taking part in Creative contests is an amazing opportunity for anyone who wants to test their skills and get some exposure recently I had the opportunity to be one of the judges for the 2023 banku design view contest the task for contestants was to design an original character inspired by pantone's color of the Year Viva Magenta in this video I will share my opinion about all the best entries and what made them stand out I will also talk to Dory about her workflow who was one of the winners and who created a fun and quirky character
in blender [Music] yeah out of the hundreds of entries that were submitted for this contest there were only 40 selected for the final scoring it was myself and two other creative professionals who were the judges and we had to give a score of 1 to 10 10 being the best first of all let's take a closer look at the three winners so we have Diana taking the first place with this cute and lovely illustration we have second place Adam with the mermaid and then on the third place we have Dory or dorocha who created this
composition now since the winners were decided based on the overall score that the three judges gave dorochia actually ended up being third however I actually chose her as my favorite so she was my overall winner based on my scores that I gave and that is the reason why I decided to call her and have a discussion about her workflow which you will see later in this video looking at the work of the other two winners I believe still Dory was the one who really nailed the brief for this contest since the task of this contest
was to create a character design I believe her composition is the one that really features this main character and it is all about the character's pose expression colors and small details like the chameleon tale being the hair and so on and so forth I'm not saying the other two winners are not good compositions however I wouldn't really call them character designs one thing we can say on their behalf is they probably feature the products the BenQ monitors a bit more compared to dory's work where the monitor is only a small detail in the background because
the character and the details emerging from the monitor takes up most of the frame I wanted to mention that besides the three winning entries there were also a lot of creative positions created in 3D and I just highlighted some of them here which you can see on my screen and equally there were some really good 2D illustrations as well but now it's time to talk to Dory and learn about her workflow this was actually the second time you use blender or the second project that you use blender for how much time did it take you
to put this together roughly two or three days but it really went like I I worked on it some for some time and then I I kind of put it away for some time and I took it out again and looked at it to see if it's you know fresh eyes my abilities weren't there yet so I had to watch tutorials for how to make a 3D shoe and and I wasn't I wasn't satisfied with the first result that I got so so there are many parts on her that I I had to do again
again but I didn't mind it because it was a learning process joining a contest like this gives you a good incentive and motivation if you want to learn a new tool set yourself a task to enter a contest using that tool was it hard to match the the Viva magenta color because you you got a really good close match on most of the character even though there's obviously variation and tonal differences but in general it has a very good good match was was that tricky to do in 3D because of course in in 2D it's
fairly simple but in 3D you have different textures and materials and lighting once I put the Banton Swatch in there that's when I realized that it's it's actually almost like a completely different color and I kind of used this watch to to match the colors but it was hard I remember you showed me your initial sketches and your ideas for the character do you mind just showing that as as well with this project for banku I thought maybe an animal would be fun and then I I get thinking about what animal is famous from its
color and that's how I get to Camilla you can see that there are things that that are there from the very beginning uh like her swirly hair which which is like the chameleon's tail yes yes [Music] because it's very eyes but then I decided maybe that's a bit much and also I knew that I wanted to put her in some crazy pose like like some somehow enclosed in the monitor or hanging from it you have that other color sketch as well the like the final sketch if you don't mind just showing that as well which
already has like a full composition with the Monitor and roughly the colors as well yeah I love how you really utilize the shape of the monitor which gives provides it like a frame but you also come out of the bounds with the hair and then create a nice interaction or integration feels really the monitor is part of the composition the character is living in in the monitor I always say this to everyone that the initial sketches and ideas are so important because if you get it right at this stage it saves you so much time
along the workflow especially when it comes to 3D you can waste a lot of time if you are already original idea is not strong enough you can spend hours or days struggling but the final result will never be as impactful or engaging compared to when you get it right already in this initial ideation stage before we continue I just wanted to let you know about our creative membership program for a small monthly fee you get access to over 200 hours of adobe certified online training courses master all the tools and skills needed to become a
professional graphic designer or illustrator as a pro member you will get mentoring from me and my team access to webinars student forum and creative briefs to help you build an outstanding portfolio Pro members can also download the project files for all of our YouTube tutorials sign up at yes I'm a designer.com memberships and start your free trial today is this something that you already showed to someone before you started working in 3D but he has a really good eye I think he has good abilities to being an art director because he he can spot things
that make that can make the artwork a lot better and he can like explain it in a way that it's easy to understand what he means that I think is also very very important to have someone's like an external feedback it could be anyone but it's extremely useful if it's someone who also has a trained eye for a composition and and the design it's good to find someone of course who can give constructive criticism because some people would just say oh I love it and as an artist as a designer or illustrator or animator you
have to learn that skill to be able to take the feedback on board because that's also a skill first of all being able to ask what you're looking for but then also to be able to take that on board and and not be upset about it or be disheartened because of it having someone like your boyfriend who can give this type of feedback I think is great maybe one one thing I would add this um as you said you you would you would have loved this sketch I also loved it which was kind of a
problem in a way because there are some things that like her eyes and her skin color that I ended up changing in the process and it was it was hard to to let go of something that was there so early the creation of the artwork I can show you actually that her skin was blue for the longest time I just couldn't let it go because that was the stage that I loved and her skin was blue and um at the end I I a person that with the pink skin and I think it looks so
much better and so much more put together but that was uh that was a hard thing to do if you are too set on an idea um and you you can't you're not flexible enough to move away from certain aspects of it you don't let the art grow as you work on it that's also can be a problem and prevent you from achieving like better results in the end so yeah it's hard to know how far you can Trail off from the initial idea but I think in this case you ended up in a very
good balance between the the changes and the original idea right I was making this I I thought it it's so so good that it's not an animation it's just an illustration because if you look at it from the the point that it's meant to be that problem so like from the view of the color it's fine but as soon as you turn there are some issues like she doesn't even have a hand like her hand is not connected she's not even writing her lollipop foreign part so I find it kind of funny how from one
point it looks fine and and everywhere else if you like it from any anywhere else it's uh it's it's falling apart but uh this is part of making something new 3D that I enjoy I could get away with something like this yeah it's the beauty of 3D especially when the output is not an animation but still all right well thank you so much Dory for for uh talking to us and once again congratulations whoever wants to check out your work the links to your Instagram is in the description below I hope you found this video
useful and perhaps it inspired you to take part in Creative contests in the future make sure to subscribe to our Channel if you are interested in learning about tools like blender also check out the links in the description if you want to find out more about my favorite banku monitor thanks a lot for joining us today and I will see you in the next one a woman
