The inaugural contest has come and gone, and the quality and depth of the seven submissions has been a testament to what the community is capable of.

To understand the contest is to look at its roots. Scott MacCallum can stand up and take full credit for the inception of this contest via his recent Twitter post asking for Batman Aetherling proxies. The response to that single tweet was an influx of submissions to the Z’s Factory Google+ Community. There was nothing at stake, no prizes, and little recognition. And they just kept coming.

With the roots already spreading from that single seed, it was time for a weekly contest. This amazing community needed to have its hard work recognized, and thus was born the Factory Worker contest.

Rules? Simple. There is a new theme each week, chosen by the previous week’s winner. That winner is the honorary Head Judge for their theme, and they are not allowed to participate. Submission rules are very similar to what MTGS uses, as well as renders appearing on Z’s Proxy Factory. Artist credit must be given, the text *NOT FOR SALE* must appear on the render, as well as the current WOTC ™ and © text.

How does one win this contest? Popular vote via the Google+ +1 system. Entries are due by midnight PST Thursdays, with voting open from the start of the contest through midnight PST the Friday after the submissions were closed. Voters can vote for as many submissions as they like throughout the week.

Prizes? There were never any plans for prizes, but KYT has decided to sponsor this weekly contest by giving out $25 in FacetoFaceGames.com store credit. I’ve decided to do a 20/5 split for the 2 most popular entries.

Honorary Head Judge?

That is correct. The Head Judge picks the week’s topic. It is the Head Judge’s responsibility to critique, in his or her eyes, the week’s submissions. The HJ is completely allowed to vote, but not participate via a submission. As this was the inaugural contest, I took it upon myself to be the first Head Judge.

My theme? Any M14 mythic, in any style, with a cap on one submission per person. We had 7 submissions, with Les Kershaw and his Hulk Garruk coming out on top with 8 total votes.

On to the submissions! As these critiques are from my point of view, I will sound like a total ass most of the time. I apologize in advance.

Quick ProTip: When copying and pasting rules text from Magiccards.info, the apostrophes’ will be wrong. No one in this contest “fixed” them to what the actual MTG cards use. Yes, I notice the dumbest and littlest details.

I’m still scratching my head on if this used an existing template. There are some inconsistencies in the badges being stretched vertically, they look like they’ve been added to a pre-existing pic. The textbox had caught my eye as well. The stroke, that is, the black line around the box, is missing in places. The “texture” of the textbox background is also misplaced. The middle should be smaller so that the ultimate text doesn’t have to be as squished as it is on this piece.

The composition of the piece is good, with the obvious focus on the Hulk. I understand the green as Garruk theme, but am unsure if a singleton pic works for a “Caller of Beasts”.

This Chandra was so close to perfect it hurts. I’m all for changing the frame to suit the image, and this was done extremely well with the flattening of the frame. The only issues I have are the badges look wonky, and the background should share the shape of the Planeswalker textures, and not a normal card.

Liliana uses a great piece of art, letting us as the viewer reminisce about the Fat Pack art of Lili on the throne. The purple stroke is brilliant. Not a fan of the gun though, or the lack of an expansion symbol. Text box is perfect.

I heart Revised. It’s where I started the game, and as much as we hated white borders then, I love them now. This is also the only submission with the foil effect. The textbox needed some more work with the sizing and leading to better use the space. This piece of art is an amazing find, and works perfectly.

The Archangel is extremely technically sound. Good art and a nice amalgamation of the Super Art and Modern framing. I will never get over transparent textboxes on non-Planeswalker or Promo renders. I’m much rather see the white texture, and the text box shrunk a bit. The size on the Title font seems a tad too small.

The Archangel here succumbed to the unfortunate omission of the power and toughness. Submitted as a Beta Angel, I believe the wording to be spot on, but the frame is clearly not Beta. Great art choice for Tempest on, but too detailed in my opinion for an ABU piece.

I really like this Chandra, though the voters did not. Great art, great spill. Bad text box, which was what plagued the Garruk as well. The 0 should be the neutral badge.

What’s Next?

Visit the Google+ Z’s Proxy Factory Community, request to join, and jump in on the current contest. Read and follow the rules and we’ll have some fun!

The winner of the inaugural contest, Les Kershaw, has already posted the rules for the next one:

Hello Factory Workers! FTV:21?? There have been ALOT of news about FTV:20 and we have seen a few spoilers hit the internet. So this weeks competition is, What would you like to see in the FTV:20 set? We know that Big Jace is in there, so no Jace alters or any others that were shown over the weekend. It has to be a new card and one you think is good enough to be in the FTV:20 set. There it is workers get to it and lets show the MTG community how awesome proxies can be!

Art Links

Garruk, Caller of Beasts by Les Kershaw

Chandra, Pyromaster by Jason Mong

Liliana of the Dark Realms by Trevor Davis

Jace, Memory Adept by Carl Miller Jr.

Archangel of Thune by Shreyas Sampat

Archangel of Thune by Calvin Rasmussen

Chandra, Pyromaster by Steven Corrigan

– @TheProxyGuy