#need to brainstorm specifying which book is which between part 1 and 2

[gynandromorph]

these were cover ideas i tested out in june (ganked the cross pattern from an actual bible cover, i would design it myself for real though) and i don't have to decide between them anymore now

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2018 Megaman Valentine’s Day Contest Rules and Info! *CLOSED*

How do I follow up a 10th Anniversary contest blowout that had tons of prizes? I really can’t, can I? Especially in terms of the sheer amount of winners. So, things will be a little less flashy with this year’s contest, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a few surprises in store, either!

Here is the rundown for this year’s contest:

PRIZES:

It’s the usual get-what-you want option for the top 3 artists in each category. If you prefer a cash prize through Paypal, that’s always the easiest and quickest option to get your reward.

As always though, I will be flexible and work with the winners to purchase Megaman-related prizes, if there’s something you’ve really had your eye on and would like ordered. Be it a 4-inch Nel, Nendoroid, Megamix manga, or some other trinket, if I can find it within your prize price range and order it to be shipped straight to you, I will do all I can to make it happen!

The winners for both the Talent and Humor categories will receive the following:

1st Place: $100 USD or an item(s) up to that value.

2nd Place: $50 USD or an item(s) up to that value.

3rd Place: $25 USD or an item(s) up to that value.

RULES:

Two categories, in which you are allowed to submit one entry for each category, if you would like. If you place in one category, you will be automatically disqualified from the other, for reasons of fairness, and to give other people a chance to win a prize.

CATEGORY 1:  If You Like It, You Should Put a Ring Boomerang On It (Talent)

Content Requirements:

* A romantically simple, or extravagantly over-the-top proposal scene between the Megaman characters of your choice

When thinking of a more romantic, but creative Valentine’s concept I haven’t really done yet, about the only thing off the top of my head was that of a proposal. While there aren’t a ton of actual married couples or even canon romantic relationships in the Megaman Universe, I think it still is a concept that will produce a lot of variety and unique ideas!

As always, you have creative freedom as to how you want to approach this theme. Perhaps you want to draw a nervous character picking out some bling at Ms. Millions’ jewelry shop. Maybe the proposal involves a fusion of Jewel Man and Ring Man surprising the fiancée-to-be. Want to draw a proposal fail? Make it on the jumbotron of Strike Man’s stage, and she’ll probably be too embarrassed to say, ‘Yes!’ Wedding proposal not your thing? You’re fine to make it something like a prom proposal even, if you’d like. 

As the talent category, judging for this theme will focus on the technical skills of your piece. Just as guys throughout history have had to brainstorm the most creative and surefire way to get her to say, ‘Yes!,’ your goal for this category is to create a unique and outstandingly well-drawn proposal scene to get me to say, “You win!”

CATEGORY 2: Beauty and the Beastman.EXE (Humor)

Content Requirements:

* Awwwwww…Beast Out! At least one Megaman character turned into a monsterous, beastly form. But looks are deceiving, and there’s a curse that needs to be broken.

* A beautiful character who hopefully has learned to love this other character shunned by society…or maybe not.

* Other various Megaman characters cursed into the form of household items or a handsome, vain, muscular suitor who can’t read books are purely optional.

Tale as old as Time~Man, claws like Greiga Rock~man, Beauty and the Beast…man.

Yeah, song with great rhyme, that is not. XD  

In the EXE series, we had a gimmick in EXE 6 known as ‘Beast Out,’ where Rockman took on a more animalistic form, either that of the Cybeast Greiga or Falzer. In the anime, this concept was utilized on other characters, giving us beastly “Zoanoroid” versions of classic Navis. So there has been some precedent of turning Megaman characters into beastly monsters.

So, let’s combine that idea with a popular fairy tale/Disney classic! Your goal for this category is to create a hilarious scene with a mismatched couple of a beautiful Megaman character and the less-attractive, beast form of another character of your choice. You are welcome to draw something alluding to your favorite part of the original tale or any of the numerous versions based off of it. You certainly can just use Beastman.EXE as the title alludes to, but you don’t have to. You can get creative and make a beastly form of whatever character you’d like.

For this category, show me how beauty is only skin-deep, in the funniest way possible!

PARTICIPATION PRIZE RAFFLE:

Back once again, with much less sadly, I am going to give away 3 rare participation prizes. There is not a separate wildcard category this year. In order to be eligible for the participation prizes, all you need to do is enter a pic for either the Talent or Humor category!

Like last year, if there is a prize here you are NOT interested in, please note that when you send in your submission(s) to me. Otherwise, you will be automatically entered in the raffle for a chance at each of these 3 items.

If you draw a pic for both the humor and the talent categories, you can double your chances to win! (Odds of course, depending on how many others enter and also draw two pics.) You will be able to add your name into the drawing a second time for just 1 of these prizes.

So, what are these raffle prizes? I’m sticking with the art theme, so you could come away with any of these special, historic pieces of Megaman art!

Raffle Prize #1 – Rockman 8 Anime Mid-Game Cutscene Cel (with Genga)

Yes, you are seeing that right. Just for drawing, you could come away with this cel from the mid-game cutscene, where, Rock runs out of Dr. Light’s lab after being told that if he ‘fwinds dat meatey-oar, we’wll fwind Doctah Whywee.” Yes, you can have a piece of that scene!! As you can see in these samples, the cel is not stuck, so you can proudly display each piece separately if you prefer!

It’s this scene, only not covered by the lab wall. Probably the first time we’ve seen this art fully unobstructed!

Raffle Prize #2 – Archie Comics Worlds Unite Inked page (Sonic Universe #77, Page 8)

Inked and signed by Gary Martin, this page showcases that rare brotherly interaction between X and Rock, with the sneering, evil trio of Wily, Robotnik and Xander Payne all behind bars immediately after they portal-escaped from Sigma’s grasp. Although their sentence only lasted like a page, before X let them out…

Raffle Prize #3 – Captain N Robot Master Height Chart

Ugly and poorly constructed? Yes! But that’s what’s so great about Captain N production art. From season 2, here are 3 of the 7 MM2 Robot Masters used in Episode 5, The Big Game: Wood Man, Heat Man and Quick Man. Why are they taped on like that? Apparently, when making these height chart references, the animators just reused other height charts as a base. So underneath these 3, you’ll find the original height chart for the people of Kongoland, a Smurfy-blue-bodied-Thundercat hybrid tribe of Donkey Kong worshippers. Yep, that’s a real sentence I just typed.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

When you submit, I would prefer you to include the following information in this format, along with your entry:

(Your name/preferred alias) – As much as I usually know who you are, there’s always someone new or somebody who has a different preference from what their email name says.

(Category this entry is for) – You can either say 1 or 2, or Talent/Humor· 

(Participation Prize Eligibility) – Just write “All” if you are interested in the chance to win anything. Write: “Exclude from #__” if you do not have interest in winning a particular participation prize.

In the event you are submitting your second entry, please specify which prize # you would like your bonus chance in the raffle to be put towards.

Only submit your own work, as usual. Any character, major or minor, from any series is allowed. Pairing characters from different series is totally allowed. Same-gender pairings are completely fine.

As always, participants are allowed to submit from all over the world. It’s easier for me to get prizes to US entrants, because international shipping is complicated and pricey, but I’ll do what I can for you guys who aren’t in the States.

Paypal is still the preferred method for cash prize payouts. Please have a valid account to receive your winnings.

Youngin's, get your parents permission before entering.

Entries do not need to be colored, but it is preferred. The more effort put into things as always, the better chance you have!

Entries can either be e-mailed to me at rock2125[at]hotmail[dot]com, or you can just PM/note me a link to your pic.

DO NOT post your pics in this journal, your dA galleries, tumblr blogs, other sites, etc. until the contest is over. This is the fairest way for competitive reasons. I prefer to keep them all secret until the deadline has passed.

I'll edit a confirmed entry list in this thread when I receive them. So you won't be in the dark about whether or not I've received your entry.

DEADLINE:

The deadline for this contest will be Monday, February 12th, 2018 by 11:59PM CST. This gives you a little more than 5 weeks to finish your entry!

MISCELLANEOUS INFO:

As usual, If you don't plan to enter, but would like to help me judge, please let me know through DM or mention so here. Never hurts to have extra opinions on all the entries.

Bug me with questions if you have any. Please join in, and good luck to everyone who enters! 

Heed the Heel Navi’s message...

Confirmed Entries:  

Category 1 (Talent): @borockman, @pandapanic0, @drewblossom, @wintesm, @hyperbole1729, @jb-artist, @digitallyfanged, @tianura, @lightlabs, @peach35, @iris-sempi, superbasket5, @shikai-the-storyteller, @yugiohlesbian

Category 2 (Humor): @frankenchio, @erekisaiko, @drewblossom, @prar-draws, @amiable-apparition, dark-dullahan, 

[pathtopurchase]

Brain Surfing: key takeaways

“Brain Surfing” by Heather Lefevre (http://amzn.to/2xRyEEl) is a book that teaches you a lot and also brings a smile to your face. Having worked as a marketing strategist at Crispin Porter + Bogusky and several other well-regarded ad agencies, Heather had quite a wealth of experience. However, one question nagged at her. In her own words: “Why don’t I feel like an expert yet? What don’t I know that I need to learn?” With some inspiration from the book The Craftsman by Richard Sennett (the benefits of apprenticing with master craftsmen) and Stefan Sagmeister’s TED Talk (the power of taking time off and renewing oneself), Heather mailed a bunch of strategists asking them if they’d be okay having her spend a couple of weeks with them, observing them at home and work. Nine strategists, spread across the globe, agreed. Brain Surfing is a travelogue of this experience.

Here are my key takeaways from the book:

1. Jason Oke (Young & Rubicam, Hong Kong) has a 50-point check-list that he runs through when starting off on a strategy project. The check-list is a way to learn as much as possible about the brand (e.g. by looking at Google Trends, visiting retail stores), its conventions, data (e.g. how often people buy the category, how long is the purchase cycle) in a systematic way + allow room for inspiration (one of the items in his checklist is: Go for a walk, or sit still and meditate, and calm your mind.”). I guess strategists need something like this because they work on new projects all the time, so they need a quick way to get started.

Another point Jason makes is that focus groups may not generate too many insights because people are likely to be engaging only the rational part of their brain. Instead, he suggests techniques that get people to be creative (e.g. “what would it say on the brand’s tombstone?”) so that they are fully engaged. The point is: don’t conduct research that only tells you things you already know.

2. Simon Kemp (We are Social, Singapore): “We are Social is hyperaware that people rely on other people to feel a sense of belonging, to make decisions, and simply get through this thing called life. And they know that all of the tools and platforms a social media company works with are only the means to help people do more of what we are all hardwired to do already, and do it more easily.”

3. roObin Golestan (DMG, Beijing):  roObin admires Jay-Z for his vision and motivation to make it to the top. [A good strategist] “stays ahead of the game, always proactive, making something from nothing.”

4. Rob Campbell (Wieden + Kennedy, Singapore): Rob has a system of having “informants” to help him understand things. He’d speak to professors, priests etc. to help him get inputs that only an insider would know. 

Here is a quote of his that I liked: “I see myself at the creative end of business rather than at the business end of creativity. They may sound similar, but the difference is huge. Being at the creative end of business means you want to seek out your clients’ bigger business problems, not just their marketing and communication needs. It means you want to use creativity in broader and more interesting ways. It means you want to develop solutions that are amplified through communication rather than the solution always being communication.”

5. Phil Adams (Blonde Digital, Edinburgh):  A couple of quotes:

a. ‘“It’s a really bad disease in digital to do stuff for the sake of it rather than serving a commercial purpose...It’s also a function of the fact that a lot of clients tend to brief digital agencies in a downstream sort of way. So a typical brief specifies a solution: We want a Facebook page, or we want a microsite.” To combat those impulses, he gets his team to start with the question “How can we____ so that_____.” For example, How can we influence a desired behavior so that we achieve a commercial outcome?’

b.  “Digital and social are not as powerful as traditional advertising when it comes to building consumer brands, but they can solve a much greater variety of problems, and so the intellectual challenges are more varied.”

6. Suzanne Powers (Crispin Porter + Bogusky, London): 

a. I loved this quote from Alex Bogusky, founder of CP+B: “Generally culture is going multiple directions at any one time. And pop-culture, specifically, is always having this conversation with itself about where to go....if you’re going to be relevant, you’re going to be somewhat controversial, because culture hasn’t really decided, okay, this is the direction now. And so, you have to be...okay with the heat that comes from being relevant.”

b. Suzanne: “What CP+B does better than anyone is attempt to articulate where things might be heading and then choose a possible future to invest in.”

On a related note, CP+B’s ads for Domino’s Pizza are well worth a watch: http://www.cpbgroup.com/work/dominos/home-for-pizza

There’s also this brilliant campaign they did for Kraft Mac and Cheese. Kraft wanted to move to healthier ingredients for the product; quite like Maggi noodles in India, Kraft Mac and Cheese has a distinctive taste that makes it unique for its customers. So they were worried about whether customers would perceive the taste to be different and therefore reject the new product. CP+B’s solution was to release the new product into the market with the required changes in ingredient labelling but no other announcements. After 3 months and 50 million boxes of the new formulation sold with practically no complaints from customers, they made the announcement. 

http://www.cpbgroup.com/work/kraft-macaroni-cheese/kraft-macaroni-and-cheese-blind-taste-test

http://www.aaaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CPB-Boulder-Blind-Taste-Test-Gold.pdf

7. Kevin May (Sticks, Seattle): Kevin has this approach of bringing together people from different walks of life on a project basis in “salon sessions”. Quote: “There is a striking difference between a salon and a brainstorm: We’re not pressing to solve the problem; instead, we’re sizing up the problem, picking it up, and examining the texture and weight.” When looking back on her experience Heather feels this “strike of the eye”, intuition-oriented approach is a more realistic approach to strategy development than a step-by-step, reason-dominant approach.

8. Saher Sidhom (AMV BBDO / Forge Future Factory, London): Saher is a strategist whose M.O. is to help clients incorporate new technology into their products or services. For example, they might develop an app for Mercedes-Benz which lets customers taking a test drive see their heart rate etc. and gauge how their body reacted to the drive (this is one of the ideas that emerged in one of their hackathons, I’m not sure if they actually ended up creating a production version of this).

Quote from Saher: “The way I see it, technology is ahead of the consumer, the consumer is ahead of brands, and brands are ahead of agencies. But if agencies want to shake up that order, they have to bring these forward-thinking ideas in as added value. Brands need to know they can partner with their agencies to innovate.”

9. Brian Millar (Sense Worldwide, London): 

a. In your research, seek out unusual users rather than average users (ultra-marathoners rather than average runners) so that you get inspiration rather than validation. See http://bit.ly/2xakue4

b. One of the people featured in this chapter, someone called Jacky, talks about BJ Fogg’s Behaviour model: “a behaviour happens when a person has sufficient motivation, ability, and a trigger. They must all be present at the same time for a behaviour to occur.”

b. Quote: “Any behavior becomes easier to do when it costs less, takes less time, requires less physical or mental capacity, and doesn’t feel socially deviant (like wearing a bathrobe to a dinner party would feel).”

All in all, Brain Surfing is well worth a read for anyone with at least 2-3 years of experience in marketing (I do think one needs a few years of experience in order to appreciate the ideas in the book).