job. My votes ended up going to Ascension, RobA and Djekspek (in no particular order). Honorable mention to Calydon .... I agonized on cutting this down from 4 choices to 3.

[PlayinitCool]

Wow! This has been an incredible process to watch! All of the entries really are fantastic…

Sorry for the long post, but I've been trying to keep my comments to myself through the project as not to disrupt the creativity. I intended to drop some constructive comments across the board about half way through the month, but never got the time, so now I have a little catching up to do!

When considering my votes, I kind of broke the entries down into subcategories.

Ascension, calydon, cereth, and RobA all had the used and abused map idea going on. The hand written notes, spilled beer, etc all did a great job at catching the essence on the gazetteer project. I really love RobA's designs adorning the empty spaces, and the narrative top center is terrific. I think both RobA and Ascension had previous versions that would also work great as "clean" copies, probably posted online for viewing, while distributing the worn copies along with the gazetteer as Boran's personal map. Calydon's use of the coins and shadow was great, and I particularly enjoyed his oversized, hand drawn points of interest. Cereth did a great job with the map folds. His land masses kinda reminded me of the ten-thousand islands down here in south Fla, but I would have liked to have seen a higher resolution (more detail). In the end, I think it was the shape of the land masses, and the hand drawn feel that lead me to vote for Ascensions piece out of these.

The next "category" in my mind was the partial globe / isometric views submitted by DevinNight and Greason Wolf. I actually couldn't help myself, and I'm sure most would disagree with my selection here, but something about DevinNight's sketch just grabbed me. I guess looking back on it, the land mass is probably too small, and it probably doesn't fit the style of a gazetteer, but I couldn't help voting for it. I am very curious how this one would come out when finished. I know GW put a lot of work into his map, and it shows… it really is great, and there were a few jungle sections that looked quite interesting. The rivers and mountain clusters were all well done, overall great map. I have to admit though, I was really wanting to see color added to this one. GW also did a great job pulling off the size of the land masses (good choice for change there about half way through the contest).

Then came Djekspek and Immolates entries… both incredible works of art (RobA and Ascension's maps could have classified here as well). Immolate's map is beautiful. I love the ogre camp and Boars head icons, and the surrounding map style was awesome. The mountains never did it for me though, I thought they were too blurry and distorted. DJ's map is stunning… the size of the land masses work for the project, and the details blow me away. I had to go with DJ here. I would love to see it finished, and with higher resolution.

Props to Zar Peter for an incredible job on Muggaria! This thing came a long way, and he did a great job pulling it off. Steel General and MisterAdam had had some cool stuff, and I really wish we could have seen Sapiento's map finished off, those mountains do look wicked!

Thanks to everyone for the hard work, looking forward to seeing the winner!

[Djekspek]

Great great entries all! I really like it that so many people entered this month competetion and that the quality of all of the work is really high. Seeing so much greatness it's really hard to pick and I went for my inner 'wow' factor to prioritize my picks. End the end, my first two picks are Ascension (pro work, stunning) and RobA (looks like it's copied straight from some beer gazetteer . As for the third pick I went for Cereth (the style/color of the landmasses really caught my eye). But rep to all of course! cheers!

[anklesneeze]

I'm pleased at all the effort and talent you guys brought to bear on this. It was hard to choose, I picked RobA as my number one becase in studying the maps I could tell he had read some of the stories on the site, I also like the feel of the rocks and mug on the map. I also found it very readable whereas a few were more difficult. I liked Zar Peter for the readability and detail as well. The art work on all of these is wonderful and fired my imagination since I like to look at a map of the world I'm writing for. It puts me into the world and helps me feel what its like living there. Great works of art inspire more art!

[a2area]

WOW... these are ALL really cool! Haven't looked at them closely yet but Ascension.. you're entry is insanely nice.. I will have to review the instructions and each map with care before voting. Makes me want a hefeweizen! Better call my sponsor (just kidding)



PS.. you guys are going to think me silly.. but I like to think i speak for all short-attention-spanners here; For the sake of uber-convenience, is there a way the link to thumbnails can be included clearly in the poll? Maybe even with an icon "THUMBNAILS". A few (like me) may ultimately not wind up voting or may put off voting til "later" simply due to the lack of a clear link.. although i did find the link i always seem to wind up searching around and (embarrassed) have to admit i've not voted in the past just because the thumbs weren't handy (enough).