Well, I'm late to the story and I missed out on the voting, sorry about that. I've been burning extra long hours at work trying to get a project airborne and I'm flying out tomorrow morning to San Diego to do some more but I still wanted to say something because sometimes people get off to the wrong foot unintentionally or even on purpose and these monthly challenges are not worth hurt feelings. However....
First, Congratulations ChickP!!
Second, I totally get the question. I lost so many challenges for a long time and I often pondered this myself. What are they looking for? So, I will first just say it's an effort in futility. LOL. I have yet to figure the voters out.
My high school art teacher who was also a professional artist told the class, "Just because you loose in a contest at one place doesn't mean you shouldn't turn around and enter the same piece in another. You never know what the judges are looking at. On this particular day they only looked at how well you did the eyeball. On another day it was something else." And that's with real judges. He said he had pieces that didn't get anything in one contest but won first place in others.
I have found for the most part this community is partial to Fantasy maps. Sci-fi maps are liked but not loved by as many. I want more sci-fi but ah well...at least I like Fantasy maps too. Western's are in there somewhere but Fantasy is still king. Anything CAN win but everybody likes Fantasy.
It's VERY important to remember that it takes a lot of effort to write a critique of someone's work and even more time if you have something that you want to point out constructive criticism towards. Unless of course, you are a jackwaggon and don't care about hurt feelings. There are other sites if you want to be hammered down but this is 99% of the time a friendly upbeat place and a big reason why many folks love the site.
I do put together little tidbits on why I vote the way I do, whenever I have time, because those were the things that helped me most to get better. I'm not a professional art critic and I'm pretty sure nobody else here is so my reasons may be totally out to lunch but hey, at least you got a reason why I personally did or didn't vote for your map.
I will tip my hand and say that my preference is toward realism vs cartoonish and that means I often don't vote for the map that wins because Sapiento has won a lot of these. That's not to say that I don't love Sap's maps, nor does it mean I haven't voted for quite a few of his but it's gotta blow my socks off because his style just isn't MY favorite style. I love you Sap, so don't dislike me, I can't help it.I've actually been trying to develop a comic style myself.
Bogie does a killer map but he comes from more of the dunjini? (spelling) type deal and I'm always leery of voting for what looks a little "stamper" especially when I can see someone else drew out their entire map. I still love Bogie's maps and I have one for myself for my game world. If I need a miniatures map to play on I would totally hit up his link. I have voted for Bogie's maps because some of them are totally awesome but if I'm honest, it's probably a little higher hill to climb for my vote.
As for myself I try never to look at what others are voting for until I cast my votes because I don't want to be swayed by the masses and I want to give my personal opinion.
I also feel bad for those who don't win because I know they put in as much time or more, 20, 30, 40, 100 hours or so I'm guessing. To them I will just say that every time I entered one of these I learned from the exercise and that's helped me a lot in getting to the place and skill I'm at now. I know at times it may suck to get blown out of the water by a piece that you just can't figure out how it's winning but in the end, who cares? You have a brand new self crafted item you made and all the skills you picked up doing it. After you win 3 lite challenges you can no longer participate in them and have to go in the main bucket anyway.
My last bit is just food for thought about when folks take time to give critiques...in the amount of time it took me to type this and proof read it (hopefully), I could have been working so this cost me about 50 bucks. Why am I even here? Because I love art and I love maps and I love this community, so never forget nobody here is getting paid to set up these (supposed to be fun and educational) challenges month after month or keeping things working smoothly.
A fair question deserves an answer and hopefully I've helped. In the final analysis it always comes down to voter choice and that's for as long as I can recall. Who knows what they are thinking? All the above is just MY thoughts. For all I know everyone is watching one person here and jumping on the bandwagon of whatever vote they cast. I haven't ever figured that out and it's just not worth my time, I'm better served to go paint and it's a lot more satisfying anyway.
Regards,
Jaxilon
