Volume 39 quarter 4

@physa and @ease thank you for the wishes I have my fingers crossed for you as well!

Has anyone heard anything from illustrators Q4 Vol 39 yet? I'm starting to think they are a week or so behind Writers... 

@physa nothing here yet!

Some very mean spam caller with a Restricted number keeps calling me but hanging up before my phone even rings so I just have missed calls from a Restricted number making me far too hopeful  

@ease oh that’s annoying! I answered a call from Kenya I should have ignored just because I’m twitchy, as well as several restricted numbers! I know that’s not what Joni’s is but damn I missed a finalist call and message for a whole week once and I’ll never let that happen again!

[Following @axeminister's announcement the music cranks up]

[Lots of dancing on into the night]

[Big smiles plastered on everyone's faces]

[Dustin has FINALLY won!!!!]

[the celebration in the tent is in full swing]

[Dustin is being carried around the tent like a travelling king]

[I join the others to make a frothy hot chocolate toast to Dustin]

[dragon charred marshmallows tickle my nose]

[Well done! So happy for you!!!!]

[But what do we have here?]

[my main character tugs on my sleeve]

[points at a table covered with blankets]

[underneath are anxious faces staring at their cell phones]

[checking emails and jumping at every call]

[are there still those who are twitching?]

[illustrators are asking "am I getting a call? am I not getting a call?"]

["have the calls been made already?"]

[lots of questions without any answers]

Just saw this on discord from one of the wulfpack: "Yesterday when I [Catherine] was in the test session for Fyrecon, Joni was also there. She said she has the Writers winners, but doesn’t have the Illustrators winners yet."

So @clfors and @ease ... illustrator winners have not been picked yet. I've got a hot chocolate station going and a dragon powered marshmallow toasting station. Lots of blankets. 

@physa oh my goodness! Thank you! I need that blanket fort for this news 🥺😳😅 I’ll bring the phone charging station so we can wait on phone calls and emails!

Posted by: @clfors

@physa oh my goodness! Thank you! I need that blanket fort for this news 🥺😳😅 I’ll bring the phone charging station so we can wait on phone calls and emails!

What an awesome idea, @clfors! :). I don't know if illustrators get two calls or one. It doesn't hurt to be prepared for bear. Still nothing to report on my end.

@physa we get two calls unless we manage to miss the call and message until final results are in 😅

[incoming!]

[winners are being called]

[hugs to the finalists]

[cheers to the winners]

[emails are imminent]

*Last night at Fyrecon Joni let us know that she has the list of illustrator winners and calls will be going out soon (second call)*

@physa fantastic! Thanks for the update! Ahhhhh!

Well...my fellow forum illustrators! I just got off the phone with Joni an hour ago and I couldn't be more excited to announce that am extremely  fortunate enough to call myself a Q4 winner!  not even sure excited does it justice as it's all still very surreal at the minute. Might take a few days but posting this emoji sure does feel good.

I sincerely want to thank my fellow illustrators on this forum for providing some essential tips on submission strategies over the past 4 quarters. I truly feel it made all the difference. You guys rock and keep up the fight  

Posted by: @cbinnsillustration

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Well...my fellow forum illustrators! I just got off the phone with Joni an hour ago and I couldn't be more excited to announce that am extremely  fortunate enough to call myself a Q4 winner!  not even sure excited does it justice as it's all still very surreal at the minute. Might take a few days but posting this emoji sure does feel good.

I sincerely want to thank my fellow illustrators on this forum for providing some essential tips on submission strategies over the past 4 quarters. I truly feel it made all the difference. You guys rock and keep up the fight  

Congratulations! So excited for you!

@cbinnsillustration oh wow Chris!! Heck yeah! Congratulations!!!!

Well I’ve got my results! I got semi-finalist for quarter 4  

Congratulations on winning Chris. Look forward to seeing your art.

Wow! Super-congratulations to @cbinnsillustration on your win! I hope you will post updates from your time in Hollywood and share fun tidbits from the workshop.  

Congratulations to @clfors on your SF (your fourth?)! Considering your 3 Fs I'm inferring that the line between SF and F can be quite thin.  

As for me, I woke up to an email with the following result... . I feel that my Q4 entry was much improved over my Q1, Q2, and Q3 entries, but from that I infer that that there is a long incline of HMs... 

Yay! I can finally say that I got a call from @jonilabaqui last week! She is so amazing.

That being said...

AND  

I made finalist AND disqualified myself. I checked the wording of the rules, and it explicitly says 'computer generated art is permitted' and doesn't state that 'A.I. tools are prohibited.' However, it felt dishonest to progress beyond the finalist call without diclosing my heavy use of A.I. programs, so I brought it up as early into the call as possible (I had tried to work out a way to put a disclaimer in the original submission, but could not find a way). As you might have gathered, it's against the rules: they're just trying to work out the official wording.

It was a little painful (understatement of 2022) to reach the finalist call (after a decade of failing with writing) and switch from finalist to less-than-a-rejection in a matter of seconds, but it was still awesome to get that call, and I can't wait to get it more legitimately for my writing (which includes 0.00% A.I. generated content).

I imagine this last-minute DQ probably made a mess for the judges, as they had to bring in another finalist to analyze, so my vast apologies for any delay I may have caused.

Huge congratulations to @cbinnsillustration for winning! Huge congratulations for @clfors for placing semi-finalist! And a huge congratulations to @physa for the Honorable Mention! You guys rock.

Posted by: @ease

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Yay! I can finally say that I got a call from @jonilabaqui last week! She is so amazing.

That being said...

AND  

I made finalist AND disqualified myself. I checked the wording of the rules, and it explicitly says 'computer generated art is permitted' and doesn't state that 'A.I. tools are prohibited.' However, it felt dishonest to progress beyond the finalist call without diclosing my heavy use of A.I. programs, so I brought it up as early into the call as possible (I had tried to work out a way to put a disclaimer in the original submission, but could not find a way). As you might have gathered, it's against the rules: they're just trying to work out the official wording.

It was a little painful (understatement of 2022) to reach the finalist call (after a decade of failing with writing) and switch from finalist to less-than-a-rejection in a matter of seconds, but it was still awesome to get that call, and I can't wait to get it more legitimately for my writing (which includes 0.00% A.I. generated content).

I imagine this last-minute DQ probably made a mess for the judges, as they had to bring in another finalist to analyze, so my vast apologies for any delay I may have caused.

Huge congratulations to @cbinnsillustration for winning! Huge congratulations for @clfors for placing semi-finalist! And a huge congratulations to @physa for the Honorable Mention! You guys rock.

HOLY COW! Thanks @ease for revealing the behind the scenes on judging and judging decisions... I wondered about AI generated art. 

Big hugs! Hold on to how nice it was to get that call,

@ease That had to have been a rough feeling but I admire that you did the right thing there and disclosed the AI ASAP.

I’m cheering you on for future phone calls you can keep!

@physa thank you and congrats on your HM!

congrats @clfors for placing semi-finalist! your work is consistently highly regarded and hopefully only a matter of time till you find the right piece/s that pushes you over the finish line. For me it took an uncomfortable swap-out and I took out the piece i was most proud of, which was hard to do, and low and behold it was the winning combination. it a constant battle between the head and the heart.  Also huge congratulations to @physa for the Honorable Mention! that is awesome, keep pushing it. I will absolutely provide an update from the Hollywood trip and workshop, can't wait!

thats a brutal finish to the quarter for you @ease  that must have been very deflating, having received that finalist call myself, I cant imagine how you felt to get the call only to get DQ'd, I very much commend your honesty about your process. Having mixed feelings over AI art the one thing i do know is it can produce some astonishing and creative pieces of art, and to make it as a finalist yours must have been no exception. I would have liked to have seen your creations.

Thanks for the condolences, all. As real artists, I wouldn't blame you at all for being less positive about my news. Below are "my" creations. I did some touching up and made a few tweaks, but they are primarily the A.I.'s "work." Truly astonishing that they could make finalist the very first time they were submitted. Definitely doesn't make me feel better about my many writing submissions/rejections 

WOW, not surprised at all these made finalist! they are scary good. 

@ease Those are gorgeous AI creations! And honestly I’m going to use it as study for my efforts to win using my chosen medium—watercolor—The AI art question had to be addressed at some point so you just brought it up sooner. I’d feel less cool about it if you had taken the win without disclosing the AI but you didn’t do that

Those are good looking photos James. Admitting the AI connection cost you a chance at a win, but at least you were honest up front.

Well done.

@ease - Love those pics. Shame you were dq'd.

@ease only backs of heads. Lol No faces

@crlisle Yep. I tried really hard to get it to do faces, and it almost never would. When I did get faces out of it they were usually missing everything else, and normally pretty grotesque (maybe it was using my webcam for inspiration?!). It also sucks at hands, and specific geometric instructions (for example: "two suns on the horizon, one on each side of the picture" or "two suns on the horizon" or "two suns, one on the left, one on the right" - none of these gave me two suns... sometimes they gave me an eclipse.)