Battle for the Gold Mask Semi-finalists and Winner

[Aanchir]

How fair this type of rule is would depend on who the contest is aimed at. If aimed mostly at AFOLs I'd think it overly restrictive, but if the contest was made to appeal to a more general audience interested BIONICLE or CCBS, I'd think it might be appropriate, alongside a prototype parts restriction.

If implemented well, this type of restriction would really open up these kinds of contests to those with less developed LEGO collections. Working within the restrictions of a certain height or length limit would encourage implementing creative concepts with minimalist building techniques, instead of creating extravagantly-executed builds that look generic.

Though not appropriate for all, or even most, contests, such rules might be worth considering in certain situations.

I've seen the idea of size or piece count limits pitched on BZPower, and I think it's a bad idea for a contest as open-ended as this one. If you have a contest where the contest THEME is "less is more", then sure, a limit like that is fine. But that wasn't the theme in this contest. The theme was "build the baddest villain you can imagine", and for some people it goes without saying that "the baddest villain they can imagine" would tower over a typical hero or civilian.

The fact that bigger models tend to win these contests doesn't make them less valid than smaller ones. It just means a lot of people actually like these kinds of models, and as such it's all the more reason NOT to prohibit them. In a contest to find out what the public likes best, you can't prohibit things just because you think the public will like them best. It's completely counterintuitive.

Now, what WOULD be good for open-ended contests like this one, but probably not this one in particular, would be size classes. So just as an example, you could have one category for "small" models less than 5 inches/12.8 centimeters/16 modules in any dimension, one category for "medium" models less than 10 inches/25.6 centimeters/32 modules in any dimension, and one category for all models 10 inches or larger. Winners would be selected for each class, so you wouldn't have to worry about small and medium models not getting recognition.

However, that would not have likely worked for this contest because it was already subdivided into six different participating websites, and thus needed to have a single winner from each website. To get that, you'd end up having to pit the winners in each size class against each other anyway, and so you'd likely arrive at the same outcome, with larger models dominating in the semifinals and finals. Plus, there was only a single grand prize to give out.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Aanchir

[The Kumquat Alchemist]

-snip-

Did I imply that I thought those restrictions appropriate for this contest, specifically? If so, I ought to have clarified. I was only speculating on what rules might be appropriate for future competitions, and I admitted that they would likely only work in some types of contest, an idea which you have expanded on.

That the wording of this contest encouraged the creation of large and generic -a word I do not use in a derogatory sense- villains I considered, and ought to have mentioned previously to better explain my own position. I suppose my disappointment lies with the theme of the contest itself, under which the victory of the biggest, most devilish-looking villain is inevitable.

Edited January 14, 2015 by The Kumquat Alchemist

[dviddy]

I don't think the winning MOC was worthy of even semi-finalist status, am exceptionally disappointed it was the overall winner. The "size over substance" problem and debate has been an intricate part of the BIONICLE building community since the early years, and I'm bummed TLG erred on the "size" side. Incredibly well engineered MOC, to be certain, and it's incredibly impressive how it all holds together sturdily and can do so many things- but it just looks messy, sloppy, with no coherent visual standard or design, and no attention paid to proportions whatsoever.

I liked the snake one best out of the six, but I wish something with more character and style had taken the mask. I'm not one who buys into the "it takes a ton of sets to be good at building" people, and I don't think complaining about who has more parts or more access to parts others don't is a valid argument. But MOCs like this winning sure do send that message.

[TheRedGuy]

Congrats to the winner! Personally I loved Makuta Nakken the most, but it's still a awesome build.

EDIT: Just noticed the conversation about size, and DV pretty much stated my opinion.

Edited January 15, 2015 by TheRedGuy

[MakutaDreadscythe]

Regardless of how you view the silver pohaturangs as well as the other 2015 pieces, it is good publicity considering it shows creative parts usage of pieces that have only just been developed, particularly the pohaturangs used as a sort of collarbone and near the ankles.

[TheGreatSpirit]

Eh I'm not fond of the winning MOC, tbh.

It's kinda... eh to me.

Honestly I kinda hope the communities can vote on anonymously submitted entries the next time something like this is done so a.) it doesn't become a popularity contest (sure people will find ways around it but w/e) and b.) There isn't so much controversy.

EDIT: Fixed up the grammar of my sentence. Also, it still only seems fair to offer congratulations to Roa McToa on the winning entry!

Edited January 15, 2015 by TheGreatSpirit

[Quisoves Pugnat]

DeeVee more or less stated my opinions on the matter. But to elaborate, I feel that the judges went with peripheral attributes when selecting most of the first-place (and some of the second and third-place) winners. Either they chose a model with a striking silhouette, as with Akutahn or Diatan, or one with a striking head-piece, as in Terror-Bite or Dark Fang, or both, like in Hysleria. The only one of the first-place entries that I felt worthy was Makuta Nakken. Each other one was bettered by at least one of its fellow-site-winners, not to mention various worthy entries that never won at all (Gub-Gub comes to mind.)

But not to be churlish, I nonetheless offer my hearty congratulations to Roa McToa. Whatever my thoughts on her entry, she worked hard, and her labor was rewarded. Cheers!

[VBBN]

I suppose I ought to lend a few thoughts as one of the organizers of the contest-

Yes, the method of picking the winners was problematic since the start. I believe the original plan was to have each respective community vote to come up with the top results, then from there the winners would be chosen, however when Lego stepped in to up the ante, the decision to do all judging was then added in. It could be due to their legal terms, or because of the prizes at stake being generously given, I don't know, but in the end that was their method of choosing. In future joint contests I would certainly prefer to try to add the community in as a major player in deciding who wins- the original idea behind this contest was to bring the communities together, after-all.

There are some things to take into mind when you run a contest like this and try to pick a method of voting. There can be a lot of trickery involved in the voting when it's spread across multiple sites, and confining all of the voting to one separate website where people had to make an account to vote could potentially decrease the amount of voters. This was the first time a contest like this was ever done, so we had no idea what type of turnout it would have. Ultimately this was a learning experience for everyone, from the community leaders to Lego themselves.

Another issue that comes up is the multiple entries across multiple sites, and re-usuing previous built entries. Again, this are things that need to be considered further in the future.

I might as well give a couple quick comments on the three winners from our site.

Terror Bite: I loved the cartoonish look and some of the creative building techniques (the use of the dino tail moreso than the head) Color scheme was great, and the personality it gave off was memorable. IGU turned in a lot of fantastic entries, and i had a tough time picking which one was my favorite, that's for sure.

Mechan'Rex: TheOneVeyronian, you have asked a few times why this entry ended up in the finals among your others- I had actually chosen one of your first entries (the rider on the steed) as I liked the build and concept, however Lego's panel thought the rider should be the focus and his build wasn't up to par compared to the steed, and so it seems they chose Mechan'Rex instead.

Claughn: There were quite a few entries that I liked for the simplicity of their build. Pate's pirate character, for example. Claughn was another one of those characters, His head, colors, even the way he was posed gave off a great clownish vibe. I've seen some people complain that these types of villains are not Bionicle in aesthetic. Plenty of the top entries I sent in had a Bionicle aesthetic to them, though it seems the creativeness aspect was one of the dominating decision makers.

There were quite a few entries that I sent in, so of course the results of who won were even a surprise to me (the same goes for the other sites). Many of the top picks were in our finalist pool as well, but we had to evenly divide them among websites which, again, is something that hopefully we can work on improving in the future.

Regardless, this was a learning experience, and an awesome one at that. it was great to work with the other 5 sites and Lego themselves to bring everyone this opportunity, and I certainly hope to do this again!

[TheOneVeyronian]

Interesting insights VBBN. It's always interesting to see what the judges thought about each winning model and how the contest went in general.

Mechan'Rex: TheOneVeyronian, you have asked a few times why this entry ended up in the finals among your others- I had actually chosen one of your first entries (the rider on the steed) as I liked the build and concept, however Lego's panel thought the rider should be the focus and his build wasn't up to par compared to the steed, and so it seems they chose Mechan'Rex instead.

That's understandable (it's not the first time that MOC has been described as "incredible steed, but okay rider"). The steed was actually built first but I thought I should add a rider as just a 4 legged beast on it's own wouldn't make sense as a villain. The rider's body was literally recycled from another project and the head - well I have no excuse for that except trying to squeeze in an NPU with a Scarox face as it's jaw But I was surprised and pleased Mechan'Rex made the grade, gauging by Flickr popularity it was actually less favourited than most of my other entries, hence the wondering why that was picked ahead of more popular models (plus, the photography of it was a little sub-par). But it was a model I enjoyed building, so that's all that matters.

It would have been interesting to see who the winners would have been if it was up to a community vote instead.

But anyway, that's enough rambling from me, thanks for doing this contest and hope there are more like this in the future. For now, I'll probably just give some of my LDD entries the "real life" treatment

[Dorek]

Thanks for giving us your take on it VBBN. Learning process indeed, is what it sounds like. Don't know if a community vote would have necessarily resulted in anything different (although given the reactions, maybe I'm underestimating the community!), but it's something I'd still like to see more of in the future.

Hopefully they do more contests in the future!

[Mesonak]

I think the judging system was the best option for a contest with this broad of a scope. I understand the desire for community integration, but given that this was a Lego-sponsored contest I think that it was fair to have them pick the winning build.

With that being said, my thoughts on the final outcome can pretty much be summed up by DV's earlier post.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Mesonak

[Lord-Vorahk]

Eh. The MOC is very well-made, it looks very impressive, but I have some problems with its upper half.

The silver Stormarang looks out of place as a collarbone, being a bit too bright. I now there's more silver further down, but there's a huge gap between them solitary silver collarbones and the silver in the rest of model.

Where are its eyes?

The arms just look out of proportion. Too slim, the hands have sacrificed good proportions for five digits and look too wide and stocky, and while this one is different due to person taste, the shoulders aren't big enough for my liking. I kinda like my villains to have big, pointy shoulders, whether its because of the armour itself or something behind.

But the problem I have is with the wings. Cloth wings of that sort are pretty awesome as a concept, but they tend to lose that effect when put in a different pose (Hence why I want to get Smaug's wings for my next winged Makuta.) Furthermore, the wings are far too small. I know that's been a thing for a while in Bionicle, but in sets, that's because of the piece limit, and when they get animated, the wings are hugely enlarged. For example, Teridax in 04. On the combiner, the wings look too small and insubstantial. In the movie, they're huge, and even then, he can't fly particularly far with them. THey also got better about this later on: Antroz, for example. His wings are folded, yes, but you can tell that, if unfolded, they'd by plenty big. Vamprah's weren't bad either, essentially being his whole arm.

These wings, however, are too small. They don't look anywhere close to large enough to support the MOC in flight, as opposed to, say, Zaalroth. Rather than adding to the fear factor by A), looking imposing and B), giving an extra dimension which it can attack from... they instead make me think of it fluttering them furiously in an attempt to achieve liftoff, to no avail.

[IGU]

Thank you for support!!

A prize just arrived. (^_^)

Other images here.

[TheOneVeyronian]

Suppose it's only right for me to show my prizes which I recently received with my winning entry stood proudly in front of them. Meant to post this a while ago, but hey, better late than never!

BFTGM 2nd prize! :-) by TheOneVeyronian, on Flickr

[arc]

Very well deserved, congrats to both of you!