I previously hosted my Make Me a Model contest and participated in a couple of contests including the Foundations contest of 2010. I’ve also been an EJ and judge for 3 or 4 (I think) TS2 contests.



The calendar contest had me itching to make and see more creative sim pics and then I found out we’re allowed to do mini contests so I decided to do a contest that’s a cross between the calendar contest and the first round from my Make Me a Model Contest from last year. A mini spin-off if you will. The main difference between this and the calendar contest is the theme and the duration (oh, and it’s not staff run). You’ll get two weeks to choose a title from the list of songs below and set a scene that shows your interpretation of that title. (The banner shows example pics made by contestants from my last contest)



General:
1. Forum Rules Apply.
2. TS2 and TS3 allowed.
3. Maximum of two entries per person (one pic = one entry). You may not do the same song title twice.
4. All CC (inc pay), store, T-mobile, Dr Pepper items allowed.
5. There will be no eliminations.
6. All sims and pictures should be your own work.
7. Skill required: Open to all levels. Minor Photoshopping as stated below is allowed but not required.
Picture:
1. All images must include at least one sim or pet (any age, sex, nationality or species inc supernatural)
2. Photoshopping - You may do any of the following with your image editor: add borders; text; a logo; crop; resize; adjust levels (brightness/contrast); greyscale and sepia. You may not do anything else. If you’re unsure, please ask.
3. Title your image with the song title you’ve chosen to represent. It doesn’t have to be on the image itself, but it does have to be on the same post as the image.
4. Changes made after your entry is linked to the front page may not be judged. If you wish to make changes and you haven't already been linked I suggest you PM me or find me in #create to avoid the risk of me linking while you're in the middle of editing.
5. Pictures should follow upload guidelines: minimum of 800x600 up to a maximum of 1280x1024.
6. I don't mind if you use an external image hosting site or just upload your image straight to the post. Apparently image hosting sites allow you to upload larger file sizes but other than that I don't know any difference. You can find some good tutorials on taking and posting pics here.
7. Please keep all images PG-13.



Thanks to the kindness of two very talented creators I can now offer a prize to the winner. There will be only one winner overall, not one for TS2 and another for TS3, and they will have three poses of their choice made for them. The poses will be available for all to download but only the winners get to choose what they will be. (Please try to provide reference pics).

Thanks to Elexis (TS3) and lidiqnata (TS2) for offering your time and talent



There is only one round and it will stay open for two weeks from the date the contest is approved. One winner will be determined at the end of the two week period by a panel of 3 judges. There will be no individual extensions.

All entries due by 25 Jan 12 - *Countdown timer*


(maximum of 40 contestants with up to two images each)

1. Armiel - Breakout | Release Me
2. daluved1 - Miss Murder | Modern Mafia
3. ReyaD - Miss Murder | Teenage Dream
4. vhanster - My Bloody Valentine | Night of the Hunter
5. Amylet - Miss Murder | That Should Be Me
6. ForeverCamp - Modern Mafia | Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
7. heaven - That Should Be Me
8. Liv - Breakout
9. Misanthrope - Scared of Girls
10. Florii97 - I will Follow you into the dark
11. LadyAwesome - Caught Up in the Rapture | The Thing That Should Not Be
12. morena13pt - Poor Misguided Fool | I Will Follow You into the Dark
13. wgroome - Moment of Peace | Time Honoured Tradition
14. RomerJon17 - Innocence
15. Buckley - Moment of Peace
16. JuBa_0oo - Witchcraft | Innocence
17. Selly_2009 - Your Biggest Mistake | Night of the Hunter
18. Waterjay - Innocence
19. Simmer22 - That Should Be Me | Moment of Peace
20. lunajumper44 - Born this Way
21. Ersilya - Hello cold World | night of the Hunter
22. Tamlyn - The Drugs Don't Work
23. Croutonian - Hello Cold World | Poor Misguided Fool



Judges will be asked to try to complete judging within 48 hours of the contest ending. If we have more than 15 contestants it may take longer. Please PM me if you’d like to be an emergency judge.

1. Dutch - A full time artist and art student irl, Dutch has a natural eye for colour, composition and artistic interpretation among other things. In the simming community he’s known for his awesome celebrity sims and being the biggest producer of Ellie Goulding merchandise for sims! Dutch’s Art Corner – Deviant Art

2. Elexis - Known for her beautiful sims hair and pretty clothes she actually has a finger in every pie. Those who keep an eye on the contest forums will know she is not only an amazing sim photographer but she makes a lot of her own poses, clothes and other cc for her sim pics.
Story Contest pics, Calendar Contest, Model contest Pics

3. missroxor – I don’t really have impressive art/photography credentials like the other two judges so I can only show you my calendar contest entries as examples of me setting a scene:
1 and 2.

4. GigaRevival (Emergency Judge) - Known in the simming community for her legacy stories, GigaRevival is also an experienced contest judge having judged the two most recent contests held here at MTS. Start reading the Harris Legacy

5. ... (Emergency Judge - Spot Vacant, please PM if you're interested)



20 - Creativity (beauty, originality, image layout, use of props, lighting etc)
20 - Portrayal of theme (includes interpretation where appropriate and portrayal of mood/emotion)
5 - Pose (Does the chosen pose fit the theme/emotion of the image?)
5 - Rule adherence (such as image titling, etc)

Each judge will score each entry out of 50. With three judges this means the maximum points you can earn per entry is 150.

Constructive criticism from the judges is thoroughly encouraged but not mandatory

FINAL SCORES



You may choose up to two titles from the list below. Interpret the title however you like but remember it’s only the title you are interpreting, not the lyrics or the actual song meaning.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Violently Happy
Modern Mafia
My Bloody Valentine
That should be Me
Underdog
Battlefield
Night Of The Hunter
Miss Murder
Breakout
Poor Misguided Fool
The Drugs Don’t Work
Your Biggest Mistake
The Bitter End
Born this way
Moment Of Peace
The Four Horsemen
Witchcraft
Together in electric Dreams
Time honoured Tradition
Innocence
Caught up in the Rapture
Black Parade
Smoke and Mirrors
Teenage Dream
Stone Cold Sober
Release Me
Let’s Face the Music and Dance
Scared of Girls
The Thing That Should Not Be
Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do
I will Follow you into the dark
Hello Cold World
To Sir with Love

If you decide to go for an abstract interpretation please feel free to write a short explanation of your thought process or description of the pic. You won't be marked down for explaining (unless a judge thinks even after the explanation your work still doesn't make sense/represent the title )

Contest Approved

Do not post replies and/or contest applications before the contest host has checked in on this thread, or your post will be deleted.
DO NOT WRITE USELESS POSTS like "Hey cool contest, I think I might join." Reserve type posts and useless posts about coming back with an application will be deleted.

Host checking in! The deadline is 25 Jan 12. Please check the countdown timer here so there's no confusion over time zones. I'll also be linking this in the timeline header above.

Can't wait to see some pics

Nice contest, but need to confirm a few things.

Must the characters be the same throughout the contest? And is it allowed for a contestant to use both TS3 and TS2 to post their entries or must they choose just one?

Hi Vhanster. Well this is only a mini one-round spin-off, it's not a full 4-round contest and each contestant can only submit a maximum of two entries/pics so if you want to use a different sim or game to make each pic that's totally fine. Obviously you can't have one entry that uses TS2 and TS3 on the same pic because that would involve levels of photoshopping that aren't allowed (see pic rules). I hope tht answers your question but if I've misunderstood your meaning please let me know

I've just updated the main post to show that we are now offering a prize. Our judge, Elexis had already kindly agreed to make a prize of a pose pack for the winner but I had a massive hurdy derp moment and completely forgot that TS3 poses can't be used for TS2 Well the talented TS2 creator, lidiqnata saved my bacon by agreeing to the same offer of 3 poses for the winner if the winner is a TS2 player. So now thanks to both creators we have prizes available no matter if the winner is a TS2 or TS3 player :D

If I post an edited entry, should I show the unedited image too?

Amylet, as long as you stick within the photoshopping rules that I've set you don't have to post an un-edited version. You will be judged on the version with the border, greyscale etc.

Taking part for funz

- No CC. Lot is a prison by me, effects from fog emitter and party lights.
- Photoshop: Unfocus blur on prox. 10px on the edges.

Thanks for the answer Missroxor.
And cool picture, Armiel!

Hey there, already exciting for this!
two questions:

rule nº6: All sims and pictures should be your own work.
Does that mean I have to make my own hair, accessories and clothes?

Judging Parameters
5 - Rule adherence (such as image titling, etc)
I did not quite understand this because you said previously that we must "Title your image with the song title you’ve chosen to represent."

Oh jeez, no. That would be way too difficult. You can use whatever custom content you want I just mean the actual sim should be one that you've made ie please don't go downloading an entire sim off of MTS or any other site and pass it off as your own.

I did ask that the image be titled (even if it's just written on the post, not the actual image like Armiel did). The points allocated to rule adherance are basically so that judges may deduct points if you fail to follow the rules...for example if you didn't label the image at all even though it says in the rules that you must.

Does that make better sense?

Nice to see Armi kicking things off with an explosion Adding you now.

hehehe, it does indeed. Thanks!

Please add me!!

This is part of a photo shoot for my latest upload, and I think it came out nice enough for the contest.



Miss Murder

-All free CC
-No Photoshop

I loved this photo shoot so much that I had to enter this sim again. This time, I imagined her as a sexy Mob Wife.



Modern Mafia

-All free CC
-No photoshop

All entries added Morena, There's no actual limit to the number of people that can enter (unless it starts getting ridiculous) so entries will be added when they're posted, no spacesavers.

I've heard some grumblings from a couple of people not knowing any of the songs (yeah you know who you are!! lol) so just as proof that I haven't completely made it all up here's the list with artist names XD Please remember that you are only interpreting the song title, not the lyrics or their meaning...there's a good chance the judges don't know all the lyrics anyway (a couple of these I've not even listened to yet since the other two judges added some suggestions of their own) so by all means, copy the album cover or explore the deeper meaning in the song's chorus but sadly we won't be handing out cookies for your effort :p

Okay, that makes it much more clear, thanks. Though what I meant in my second qustion was if I make 1 TS2 entry and 1 TS3 entry.

Sure, I probably worded it strange but that's what I meant when I said I don't mind if you wanna do one entry for each game, lol.

My second pic.

- Needed better eyes for close-up, so those are by Missy Harries. Lot is again a prison by me, effects from party lights.
- Photoshop: Unfocus blur on prox. 10px on the edges.

Miss Murder

Really, these rich boys were the easiest hits she ever took on. Flash a smile, show some skin, and it was back to their place for some "alone time" sans guards. Two drops of sleeping elixer later... well, she'd be home in time for lunch.

- Size: 1000 x 750
- Sims: Aarun Sabo and Sabina von hagen. Both created in my games.
- No Photoshop
- CC hair for Miss Murder which I believe comes from a paysite. Can't recall. And her gun can be found here on MTS.

~ CC: I used NewSea's pay hair. The rest are free.
~ No photoshop. Well, not counting the cropping, of course.

can I use a bit of glow in the picture?

"Miss Murder"

I spent a loooot of time on this picture : A lot of time to create the sims, then the scene and the decor (swimming pool full of blood, background...), to choose the right lights, to wait all the Simday to get the best lighting effect, etc.

And, 22 pictures later :p, I got this one, the best of all I took



I didn't edit the picture at all. For the red lights, I just changed the color of basegame lights. I used some CC in the picture (female hair, custom eyes and skins, chair, gun, custom poses and wall-hanging decoration).

The two sims are by me!

I think I'll post a second entry (I have some ideas)

You could make the border around the entire image a glow...that would be allowed but no, you can't add an effect to the image with photoshop if that's what you mean. Only what I have stated above. If you're using TS3 you can use the fog emitter to maybe create the effect you're looking for? There's a couple of good videos on youtube showing how to use it. I don't remember what TS2 has by way of creating special effects. You may be able to spawn something or run an animation with a glow?

Amylet added