My opinion, and somewhat rant-ish:
Coco is not the only one who may be confused, and frankly, not the only one who has been frustrated with the outcome this project (speaking only for myself). This is my understanding about what happened. The images posted in the Inkscape Challenge 2012 Gallery (
http://inkscapechallengegallery.tumblr.com/) were not originally meant to be part of the contest. They are just a gallery of images chosed by RM. (and maybe spaventapasseri, I'm not sure) to help promote Inkscape. I'm happy about that.
At some late date (2 or 3 months ago) some of the organizers were not satisfied with the submissions to the realism contest, which they had received to date. The contest was effectively, though not officially, cancelled; and with no public announcement! In the beginning, I was very enthusiastic about participating in this, and I spent hundreds of hours working on an image. I find it frustrating (at the very least) that the challenge did not see its announced completion. I am not happy about that.
From what I can tell, rather than display the images that were submitted (apparently because they didn't meet the expectations of some of the organizers) they have decided to have voting only on the images in the gallery (which were chosen by those organizers, and apparently fitting their unstated expectations). They were not submitted by the artists at all, as far as I know. (Although in fairness, I do believe the artists gave their permission.) (permission to be in the gallery, not to be voted on) They are somehow, now, being called part of the contest, because some of the organizers coopted some of the very informal (and pre-existing) practice drawing topics (some from InkscapeForum.com, and some from InkscapeForum.it) into the contest, by putting links to them on the Inkscape Challenge 2012 Challenge page (
http://inkscapechallenge.tumblr.com/challenges).
I think that voting on this gallery of images which were NOT submitted as part of the contest (as far as I know) is inappropriate, if it is to take the place of the originally announced contest! If it is a new or different contest, it should be announced as such, in my opinion.
Perhaps some of the organizers have lost sight of the fact that an art contest, or competition, is as much about promoting artists and their skills, as it is about the competition. And inherent in any kind of contest is sense of fairness and honesty. At least it is in my opinion. I understand that the main goal of this Inkscape Challenge, and the Inkscape Challenge 2012 blog/site, is to promote Inkscape. And the website/blog does still do that. But when the artists who would participate, whether in the challenge/contest or the website/blog, are little more than ignored, it will not be very successful in promoting Inkscape!
If the organizers have another contest next year, I hope they will follow through with their announced intentions. And if their intentions change at any point after announcing the contest, I hope they will announce the changes.
I'm making these comments in the hopes that Inkscape's reputation will not be affected by some of the unfortunate decisions which guided this project. Honestly, I do hope the contest continues, and that it can someday rise above these early missteps. I hope that the artists whose work wasn't included will trust their skills and continue to learn and grow with Inkscape!
And now that I've said all that....well....I don't know why we can't post our images here in this topic! We could even have a forum poll, if anyone is interested! I was a little overzealous in my choice of reference photo, so mine wouldn't have been finished in time anyway. But I'll try and crop off a piece of it. Meanwhile, if anyone who submitted images wants to post them here instead, I for one, would love to see them!
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