Thank you for confirming, Aequorin!
I just wanted to come here and talk a little more about my experience with festival contests too.
I see two demographics of people frustrated with the apparent unfairness of festival contests. The first demographic is beginner artists intimidated by the apparent skill barrier. Hereâs the thing: you donât need to make âUMAâ quality skins to win festival contests. Many of the most prolific festival winners donât make UMAs at all! And many UMA artists arenât prolific fest winners even if they do enter. As Myth noted in her loss analysis, a lot of skins that do fine as UMAs just donât work for festivals. And thatâs the second demographic I see getting frustrated about fests: if theyâre successful skin artists on the UMA side, why arenât they successful on the site contest side?
Me and Myth have been talking every month since February with the goal of analyzing how festival winners are picked. I hope anyone whoâs confused or curious about our winstreaks gets some interesting information out of it! Iâve won 15 skin contests so far. I only really started actively trying to make an entry every single month during January of this year. Letâs take a look at some of the things Iâve learned during this time:
1. You donât need to be a pro to have a chance at winning!
Iâm someone who makes skins in pretty much the exact opposite way that Myth does - I donât render, I have pen pressure off most of the time, and all of my skins couldâve been done on trackpad instead of tablet if you gave me a few extra hours. Iâm never going to be someone who makes endlessly detailed, beautifully rendered skins. But that just means I had to get very, very good at shapes and colors. Luckily, staff seem to favour a cleaner, simpler style.
Hereâs the very first skin I made. Do you see how simple it is? Let me turn off the lines and shadows. Most of the shading wasnât even done by me, but the fae template itself. Thereâs 5 colors total, and 4 entire objects on this skin. It won because it was simple, readable, colored in the flightâs theme - and yes, because there werenât any other fae entries that month.
2. This is a skin contest for a FLIGHT festival. Show you understand what the flight is about!
Every month, thereâs people disappointed that x gorgeous entry by their z favorite artist didnât make it into the winnerâs list. (Sometimes, Iâm right there mourning with them because I thought that entry was a sure pick!) But a lot of the time, I saw the entry in the thread and knew right away it wouldnât get picked. These beautiful âfest rejectsâ go on to have very successful UMA print runs, so clearly the issue isnât aesthetic appeal. Why didnât it get picked?
Because it had nothing to do with the flight at all. Itâs no accident that submission threads have an entire section dedicated to the location and theming of a flight. Remember, your skin will be an official item for a flight festival! It had better tie into that flightâs theming and lore. Staff put a lot of work into shaping the world of Sornieth. So pretend like youâre taking a test. Prove that youâve been paying attention!
Five of my skins have been very explictly modeled after or based off familiars, canonical flight locations, or scenes from the site. And remember, itâs not always what your own lore says the flight is about - pay attention to what the site says the flight is about. (Plague isnât zombies, Earth is!) And try to make skins for that flightâs representative breeds.
3. Pick a breed that hasnât been picked yet!
This is my simplest advice. Go look at the thread and see which breeds are being done a lot this month and avoid it like the plague. Iâve been seeing aether every single month since they released, and let me tell you - doing a skin on a really popular base isnât going to help if youâre not confident about your chances. Picking a breed that almost never gets entries will help your chances.
Actually, just browse the submission thread in general. Even if youâre not an artist. ESPECIALLY if youâre not an artist. People complain every month that x breed didnât get a skin, and itâs somehow⊠bias staff have toward consistent winners? And not because nobody bothered to enter a skin for them that year?
4. Markings and modifications, not apparel!
This is a really easily missable line in the submission thread every month.
Both me and Myth prefer to do composition rather than markings, so we didnât talk about this a ton. You might think most of our wins donât follow this guideline. But itâs very important to remember that body modification is different from apparel. Myth likes to do wings, I like to put scenery on a dragon, but the important part is we are changing what the dragon itself âlooksâ like when you imagine it as a character - we arenât simply putting clothing on a dragon!
When good-quality, fullbody âmarkingâ or âmodificationâ skins are available, they are almost always a sure pick. Simple, appealing markings/tattoos themed after the flight are good bets too!
This oneâs a bit trickier and you only really gain a sense of this by entering a lot and looking at what wins each year. Thereâs some things staff really, really donât like picking. Thereâs exceptions to every rule, but they are rare!
Modern references/meme material.
Things the flight explicitly is NOT about. (I canât remember who did the stillborn snapper hatchling one for Plague, but⊠why?)
OCs/Original worldbuilding/Fanlore. (The Southern Snowfields arenât Celtic, even if your Ice dragons are!)
Certain real-world cultural influences or cultural objects.
Extensive bodymod, or too many animals on a dragon.
JUST silks or other UMA-bait.
Really, just avoid making a skin that has got nothing to do with the flight. I personally almost never print my fest rejects, because theyâre so flight specific I canât see them doing well. Likewise, if the skin is clearly so mass-appeal that it could work for any element of any dragon if you recolored it a little, youâre probably on the wrong track.
6. Enter for the right reasons!
Finally, remember that fest contests arenât all that. The 2000g + a 5 pack blueprint prize means absolutely fucking nothing if you have the option to print your skin instead. A single run (10 copies) of a single skin priced at 850g a copy will get you 3500g in profit. Thatâs AFTER subtracting blueprint costs.
So donât enter fest contests because you want money, or attention, or to prove to yourself that youâre a 'real skin artistâ. Enter to get practice, to have fun, because you love the flight, or because youâve got a friend egging you on. If you find yourself getting really frustrated after a while, itâs time to take a break. (I didnât enter at all for a good chunk of 2021-2022 and it was great for my mental health.)
And finally, enter so we can get some variety in there. Iâve talked about what works for me, but itâs my sincere hope we get to see more non-standard skins win too. Maybe this post will be immediately outdated as staff reads it and changes how the festival decisions are made. I hope it was a fun read either way :P
