-~@ January 2011 Challenge Voting - Points of Light Theme @~-

[Ascension]

This month's challenge had a Points of Light theme. The rules are here so check 'em if you need to update yourself or help you decide if the entries met the requirements.

Thumbnails are here so check them all and make your picks.

Vote for two (2)

[RjBeals]

Ascension - No Title Yet The landscape looks like a satellite image, great work & love the detail in the map. Coastline is a bit too jagged looking, and overall a bit dark, but great entry.

Immolate - Deep in the Wood – Awesome entry. Those mountains and forests are great. And I like the faded look of the map itself. The one thing that sticks out to me are the drop-shadows on the castles & buildings. They are too smooth and make the buildings look sort of floating.

JDCt - Heroes' Path – lot of nice potential, but fizzled out.

Jaxilon - To Ravenkhor – this looks like piece of art. I know how much time you spent on this, and it shows. Well done Jax. Your sketches are cool and shows off your artistic talents. The colors of the map look like a van gogh painting. This would be a map to print and hang in a gallery. VOTE

LonewandererD - Escape the Estate – Love the way this started in daylight, but ended as a night map. Awesome concept and execution. Could be a great video game. Only negative for me is that when I look at the map at first, I see too many wavy unbalanced sidewalks – you know some real skinny and some fat. The houses are so symmetrical, you would think the builders would have taken time with the sidewalks as well

Ravells - To Rivendell! – first side scrolling map I’ve seen. The map has very good scale and elements. The black silhouette was cool also. Although this is technically a map, it falls more into the “story book” category for me.

RjBeals - Ice Cream Run. Go Ice Cream! Not voting for myself this month, but still hoping I can snag a compass

Sapiento - From Highstone to Viewfort – I knew right off this was the map to beat. Beautiful style, colors and awesome monsters. This will be a great map to add to your portfolio Sap. Love it.

moutarde - The Coreroads of the Bergan Dwarves – Amazing how much story you added. Fungoid Spores and Bezeten are some serious obstacles! You could probably almost publish this. The map itself looks cool also - Nice work.

pindercarl - Mission on Mars – I love this piece. I wish there was a few more pictures / aliens to encounter, but the map itself is great. The soft out of focus on the photos to give depth is a nice touch. VOTE

[geamon]

Here's my two votes: Sapiento & LonewandererD

Ascension: Wifey is mad I didn't vote for you. Awesome work wish you would have had time to finish it up completely.
Immolate: Love the concept and presentation. With use of pregenerated brushes(Ramah's Mountain Brushes?) it's sometimes hard to make sure all the elements work together 100%. Unfortunately it looks like it's a little stamped to me but not much. Excellent work.
JDCt: Good concept unfortunalty the execution isn't there or complete.
Jaxilon: Wonderful color scheme. In my mind the shorelines and terrain could have been cleaned up because it looks flakey. Nice art work.
LonewandererD: Awesome map love the night time darkness and lighting and the cartoonish drawing style. Nice and clean.
Ravells: Man I had high hopes for you!! Blasted font asylum!! Maybe some time in the future you can complete it.
RjBeals: Very nice and clean almost voted for you even though I can hear "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" being song.
Sapiento: I love the head to toe hand drawn look. Always keeping into mind a solid perspective that doesn't shift, well done. Also this map has just the right amount of decor on it.
moutarde: Love the story another close vote for me. Only thing I wish for is a little more color in the drawn insets.
pindercarl: Very cool idea unfortunatly I wish there was more to it seeing as it feels a bit empty to me.

As usual this months challenge has some redonculously good maps. Great job all around!

P.S. Unable to rep you pinder I'll get to you tomorrow.

[Immolate]

The entries were all so varied and unique that I could not find a rational guideline to rate them. As I usually do in this circumstance, I simply let my feelings reign and my feelings were delighted by RJBeal's piece and intrigued by Jax's. I do not discount any of the others and liked quite a few of them. As usual, I will give rep to all who made the time to participate in this month's challenge and helped to enrich us all with their inspired work. Way to go guys!

I was able to rep everyone without having to stop and reload. My blade of repping is now +10!!!

Yes Ascension, it is puny indeed compared to yours.

[Rythal]

absolutely loved the core roads map! great story!

Also voted for JDCt for the hide and stuff. looked pretty good, keep it up!

[Gidde]

This challenge was awesome. Period. Every single map completed (and even a couple that weren't completed) I absolutely *loved*. In the end I just had to go with the two that "sang" to me, I couldn't judge this objectively. Objectively, there was an 8-way tie for first place >.< So, I voted for Ascension and moutarde. Ascension's map was just so deep! The longer I looked at it, the more I noticed, and the more impressed I was. The place names were fantastic, the different labeling schemes for each region were spot-on, honestly I could go on and on. And the Coreroads was a model of fantastic mapping. From the color scheme, to the monster depictions, to the callout regional, to the text ... all was balanced, fit well together, and just ... well, sang.

[rdanhenry]

A lot of good entries, and I wish I had had more time to pour over each one in detail. I'm not surprised there is a lot of close voting. Sapiento and moutarde struck me as having reached the ideal blend of capturing the "points of light" concept and giving their maps enough originality to stand out. Or maybe I just like cool monsters.

[JohnnyTrio]

Fantastic work! Very inspiring! I agree it's difficult to choose!

When I think points of light, I think "what's light without dark?" and LonewandererD's night map really speaks to me on that point.

I also love the constilation feel of Jaxilon. I love how the Jax's whole map kinda feels line a nebula, even though it's a fantasy map! I'll need to do some research to see how that effect was achieved!

Jaw dropping stuff all! Was hard to pick!!

[RjBeals]

wow.. neck and neck! Exciting !

[jfrazierjr]

Hmm wish I had time to have done this. My first thought on this was of a hand drawn perspectivey map of DeathStar with Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie going from the Detention Block, into the compactor room, to the split up and swing across bridge and meeting in the landing bay and finally on the MF. Also with Ben going from the Tractor beam room to the landing bay doors for the showdown with Vader. Oh well.. I can imagine it much better than I probably could have drawn it any way....