ZBrushCentral

Twisted Horror ignoring the rules?

First off, I had a blast with the competition. However, I feel that some in the top ten didn’t fulfill many of the stated rules, most especially:

  1. Artists may enter the contest at any time before its final deadline. Pixologic reminds all entrants that community participation is 40% of the total possible score. Additionally, a late entry will have less opportunity to demonstrate overall ZBrush technique during the contest. The later the entry, the more active the entrant will need to be to build a competitive score.


3 of the 10 were late entries, with little to no participation in any of the other threads that I saw. Perhaps I am wrong, and probably am, but I feel a bit slighted that many of the contestants followed the rules to the letter and a few others swooped in and circumvented them. Was the score they got so good that it made up for lack of participation? Obviously there were many great entries, but many of them participated on a much greater scale than some of the top ten. Can we see the scores that the judges gave, participation-wise? Did style and skill trump participation?

(edited to change color of pasted text)

Community interaction DID affect the finalists. Not dramatically, but the list would have been different had it not been part of the equation.

While we won’t divulge the scores that the judges gave, the scoring was weighted in the following order:


  1. Quality of the Finished Image
  2. ZBrush Use (Amount and Skill)
  3. Execution of Theme
  4. Participation Within Own Thread
  5. Participation Within Others’ Threads

That being said, it was up to the judges to determine how well a particular artist scored within each of those areas. There certainly was a wide disagreement among the judges on some of these topics, but that’s why we had seven judges: It helps to average out such differences of opinion.

Pixologic did not influence their decisions in any way. We simply asked them to look for certain things and trust them to have done so.

Nobody will ever agree with all judges on all decisions. That’s just the nature of the beast. We asked them to make subjective choices to the best of their ability and that is exactly what they did. Showing the individual scoring will not serve to accomplish anything other than stir up controversy as some people agree one way while others feel differently.

Hey mark,
i was actually thinking the same thing when i saw some of the finalists. Granted, they are all exceptional artworks, but when 40% of the score was supposed to be community involvement. and some of the entries had little to no participation, meaning even with perfect scores in the other areas, they would only have 60% of a high score, which is basically like a D on a final exam. And i just find it hard to believe that a D score is beating out all the other qualified participants who made great artworks AND made considerable effort to participate in the contest and help out the other artists.
It’s just hard because the finalists are all great entries, so it’s hard to fault them, but when guidelines are put forth as part of the condition of winning and a number of those conditions weren’t met, (not to mention that the contest was advertised as being a WIP competition, and with little to no WIP or workflow images), it just seems unfair to the other artists.
I mean, i know there’s nothing that can be done about it now, but i just wanted to let you know you weren’t the only one to feel that way.
sorry aurick, i know it’s not your fault either.