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GregF

Entry posted by GregF

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I am sure 99% of you already know all this, but in the wake of the Makuta contest, I thought it would be a good idea to post these LEGO Magazine contest tips again for any newer BZPers.

 

-- If you are entering a building contest, please submit either a photo or an image printed out on photo paper (which you can find at any Wal-Mart, Target, office supply store, etc.). Photos printed out on regular printer paper won't be accepted, because they will not scan well for reproduction in the magazine. It states very clearly in the rules that entries need to be photos or on photo paper, and a lot of nice entries end up getting tossed every contest because people submit them on plain printer paper.

 

-- Pay attention to the quality of your photos. If the photo is blurry, we won't be able to make out what the model is. If the photo is a giant shot of you with your model looking very small in your hand, readers won't be able to make out what the model is.

 

-- If you are entering a contest where it states that the winning entries will be displayed on the web site, you are much better off just sending a picture of the model and not one with you in it. The reason is that we are not allowed to show pictures of kids on our site without first getting parental permission. We will NOT disqualify anyone from any contest for not following this suggestion, but it is one of those things that just makes the process more complicated for everyone involved.

 

-- If you submit a photo, please do not fold the photo up. We get a lot of that, and again, the photo will then not reproduce correctly in the magazine. If we can't display your winning model in a way that will make it look good in the magazine, then you won't make first cut.

 

-- If you are entering a drawing contest, it is a good idea not do your drawing on lined paper. While your drawing will still be considered even if you do, it's going to look a lot better when scanned if it is done on plain white paper instead.

 

-- While we appreciate that you want your entry to arrive safely and securely, sealing the envelope with massive amounts of tape just makes our job harder. Remember that we may have two people opening 10,000 entries in the course of a few weeks. If we have to wrestle with yours to get it open, it slows the whole process down.

 

-- If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.

 

-- On a side note, thinking outside the box when doing contest entries is always a good thing. In our recent City Police contest, winners included a giant zeppelin and a vehicle with a giant police dog as part of it. Remember that if an idea seems like a no-brainer to you, it probably is also one to the 10,000 other people entering too. If you hand in something a ton of other people have also built, yours is going to have to be that much better to stand out from their entries. There are certainly entries that win because, even though the subject matter is standard, the actual build is really impressive -- but the best entries are the ones where the building is good AND the idea is different.

 

Greg

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ChocolateFrogs
-- If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.

LOL. I see a lot of this on the Lego.com galleries, kid's uploading their sets. I'd like to know why they think a set built will win them anything.

 

-- Pay attention to the quality of your photos. If the photo is blurry, we won't be able to make out what the model is. If the photo is a giant shot of you with your model looking very small in your hand, readers won't be able to make out what the model is.

Very important. I know from experience.

 

Good tips, Greg. It's nice to get some stuff spelled out for clarification. It's also interesting to see that you get about 10,000 entries.

 

-CF

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Grey Snow

About the image being too small, I'm not great at that so mine always turn out badly, is there a way to make enhancements on the computer? And should you does that take anything away? Like I think in the BBC contests they clearly state about uploading and fixing the image that you can be disqualified, so is there anything like that we would need to know for future contests?

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GregF

Hi B,

 

What I am talking about when I say the image is too small is pictures where we get a shot of a kid holding his model -- the kid takes up the whole frame and the model ends up barely visible because the focus of the photographer was obviously on the kid. I can certainly understand why a parent would want to see their kid in the magazine, but if the model is too small for us to be able to judge it in the image, then they aren't really helping their case.

 

Greg

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Aanchir

Random question, Greg-- do you help choose the winner? You certainly know a lot about the system.

 

If you do, it is all the more awesome, because we know we're getting a storyline perspective as well as general aesthetics.

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Munkiman
Why are the Bionicle contests always in Brickmaster? It really bugs me...

 

BtB

Presumably so that people will buy the Brickmaster magazine.

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~ShadowBolt~

Good advice Greg. You should put this somewhere on the official Lego website so parents and kids have a chance to see the rules so they don't hurt their chances of winning. One thing shocks me, many people sent in Mutran as their contest entry? Wow. :blink:

~SB~

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Bundalings
Why are the Bionicle contests always in Brickmaster? It really bugs me...

 

BtB

Presumably so that people will buy the Brickmaster magazine.

That's silly. Now they have a smaller pool to pull the winners from = the winner probably won't be as good as it could be.

 

BtB

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Shine
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?
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Bundalings
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?

Agreed! So many of the Dark Hunter entries were awful. I don't mean to brag, but at least my entry was original and mostly custom, not to mention color coded and smooth.

 

Now the winners of the Rahi contest... now those were good.

 

BtB

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ChocolateFrogs
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?

Agreed! So many of the Dark Hunter entries were awful. I don't mean to brag, but at least my entry was original and mostly custom, not to mention color coded and smooth.

 

Now the winners of the Rahi contest... now those were good.

 

BtB

Agreed as well!

I don't like seeing things that don't have a color scheme or a sense of build. (No offense, but people need to be told to improve, not told they rock.)

 

-CF

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~ShadowBolt~
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?

Agreed! So many of the Dark Hunter entries were awful. I don't mean to brag, but at least my entry was original and mostly custom, not to mention color coded and smooth.

 

Now the winners of the Rahi contest... now those were good.

 

BtB

Agreed as well!

I don't like seeing things that don't have a color scheme or a sense of build. (No offense, but people need to be told to improve, not told they rock.)

 

-CF

 

 

Ah, but read Greg's blog entry again. The reason some of the winners may not have been the best is because some of the better entries have had to be disqualified for the various reasons Greg stated in this entry. ;)

~SB~

 

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Bundalings
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?

Agreed! So many of the Dark Hunter entries were awful. I don't mean to brag, but at least my entry was original and mostly custom, not to mention color coded and smooth.

 

Now the winners of the Rahi contest... now those were good.

 

BtB

Agreed as well!

I don't like seeing things that don't have a color scheme or a sense of build. (No offense, but people need to be told to improve, not told they rock.)

 

-CF

 

 

Ah, but read Greg's blog entry again. The reason some of the winners may not have been the best is because some of the better entries have had to be disqualified for the various reasons Greg stated in this entry. ;)

~SB~

I doubt that most of the good entries out of a pool of 10,000 were disqualified for any of those reasons.

I think that one of Lego's judging criteria is age, and that's not a good thing, IMO. Especially since they don't tell you the creators age in the books. If they did that perhaps I wouldn't be so harsh on some of the models.

 

BtB

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~ShadowBolt~
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?

Agreed! So many of the Dark Hunter entries were awful. I don't mean to brag, but at least my entry was original and mostly custom, not to mention color coded and smooth.

 

Now the winners of the Rahi contest... now those were good.

 

BtB

Agreed as well!

I don't like seeing things that don't have a color scheme or a sense of build. (No offense, but people need to be told to improve, not told they rock.)

 

-CF

 

 

Ah, but read Greg's blog entry again. The reason some of the winners may not have been the best is because some of the better entries have had to be disqualified for the various reasons Greg stated in this entry. ;)

~SB~

I doubt that most of the good entries out of a pool of 10,000 were disqualified for any of those reasons.

I think that one of Lego's judging criteria is age, and that's not a good thing, IMO. Especially since they don't tell you the creators age in the books. If they did that perhaps I wouldn't be so harsh on some of the models.

 

BtB

 

Oooh, good point. But you have to admit, a few good ones most likely get knocked out in every competition for disqualification. Also, the majority of the BrickMasters and the fan base aren't very good Mocer's. I mean, how many ToM Dracone's Czar's, Seranikai, and Caggerin' do you think are there in every competition.

 

Guys, sorry if I spelled your names wrong but you know who I mean. :P

 

~SB~

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Kojol

...And i expected the worst we heard about to be Antroz with a random mask... but it's Mutran. Setaccurate. Yipes.

Say, when will the winners know if they won?

Link to comment
Bundalings
If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.
How are things like Vengeance(who was basically a Kikanalo with some stuff thrown on) explained?

Agreed! So many of the Dark Hunter entries were awful. I don't mean to brag, but at least my entry was original and mostly custom, not to mention color coded and smooth.

 

Now the winners of the Rahi contest... now those were good.

 

BtB

Agreed as well!

I don't like seeing things that don't have a color scheme or a sense of build. (No offense, but people need to be told to improve, not told they rock.)

 

-CF

 

 

Ah, but read Greg's blog entry again. The reason some of the winners may not have been the best is because some of the better entries have had to be disqualified for the various reasons Greg stated in this entry. ;)

~SB~

I doubt that most of the good entries out of a pool of 10,000 were disqualified for any of those reasons.

I think that one of Lego's judging criteria is age, and that's not a good thing, IMO. Especially since they don't tell you the creators age in the books. If they did that perhaps I wouldn't be so harsh on some of the models.

 

BtB

 

Oooh, good point. But you have to admit, a few good ones most likely get knocked out in every competition for disqualification. Also, the majority of the BrickMasters and the fan base aren't very good Mocer's. I mean, how many ToM Dracone's Czar's, Seranikai, and Caggerin' do you think are there in every competition.

 

Guys, sorry if I spelled your names wrong but you know who I mean. :P

 

~SB~

Hence my point about it being silly to have all the Bionicle contests in Brickmaster.

 

BtB

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GregF

First off, "all" the BIONICLE contests over the years have not been in BrickMaster. Only the last two, I believe. If I could have, I would have put the Makuta contest into the free LEGO Magazine -- but what content goes into the free magazine is determined by the US Brand team for BIONICLE. If they want to focus on some other aspect of the sets or story in the magazine rather than do a contest, then we don't do a contest. BrickMaster pages, on the other hand, are decided on purely by the LEGO Magazine editorial team, so I have a lot more freedom to do things with them.

 

Secondly, we do not have an age criteria when we judge entries. In contests where we do, it is spelled out in the rules. For example, one of our recent winners for Police Power is a 39 year old man and his 11 year old son. We have also done contests like the recent Norwegian Cruise line one where we have had multiple age categories and a winner in each.

 

However, there are a lot of criteria that go into judging, quite apart from "color" and "build." We also look at the essay, and in the case of the DH contest, whether the character is interesting and will fit in well with what we have in mind. The vast majority of the DH and Rahi entries were not changed radically from their original write-ups, just polished. Simple fact is, though, that BIONICLE and Star Wars contests are highly competitive because they get the most entries. And contrary to the comment made in here, a fairly large percentage of entries in every contest get scrapped because they are bad photos or printed on standard printer paper or part of the set got cut off in the picture. In addition, there is also the issue of multiple people sending in basically the same model -- for example, we must have gotten at least 1000 scorpions in the Rahi contest. A lot of them were great, but I can't put 12 scorpions into the Rahi book, so we put them all together and picked the one or two we thought were best.

 

If you haven't won, please do not impugn the contest process -- as it says in the rules, when you enter, you agree to accept the decisions of the judges. If you aren't willing to do that, don't enter.

 

To answer Aanchir's questions, I am the lead judge on all BIONICLE contests, with Swiftone being the lead judge for all Star Wars contests. The others we split at random between us. Final judging is normally done by the two of us with assistance from artists and/or Master Builders.

 

Greg

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