Coloring Ball: 'Coexistence' [RESULTS ANNOUNCED]

[Kasander]

The theme for this Coloring Ball is COEXISTENCE.

Here's the shape:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/JwW6sLT.png[/imgzoom]

Within the given shape, show coexistence of two (or more) forms of life.
In this competition, coexistance means:  'to exist simultaneously within the same shape'. The coexistence doesn't necessarily need to be a peaceful one.
Each of the forms of life within the shape can be organic or non-organic. They can be existing forms of life or purely from imagination.
After you're done with the drawing, in few words describe your example of coexistence.

Additional rules/explanation:
1. You can replace the outline with your own colors.
2. All colors are allowed to coexist within the shape.
3. You can scale, rotate, or flip the shape horizontally/vertically.
4. The triangle inside the shape doesn't need to be colored. It's up to you to fill it or leave it empty.
5. Your entries must be in by May 18th.
6. Coexist and have fun!

For all the trophy hunters out there: yes, there will be trophies...soon

EDIT: Here are the the trophies, as promised! A commemorative medal depicting moon and sun coexisting in harmony on the sky 

First place: [imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/lRoGvh4.png[/imgzoom]

Second place: [imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/oJWtvBO.png[/imgzoom]

Third place: [imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/Z7OnC6q.png[/imgzoom]

[Cerno]

Did I hear trophies?

[imgzoom]http://i39.tinypic.com/3162r9i.png[/imgzoom]

Someone ventured into the wrong cave and returned in coexistence with an alien species. Omnomnom.

[Ghost]

Where-ever Quoth the Raven is, his Big Blue Cup* is never amiss!
And that is how they co-exis(t).

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/fWfn8G7.png[/imgzoom]

__
* Full of delicious coffee, with three sugars.

[Cerno]

Nice one, Ghost.

Minor update: added some more shadows

[imgzoom]http://i42.tinypic.com/314v5mx.png[/imgzoom]

[jwalt]

A truce in the Battle of the Sexes.

I "pictured" this almost immediately, tried some other things, but kept coming back to this idea.

[imgzoom]http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/colorBallKiss1_zpsbf9755cb.png[/imgzoom]

I could have used a few more pixels on the gal's arm, but that's all Kasander gave me. I did try additional shading, but nothing I was able to do seemed to make it a better image, so I called it "done."

Edit: Darn it! I think I just made the same mistake here that I made last month. My image doesn't really fit within the shape. Sorry, folks.

[Kasander]

Guys, these are wonderful! I love how different each one's idea of coexistence is! 

Did I hear trophies?

Yessir, the throphies are polished and waiting for the winners to take!

* Full of delicious coffee, with three sugars.

Nice of you to clarify this. Otherwise forum authorities could start asking questions    

I could have used a few more pixels on the gal's arm, but that's all Kasander gave me. I did try additional shading, but nothing I was able to do seemed to make it a better image, so I called it "done."

Edit: Darn it! I think I just made the same mistake here that I made last month. My image doesn't really fit within the shape. Sorry, folks.

To me it seems there's nothing wrong with your shape, jwalt!
And I love your idea, it's very brave of you to fit man and woman in this poor-wanna-be-shape of mine! Honestly, I'm fully convinced.


All in all, well done folks!

And to the others who are still unsure if they will participate or not: don't be afraid to coexist! Let's keep them coming!

[Cerno]

Edit: Darn it! I think I just made the same mistake here that I made last month. My image doesn't really fit within the shape. Sorry, folks.

But it does, pixel-perfectly so, I had to check
There are a three border pixels on the inside of the shape that you colored, but that's all within the rules.
Even if it wasn't I'm sure nobody would mind a few pixels outside the shape?

[Kasander]

As I said, I really don't see what could be wrong with jwalt's picture I was comparing it with other pictures and the starting shape under the magnifying glass (x 4) and still couldn't tell. Well, it *could* have a transparent background, but... on the other hand, magenta, being the 'The Color of Universal Harmony & Emotional Balance', fits the theme so I have nothing against it

If there's couple of pixels outside the outline, and I can't notice them, I won't mind. But rules are rules and let's try not to let your pixels stray, folks!

[Adrian]

A rhino with an oxpecker on it as an example of coexistence in mutualism.

[imgzoom]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11927285/AGS/coloringballmay2013.png[/imgzoom]

This is not a valid entry, I'm afraid. Rotating the shape, gimp somehow produced lots of clusters of pixels, so I had to redraw it which means it's not the actual shape anymore. But I really liked the topic, so this runs noncompetitive. 

[Kasander]

Hey Adrian, thanks for your effort! I love the oxpecker Aaand it's always good to learn a new word, like this mutualism;)

Such a shame about Gimp misbehaving... I'm working mainly with Photoshop, so I can't help much with other programs. Maybe you should give Paint.net a try someday? It's freeware and I hear some folks from here use it and seem to like it (don't know anything about its cons though).

[Cerno]

Adrian, if you rotate a pixel outline you are always forced to interpolate. Doing that will either look crappy (nearest neighbor, possibly what happened in Gimp), or introduce anti-aliasing (gray pixels). Either case will look different from the original, so I guess either redrawing the outline or living with anti-aliasing would be the only option.

Kasander, what do the rules say about rotating the image in that regard anyway?
By the way, I rotated it in Photoshop and it seems Adrian hit the outline very precisely.

Just realized I am kind of obsessing about this challenge. Creepy.

[jwalt]

I also looked at Adrian's image in MSPaint, and I think, if not spot on, it comes very close. MSPaint wouldn't rotate it to that precise angle either. I submit that the image would probably look okay with the head at the angle of a normal rotation, so I think it ought to be allowed. It probably looks better at the angle Adrian chose, but forcing an individual, pixel by pixel, duplication of the outline would create a lot of additional work (and also introduce a distinct possibility of unnoticed errors and eye strain). I confess that I rely on MSPaint to "correctly" rotate and flip the outline, and I don't usually pay all that much attention to how accurately it does the job.

[selmiak]

[imgzoom]http://selmiak.bplaced.net/stuff/coexistence.png[/imgzoom]

Just to make Cerno nervous I added one single pixel over the line somewhere

[Cerno]

Gah, my OCD is acting up again.
Hah, right back at you buddy, I counted 10 pixels over the line, go and fix them ASAP!

But seriously, this is insane. I couldn't even spot the triangle until I did the overlay. Great job!

[waheela]

Here's my entry:


[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/hVPSw5k.png[/imgzoom]

It's a hermit crabbish creature with carnivorous worms living in its shell.

Btw, nice theme, Kasander!

[selmiak]

Why not Zoidberg?
nice one, interesting fill for the shape.

[Ghost]

Cerno, waheela: And all of a sudden I feel like playing Pokemon again.   

[waheela]

OHMYGOD! This is going to sound insane, but I totally chose a hermit crab based on the fact that I saw Parasect when I looked at the shape!!!

WHO'S THAT POKEMON?



...IT'S PARASECT!

[Kasander]

@selmiak, wonderful idea with the shade (and all within the outline!). You guys are so creative

@waheela - this is lovely! Makes me feel a bit sorry for the hermit though (his housemates being carnivores) 

I'm glad the theme works for you folks.

@Adrian, Cerno and jwalt are right!
I had checked your shape in PS previously but rotated it only 90 degrees all the way (I did it instinctively, assuming you did the same, because rotating 90 degrees in most graphics programs doesn't cause interpolation/quality loss). So it's no wonder why your rhino didn't seem to fit the starting shape! Now I rotated freely with rotating tool and, obviously, suddenly it clicked! I filled basic shape with black and covered it with rhino - and it's almost a perfect fit to me. I won't fight over these few pixels misplaced by interpolation. 

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/Qz3rj0G.png[/imgzoom]

Sorry for overlooking this!
So Adrian, you're officially back in the competition. I hope you don't mind Props to jwalt and Cerno for their eagle eyes and paying attention:)
LOL, this made me feel like I was noob again... Quite refreshing;)

Kasander, what do the rules say about rotating the image in that regard anyway?
By the way, I rotated it in Photoshop and it seems Adrian hit the outline very precisely.
Just realized I am kind of obsessing about this challenge. Creepy.

Cerno, if it wasn't for your 'obsessing', I would certainly overlook this. So thanks to you (and to jwalt of course!) for noticing that

IMO, Adrian's rhino doesn't bend the rules at all. After all, the rules doesn't say that one can't rotate the shape freely. Perhaps they should say so in the future, I don't know. That would fix the interpolation issues but at the same time it would took away some of artistic freedom (quite a lot of degrees of freedom actually;)) from the competition. Well, I guess it's up for for the future CB holders to decide.

----

There's still quite a lot of time left, so I look forward to seeing some new examples of coexistence!

[Adrian]

Thanks for accepting my entry, everyone! That makes me a proud competitor in this game. 
Coloring Ball is my favorite!

[Kasander]

Since I'm leaving for weekend an will be offline anyway, I thought I could as well extend the deadline for a day.

So I'm shouting out to all of the hesitant AGSers out there: perhaps it's time to have a second though about it and to show us your interpretation of what coexistence could look like?

Nursery rhyme of the day: don't hesitate before it's too late! SHOW SOME PERSISTENCE FOR COEXISTENCE! 

[Kasander]

All right folks, the time's up!
Thanks to all the participants for all these wonderful, highly co-existential entries! Now it's time to vote for your favorite example of coexistence.

Here are the entries, followed by authors' descriptions, in the order of appearance:

1. by Cerno:

[imgzoom]http://i42.tinypic.com/314v5mx.png[/imgzoom]
"Someone ventured into the wrong cave and returned in coexistence with an alien species. Omnomnom."


2. by Ghost:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/fWfn8G7.png[/imgzoom]
"Where-ever Quoth the Raven is, his Big Blue Cup* is never amiss!
And that is how they co-exis(t)."


3. by jwalt:

[imgzoom]http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/colorBallKiss1_zpsbf9755cb.png[/imgzoom]
"A truce in the Battle of the Sexes."


4. by Adrian:

[imgzoom]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11927285/AGS/coloringballmay2013.png[/imgzoom]
"A rhino with an oxpecker on it as an example of coexistence in mutualism."


5. by Selmiak:

[imgzoom]http://selmiak.bplaced.net/stuff/coexistence.png[/imgzoom]
"the true nature of beings reflects in their coexistence as they always coexist with their reflection..."


6. by waheela:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/hVPSw5k.png[/imgzoom]
"It's a hermit crabbish creature with carnivorous worms living in its shell."


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Voting ends May 23rd (Thursday)!


*** It seems like selmiak forgot to meet the additional requirement and didn't describe his picture (busy in the Monster's workshop, I suppose?). So selmiak, it would be cool if you could make up for it while the voting lasts I'll edit this post as soon as I have the description.

EDIT: Description updated!   

[Cerno]

This is a hard one. I wish I had more than one vote.

I love waheela's entry due to its awesome shading.
jwalt's is great for what he did with the girl's arm despite the difficult shape.

In the end, I'll have to go for selmiak's for its brilliant take on the shape and since it took me forever to find the triangle in his piece.

Edit: If the updated voting scheme is agreed on, my second vote goes to waheela (2 points) and the third to jwalt (1 point).
If not my first place remains as it was.

[CaptainD]

Terrific entries.  I'm going to have to go with Ghost for this one.

[jwalt]

I thought all of these were great. In the end, it was Selmiak that left me with that "wow!" feeling.

[Ghost]

Oh man! So many cool entries and only ONE VOTE?

I like both jwalt and waheela's entries a lot. Can't I vote a tie? No? Ah well. 

I think jwalt's use of the shape is really great, and it fits the theme so nice, so: My vote for jwalt!

[Miez]

Brilliant entries, all of them ... but my votes go to:

1st Place: Selmiak (3 points)
2nd Place: Waheela (2 points)
3rd Place: Ghost (1 point)

EDIT: done the whole 1-2-3 thing

[cat]

That's a hard decision as all entries are great.

I vote for waheela because I like the coloring best.

[selmiak]

add for my entry:
the true nature of beings reflects in their coexistence as they always coexist with their reflection...


my vote goes to adrian, I like the totally relaxed look on the rhino's face while his ear is picked. Ghost's is a close second, but from the look on his face you can see the raven had too much of his coffe already

[Ghost]

from the look on his face you can see the raven had too much of his coffe already

It's possible to use "too much" and "coffee" in one sentence? 

[Adrian]

Lovely entries! And a hard decision. My vote goes to Selmiak because I love everything about the entry: colors, composition and especially the reflection.

[selmiak]

when you start seeing into infinity and develop telepatic abilities you could say you had too much coffee...

[jwalt]

A non-entry. Submitted for no good reason, other than to keep it from taking up space on my hard drive, this was something else I saw in the shape:

[imgzoom]http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/JwW6sLTBuck2_zps76c5fd39.png[/imgzoom]

A meeting of the minds, coexistantly speaking. Again, this is not an entry.

[Kasander]

All right, the voting is over, but we have a situation here.

A so-called 'coexistential paradox', in which too many organic beings (here: FOUR AGSers) are supposed to coexist with ONE non-organic thing (in this case, a silver medal). I really want to give an award to everyone of you guys***, but four ex aequos is a bit too many, and I don't want to devalue AGS silver reserves (think about the wider scale economic repercussions here!). Also, that would leave bronze medal needless.

So, after I've belatedly read Cerno's suggestions about the new voting system (wish I'd read them BEFORE voting, my bad), I've decided to organize the voting again. Yeah, I know, I don't like it either. Apologies for inconvenience, but we really do have a kind of impasse here.
   
This time, we'll do things like Baron did in last Writing Competition. 

So, the voting guidelines are:

1. You must choose your three favourite examples of coexistence and rank them by preference. 

2. The first in your list (which should be indicated as 1st) will be apportioned 3 points, the second (which should be indicated as 2nd) will be given two points, and the third (labelled 3rd) only 1 point.  This means you have six points to award. 

3. In the event that you can't decide 1st-3rd you may give 3 second places (3 x 2 points =6 points), but no voter can award more than 3 points to any contestant and no voter can award more than 6 points total.  Here's an example of what your ballot should look like:

1st place = Baron (3 points)
2nd place = Pumaman (2 points)
3rd place = Richard Nixon (1 point)

(guidelines copyright by Baron)

Voting lasts till the end of week (till Monday, 00:01, time zone UTC +1).
On Monday I'll count the totals and award the prizes.

AND NOW, PLEASE CAST YOUR VOTE! 


*** There will be special commemorative badge for each participant to take. That's  because I don't want the now-silver-medalists to go away empty handed when they'll lose the podium after the new voting ends. To tell you the truth I've intended to do that anyway when the competition was still running, because I liked how people have put some real effort here... and now I see jwalt even painted a second example of coexistence (out of competition) - how cool is that? 

[cat]

Oh come on, just give everyone a silver medal, they all deserve it! No need to make it more complicated.

[Kasander]

Cat, that's actually a vote against voting!

I tell you what. If there's more votes against voting, I'll do as you said. Majority will decide. Damn, I hate democracy. 

[selmiak]

*counts*

yeah, no more voting.

[Ghost]

We should vote if we are willing to vote against the voting. Any votes? No?

Toss the silver, says me. It is your competition and your rules.

[jwalt]

Awarding a bunch of Silvers would, incidentally, elevate Cerno, who now wears bifocals because of all the pixel counting he did during the course of the contest (and if my vote tally is correct), into a Bronze. Seems not voting is a good thing to do... Or not do? Now, I'm getting confused.

[Cerno]

As the one who proposed this voting scheme, I'll roll with whatever you guys decide.
If you should agree to the voting scheme, may I suggest that everyone just updates their voting post to avoid confusion.

Whatever the outcome, I think I'll have to refuse a bronze medal as a price for getting no votes

[Ghost]

Okay. But as a small protest against devoting my vote for voting to vote if we are against voting to vote, I will post my score OUT OF ORDER!
Take that, democracy! Tantrum!!!!!!

And seriously, whatever the majority says is being said by the majority and thus true. Even on the interwebs 

2nd Place: waheela (2 points)
1st Place: jwalt (3 points)
3rd Place: selmiak (1 point)

[selmiak]

But as a small protest against devoting my vote for voting to vote if we are against voting to vote, ...

WOW!

*head asplodes*

[Kasander]

All right, the majority has spoken!

The second voting is now oficially over (before it began).

*clears throat*

First of all, congratulation to all the participants. To behold so many different takes on coexistence theme was truly a heart-warming experience for me!

And now, for the awards:

a golden medal for the 1st place winner

...goes to selmiak

A silver medal for the 2nd place goes to...

ex aequo (in the order of appearance):

Ghost

... and jwalt

... and Adrian

... and waheela!

The jury of the competition has unanonimously decided to award a bronze medal,

as a 'special prize for putting the effort as well as for fair play'

...to Cerno!

This way no one will walk empty-handed and no medal is without bearer.
The jury encourages all participants to accept the awards.


That's all, folks!

*merry melody tunes in*

Coexist in peace and harmony (wnenever it's possible) and be creative!

[Ghost]

Congratulations, selmiak, that was well deserved! And to everyone else- great round.

[edit]
Ohhhh and I gotta shiny!

[selmiak]

cool, thanks for your votes and congrats to all other winners.
I will start a new coloring ball soon(TM)

[waheela]

Yaaaaaaaaayyyy!

[Miez]

Congrats winners!