The Energon Pub

IDW Publishing have posted all their entries in their "Are you the next Transformers Cover Artist" Competition, and are asking you to vote for your favourites.

There are alot of different threads for the first round of voting, with each Character based Spotlight getting it's own voting thread:

Spotlight: Sureshot
Spotlight Brawn
Spotlight Quickmix
Spotlight Weirdwolf
Spotlight: Dragstrip
Spotlight: Siren
Spotlight: Divebomb
Spotlight: Hoist
Spotlight: Onslaught
Spotlight: Gnaw
Spotlight: Misfire
Spotlight: Krok
Spotlight: Tailgate
Spotlight: Crankcase
Spotlight: Pounce
Spotlight: Cosmos
Spotlight: Air Raid
Spotlight: Cindersaur
Spotlight: Getaway
Spotlight: Scourge
Spotlight: Doublecross
Spotlight: Bombshell
Spotlight: Perceptor
Spotlight: Squeezeplay

So get your votes in to make sure your favourite gets through to the next round!

See my sig and click it, that will give you the idea who you should vote!

I would have entered if I wouldnt have to do a cover on a Transformer that nobody cares about

Vote for Doublecross #905 by Tim Pugh! Its the Law...........................please please please, i need the votes or i'll die!

What the effing Deuce is with that site?! Its slower then Siebertron was just after the switch over! I cant see any of the drawings because of the speed.

Spotlight Gnaw?
Who would want to read that?
Unless it has somethin about how the Quints enslaved the Sharkticons.......Maybe I do want to read it!

But i just noticed something.
On the current winner for cover entry on Spotlight Cosmos I noticed that Cos is standing by one of the characters from Infiltration.Will SP Cosmos tie in with the current Devastation Comic series like some other Spotlights do?

Satan's Camaro wrote:Spotlight Gnaw?
Who would want to read that?
Unless it has somethin about how the Quints enslaved the Sharkticons.......Maybe I do want to read it!

But i just noticed something.
On the current winner for cover entry on Spotlight Cosmos I noticed that Cos is standing by one of the characters from Infiltration.Will SP Cosmos tie in with the current Devastation Comic series like some other Spotlights do?

Well these are fake spotlights, not ever going to be released (or maybe some will one day) and the brief said that the characters can be from G1, WW or the IDW universe so i guess we can let that Cosmos entry off. Personally i voted for a different Cosmos entry.

Sonray wrote:What the effing Deuce is with that site?! Its slower then Siebertron was just after the switch over! I cant see any of the drawings because of the speed.

The effing Deuce is that there currently is a *lot* of people trying to view a lot of threads heavy with mostly locally-hosted images. I'm not surprised at all that the server is chugging. May have to wait until the initial rush dies down.

Well If I knew better, I think I would have done it better. I did Bombshell. (Ana Del Campo) I got no votes . Oh well, at least I try my best.

Anyone else having inane troubles registering for the IDW forum?

The IDW forums are set up that the administrator has to hand-approve every registration, and there's so many new people trying to register that there's a long backlog.

Pretty silly setup to me; I would think it'd be less time-consuming to delete the few spammers that bother registering than it would be to process all those registrations all the time. But, eh.

Well,I haven't registered for the IDW forums, but I took a look at Bombshell and Air Raid, and well I have to say that the artwork looks amazing!

Jeysie wrote:The IDW forums are set up that the administrator has to hand-approve every registration, and there's so many new people trying to register that there's a long backlog.

Pretty silly setup to me; I would think it'd be less time-consuming to delete the few spammers that bother registering than it would be to process all those registrations all the time. But, eh.

Well, that does seem rather retarded...

I hear now they're only letting people register who agree to vote for Sureshot #2202. It's some kind of Australian by law or something.

The fact it's my piece of art is purely coincidental...

Hi:
Nice thread! Good to see lesser known characters been give the Spotlight and not just the popular ones. My love for Transformers goes beyond the "core characters".

Since I have to register to the forum to vote (and I am lazy and has no time) I will "cast my vote" here (for whatever it is worth).

>> Spotlight: Divebomb
>> Spotlight: Onslaught

These are the two Spotlights I am more eager to see and as of the covers my votes goes for:

Spotlight: Divebomb - #801 JOANA LAFUENTE OLIVEIRA AMARAL
Spotlight: Onslaught - #1504 NATHAN DAVIS

Good luck to everyone who submitted an entry!

NightFall wrote:Well If I knew better, I think I would have done it better. I did Bombshell. (Ana Del Campo) I got no votes . Oh well, at least I try my best.

I feel your pain. I did Dragstrip (Cameron Brown) but only got 2 votes. But like you said at least we tried our best, and at least we met the deadline

BLIX007 wrote:

NightFall wrote:Well If I knew better, I think I would have done it better. I did Bombshell. (Ana Del Campo) I got no votes . Oh well, at least I try my best.

I feel your pain. I did Dragstrip (Cameron Brown) but only got 2 votes. But like you said at least we tried our best, and at least we met the deadline

I did Sureshot and got 3, but we still got over a week to go people, there might be a late rush. Don't give up hope yet:)

Well, I wish mines wasn't so horrid. At least you all have some votes, I'm wishing for a vote. I so wanted to go to round two. And for some reason I can never log in that site. I'm pretty sad about that , I always wanted to do their site monthly art contest as a member. Oh well, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

Vote FIRST GEN aka Steven Serrano for WEIRDWOLF.

I had a pencil, pen, sheet of paper and a scanner to work with, so bear with me.

My drawing is no where near the best but I believe I caught the essence of the Spotlight cover, which some of the much better drawings seem to be lacking.

NightFall wrote:Well, I wish mines wasn't so horrid. At least you all have some votes, I'm wishing for a vote. I so wanted to go to round two. And for some reason I can never log in that site. I'm pretty sad about that , I always wanted to do their site monthly art contest as a member. Oh well, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

You should drop either Richter or the board admin an e-mail; I know I had to do that before mine finally got put through and working.

It's too bad this contest is making some people feel bad because they're getting little if no votes or feedback. An unfortunate downside. Nevertheless, I've been seeing some spectaular pieces out there. Woot.

I'm in the Spotlight Getaway camp, ##1106 Lindsay Smith. And when I first saw the polls, I had 2 votes and thought "Aw man...". I was pretty disapointed. Then people started giving me feedback and said they liked my stlye, that it stood out, etc and everything and then I felt great. I may not win, never expected I would though I wished I would get past the first round, but it's nice to know that some people were enjoying my work.

All I can say to people who are feeling bad about how their piece is doing, is to just have fun with it. Don't feel bad. You did your best, and that's all you can expect from yourself. It was fun to enter, the anticipation of the polls going up was huge, and everyone was excited as hell to see the entries. It's all in good fun, so let's just roll with it.

In case anyone was curious, here is a link to my WIP for my Doublecross entry.

http://timshinn73.deviantart.com/art/Doublecross-IDW-Cover-WIP-7539669

Might give an idea how I put the whole thing together.

As for commenting on entries, I've tried to visit as many deviantART pages as possible to comment on entries individually. IDW's boards were a little slow early on, so I thought commenting on DA would be quicker. If I haven't commented on someone's piece yet, I'll try to get around to it soon.

I think it's important to keep in mind, entrants range from all ages and skill levels. If you feel a little bummed you haven't received comments or votes, turn that into motivation to get back to work and try harder. The important thing is to enjoy what you're doing.

Have fun, enjoy everyone's art and be happy for those who advance in the contest.

Neko wrote:It's too bad this contest is making some people feel bad because they're getting little if no votes or feedback. An unfortunate downside. Nevertheless, I've been seeing some spectaular pieces out there. Woot.

I'm in the Spotlight Getaway camp, ##1106 Lindsay Smith. And when I first saw the polls, I had 2 votes and thought "Aw man...". I was pretty disapointed. Then people started giving me feedback and said they liked my stlye, that it stood out, etc and everything and then I felt great. I may not win, never expected I would though I wished I would get past the first round, but it's nice to know that some people were enjoying my work.

All I can say to people who are feeling bad about how their piece is doing, is to just have fun with it. Don't feel bad. You did your best, and that's all you can expect from yourself. It was fun to enter, the anticipation of the polls going up was huge, and everyone was excited as hell to see the entries. It's all in good fun, so let's just roll with it.

The one thing I'd like to learn is how to make the picture (inks I mean) look so crisp and clean. Is it the pen used? I never did inks before, Im a complete novice to it and I dont have any photoshop type programs to work with either.

Yours is an awesome piece Neko.

First Gen wrote:The one thing I'd like to learn is how to make the picture (inks I mean) look so crisp and clean. Is it the pen used? I never did inks before, Im a complete novice to it and I dont have any photoshop type programs to work with either.

I do my inks on a lightbox using a separate piece of Bristol paper on top of the pencils. I ink with Pigma Micron pens and a brushpen. I ink most of my work freehand, but do use rulers or french curves from time to time if need be. All of these items can be found at your local art store.

I scan the inks and clean them up and make adjustments in Photoshop.

One thing that will help you achieve a crisp clean look is speed and confidence. Inking slowly causes wobbly lines and the ink can even puddle in spots. Don't be timid. It will show in your inking. Tons of practice will help build speed and confidence. Practice with different size pens. Work on using different line weights when you ink in order to add emphasis and impact.

Since you don't have Photoshop at the moment, I suggest gettin' your hands dirty. If you can learn to ink the old fashioned way, using Photoshop in the future for tweaks will be a snap. There's always the option of using Photoshop at a print or office shop. Not the ideal choice, but still a choice.

Just keep at it. Draw and ink all the time. Use reference. And remember to have fun.

Ah so that's what I do wrong, thanks tim!
Next time I'll use speed!