The "Strike Yer Colors!" Contest Winners (04/06/12)

Bart Gunshot

Bart Gunshot

Site Founder
First we asked Pirates to “strike their colors” and surrender their savviest ideas for new sail emblems. Now we invite you to fly yer colors with these five fantastic new emblems:

Congratulations to our Grand Prize winners!
grand-vitalik-mermaid.jpg

Mermaid by Vitalik
grand-johnny-storm.jpg
grand-christopher-shark.jpg

Mermaid by Storm by Shark by
VitalikJohnny BladespinnerChristopher Plunderburn

grand-edward-skull.jpg
grand-will-octopus.jpg

Skull by Octopus by
Edward DarkfuryWill Backstrom


Congratulations to our First Prize winners!
We very proudly present their outstanding designs:

first-annabeth-seachest.jpg
first-barry-skull-trident.jpg
first-bobby-lion.jpg

Seachest byTrident Skull byLion by
Annabeth ChaseBarry O'BomberMike

first-will-skull-swords.jpg
first-bess-compass.jpg
first-jack-claws.jpg

Skull & Swords byCompass byClawed Sail by
WillBess O'BurnJack

first-polly-crab.jpg
first-cin-wolf.jpg
first-roger-skull-dagger.jpg

Giant Crab byCutlass Wolf byJolly Skull by
Pretty PollyPirate CinRoger Darkcutter

first-griffith-phoenix.jpg

Phoenix by
Bobby O'Mob

These Pirates are without a doubt an extremely crafty and creative crew. We received many fantastic entries, and it was no easy feat to choose only fifteen winners.

These savvy new emblems, available in either black or white, will be available at Shipwrights soon in our next update to the Caribbean:
mermaid.jpg
storm.jpg
shark.jpg
skull.jpg
octopus.jpg


Thank you to the many artistic Pirates who entered our “Strike Yer Colors” Contest!




http://blog.piratesonline.go.com/blog/pirates/entry/the_strike_yer_colors_contest
 
This proves simplicity beats creativity in POTCO. By far, the best one IMO is the mermaid(in the top 5) by Vitalik followed by the cutlass wolf and Jolly Skull(in the bottom 10) . The top 5 choices could of been a lot better even by just choosing some in the bottom 10 instead.

Congrats to all the winners and good job in their efforts. No need to say bad choices because I am sure those players did their best and put their hard work in all of these as I am sure Disney received even better options to chose from(no disrespect to anyone).

I never cared about myself winning(or the prizes) nor do i speak about my design being better but I have seen other published designs by other players that should of been up there that deserved to win. When i read the official rules provided by Disney there were certain things that specifically stated information about eligibility and how designs were judged and i don't know how some of these made it up there...
 
The clawed sail looks like a kindergartener took a red crayon, scribbled all over the page, and drew four black triangles -_- Disney is just horrible at picking creative choices. I think the top five they picked were really just not that good. I really liked the Lion and the Trident Skull. Again; Zero creativity on Disney's part. I won't be using any of the ones they picked.
 
Wow! I love to see what everyone comes up with. I really like the trident skull, the mermaid, the pheonix(looks like a pretty painting), and the compass. However, I still think that some of the submitions from people on the forums were great as well.
But hey, don't criticize some of the designs. Remember that there are submitions from the younger pirates, too. Still, I can see why people could be frustrated because of Disney. I think that the clawed sail was actually a good idea in theory. :)
 
My top 5 list just from the 15 chosen would of been: Cutlass Wolf, Mermaid, Jolly Skull, Trident Skull, and Shark.

Regardless who send these designs, I don't think the Judging wet as announced in the rules.
 
I am trying to be fair here, even though it's difficult to be completely neutral, I have to admit. Remember that I mentioned before that it was not easy to judge an art? There has to be a set of criteria as a measurement to set apart designs that will be justified as 'better' than the others. I also mentioned, that even though there was a set of criteria to minimize subjectivity (read: personal taste), there would still be discrepancies between winners chosen by the judges, and winners who ppl (in this case, us - the viewers) thought should have won. Why? It goes back to the nature of what we call 'art' itself. It is so subjective ... depending on the set of judges, there will be differences between winners chosen by Potco staff, and winners chosen by us - viewers, and even if they had chosen another set of neutral art expert team as the judges.

So, with that being said, I'd like to present the rules of the competition again:
http://a.disney.go.com/pirates/online/pdf/contests/strike_yer_colors_rules_2012.pdf

Sail emblem rules 040612.jpg


1. It required an "original hand-drawn" art only. I admitted that I was guilty of that, and so were other participants who did the computer graphics drawings. But it does not mean that all of us who used computer were original (mine was totally original). Now look at the mermaid emblem - the first Grand Prize winner. I can bet that the creator used a computer graphics application to create that; it is too uniform and unblemished.

2. The criteria: contest theme, creativity and swashbukling style. Since we already have existing ship names, plus additional names recently, I think a lot of the ship names have not been represented. I was surprised that Potco game developer would only add 5 new sail emblems on the next update (I thought there would be all 15 additional emblems). Some of the regular winners have better representations than the grand prize winners. Trident, compass (navigator), lion are some of them. And I'm pretty sure there are a lot of entries out there (who did not win), represented the theme better. There are ship names such as 'starlight, midnight, morning' and a lot more that did not get any choice of the matching emblem. Yet, Potco chose a skull with a tomb as one of the winners. :confused:

From creativity criteria, well ... like I mentioned on my opening statement, let's just say that Disney Potco staff's creativity criteria was way off from mine (and some members here, apparently). I appreciate all hard work that has been put by all participants of the competition, regardless age. But by the same token, this was supposed to be an open competition. No discrimination is allowed, towards the youngsters, and towards the adults. Entries should have been judges blindly, meaning it did not matter whose entry that was; if it was good, it deserved to win. There was no need of protection towards the younger participants; everything had to be judged solely based on the quality of the entry.

If the purpose of the competition was for the game developers to get some inspirations from the winners (because most of the winners did follow the rule, which was using hand-drawing art), and the developers would still have to finalize the designs before they could be ready for release, I'd say Potco failed take advantage of the good entries out there. The shark, the lion among the winners were very obvious; there is no imagination needed. The winners artworks were so literal that it's hard to think that Potco design team would not figure those images out themselves.

In the end, debate over an art is something that is hard to win. It's all in the subjectivity aspect ... So Potco game designers could pick their version of winners, and I congratulate everyone who won. But I am with Eric in this case, I cannot use any of the winner's emblem for any of my ships.
 
I assume it's all right to post my emblem:

chris2.jpg


I admit, probably would have only gotten into first prize winners. Bah, who needs Unlimited anyway? I've already got it monthly! :p It was hand drawn, no computers used except for scanning it. I must admit, I am disappointed in Disney but we shouldn't go as far as to insult the winners solely because we didn't win because they tried their best. How would you feel if you found out everyone was calling your emblem "stupid" or "looks like it was draw by a Kindergartener"?
 
Gastro said:
I assume it's all right to post my emblem:

View attachment 27603

I admit, probably would have only gotten into first prize winners. Bah, who needs Unlimited anyway? I've already got it monthly! :p It was hand drawn, no computers used except for scanning it. I must admit, I am disappointed in Disney but we shouldn't go as far as to insult the winners solely because we didn't win because they tried their best. How would you feel if you found out everyone was calling your emblem "stupid" or "looks like it was draw by a Kindergartener"?
Click to expand...
I wasn't insulting the winners, I actually congratulate them all. I was talking about what Leo was saying
 
I should have submitted my tribal wolf.. Thought that since Disney already has a wolf they wouldn't accept one, but I guess I was wrong lol
Not gonna use any except maybe the skull. The skull trident would have been nice, it was actually quite creative...
Disney, will you ever learn how to please your customers correctly? ^-^
 
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Honestly, I would've liked it more if we, the players, could be the judges instead of Disney. We should be able to decide which ones we want in the game. We should be able to go to a whole page with submitted designs and be able to vote on which ones we like the best. Also, the other ten should've been added to the game as well. I liked a lot of the first place designs.
 
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