Everytime I join a costume contest

[FFFF]

I'm reminded how truly original my concept / costume really is

 

 

[Shenanigunner]

Well, as I Generaled one recent session, "All newbies who have not made a seven-foot amazon with big hooters, raise your hand"...

 

And of those, all had either made a hulking seven-foot armored being, or discovered the Spectrum parts and had neon red, green or yellow toons.

 

Sigh.

 

I do see some pretty inventive stuff at the CCs, sometimes.

[Snarky]

It gets worse as you meet better players.  When Cosmic Council was hyper active they ran a themed costume contest about once a month.  A couple of those people are actually F-ing artists with the costume interface.  I was going to make a Fireman for one.  Could not get the jacket right, made a lab tech.  (theme was work)  Someone walked in with a perfect fireman, the jacket created from different pieces meshed together including a belt part.  A kitten on each shoulder.  I was like.... hey.... i tooks artsy classes once.... why i suck? lol

[Clave Dark 5]

1 hour ago, Shenanigunner said:

And of those, all had either made a hulking seven-foot armored being

To be fair, the costume creator leans very heavily into that direction already.  Start clicking the random button and you'll get tons of them... often with an animal head.

[biostem]

As a sort of tangent to this topic, it does bug me when I see people win, or come in as a finalist for a costume contest, while basically just wearing all parts from the same set...

[ZorkNemesis]

Reminds me of the one time this didn't happen to me.  Back on the live days, the ski challet was in beta and the santa gloves/boots were just added.  There was an impromptu costume contest in the ski challet.  Everyone who was part of it made a santa suit, except for me who took those gloves and boots and made a skiing outfit instead.  I won it too, probably because my white and blue stood out among all the red.

[Coyotedancer]

{HIPSTER} For the record... I had all four of my blindingly colorful, Spectrum-wearing Elemental Sentai Team characters BEFORE it was the new hotness with all these recent folks! Ha! {/HIPSTER}

 

(My phoenix is still way too damned bight, though... I have a time limit on how long I can play her before my eyes start begging for mercy, so I get what Gunner's talking about.  🤣 )  

 

 

Edited February 8 by Coyotedancer

[Marshal_General]

I joined a costume contest and one of the people running had copied the design of my character off of the Post Your Best Costume thread.

 

It was the last one I have ever bothered with.

[Water]

Guilty...

[Scarlet Shocker]

8 hours ago, Snarky said:

 why i suck? lol

 

because vampire?

 

 

[Shenanigunner]

15 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

To be fair, the costume creator leans very heavily into that direction already.  Start clicking the random button and you'll get tons of them... often with an animal head.

 

Step 1: dial the giraffe legs down to minimum, which is only into Usain Bolt/supermodel scale.

[Shenanigunner]

12 hours ago, Marshal_General said:

I joined a costume contest and one of the people running had copied the design of my character off of the Post Your Best Costume thread.

 

It was the last one I have ever bothered with.

 

I actually had a hilarious moment with this. I was logged in with another alt, and before me appeared my main (see posting name) in his street clothes — jeans, boots, dark green sweatshirt. I had the guy wait a minute and popped back in with that version, and we had a good laugh about it. He was a newb, first alt, first costume, and I think the only detail that was different was the choice of specs.

 

*headsmack* Without a screen cap, it didn't happen. Dopey me.

Edited February 8 by Shenanigunner

[Scarlet Shocker]

I've never really enjoyed costume competitions.

 

I get why they happen and I've come up with some pretty good designs myself, even if I am blowing my own trumpet but the whole competition thing fails to move me - and it seems so random which costume wins. If I'm teaming with someone who's got a good costume I'll tell them that I think so and that's pretty well good enough for me.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

If I'm teaming with someone who's got a good costume I'll tell them that I think so and that's pretty well good enough for me.

Whenever, wherever I see a cool costume/concept, I send a tell and let them know if I have the time.

[Clave Dark 5]

7 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I've never really enjoyed costume competitions.

 

I get why they happen and I've come up with some pretty good designs myself, even if I am blowing my own trumpet but the whole competition thing fails to move me - and it seems so random which costume wins. If I'm teaming with someone who's got a good costume I'll tell them that I think so and that's pretty well good enough for me.

That's about me. I was spoiled in that I actually won or placed in like the first three I ever entered one, then nothing since, sigh (although I did see one of mine later pop up in one of those costume threads on the Reddit board for CoH). 

 

OTOH, I also find some good ideas on costuming to use (with apologies to @Shenanigunner and @Marshal_General ha ha - I adapt, not outright steal).

[Monty Haull]

17 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

because vampire?

 

 

Beat me to it, by a lot.

[Scarlet Shocker]

17 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Step 1: dial the giraffe legs down to minimum, which is only into Usain Bolt/supermodel scale.

 

to be fair, whenever I make a female toon, I always dial the tits down to their smallest setting and yet they're still mahooosive!

[Mopery]

On 2/7/2024 at 7:42 PM, biostem said:

As a sort of tangent to this topic, it does bug me when I see people win, or come in as a finalist for a costume contest, while basically just wearing all parts from the same set...

Humans see beauty in symmetry, so using similar looking pieces is par for the course.

 

Consider that no player actually made their own costume, as we're all using what pieces are available in the game, pieces which were made by actual digital artists. This is the limiting factor to anyone claiming that any look they feel they have made is "mine", or "yours". The only real choices we have are the colors, and which premade pieces we choose to work with. Some pieces fit a costume better than others, but all of these pieces are available to any and all, because none of us actually own any look we manage to create.

 

When HC finally allowed recordings a couple years back(?), I searched to see what people had put up. Low and behold, I found a player who was so impressed with one of "my" looks, and he set about trying to copy it. He got pretty close, but couldn't make it exact. I was amused, as I never thought anyone would want to copy something which "I made". Then I remembered that I didn't actually make it, any more than someone putting together a picture puzzle painted the picture all by themself.

 

You may not agree with me, some of you certainly will not, especially those who see a look and think "They copied me!".

 

I would remind you all that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[biostem]

3 hours ago, Mopery said:

Humans see beauty in symmetry, so using similar looking pieces is par for the course.

 

Consider that no player actually made their own costume, as we're all using what pieces are available in the game, pieces which were made by actual digital artists. This is the limiting factor to anyone claiming that any look they feel they have made is "mine", or "yours". The only real choices we have are the colors, and which premade pieces we choose to work with. Some pieces fit a costume better than others, but all of these pieces are available to any and all, because none of us actually own any look we manage to create.

 

When HC finally allowed recordings a couple years back(?), I searched to see what people had put up. Low and behold, I found a player who was so impressed with one of "my" looks, and he set about trying to copy it. He got pretty close, but couldn't make it exact. I was amused, as I never thought anyone would want to copy something which "I made". Then I remembered that I didn't actually make it, any more than someone putting together a picture puzzle painted the picture all by themself.

 

You may not agree with me, some of you certainly will not, especially those who see a look and think "They copied me!".

 

I would remind you all that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I don't dispute that a full matching set can look good.  My point is that it is less of a creative venture to do so than to put together pieces from different sets and make them work...

[Mopery]

36 minutes ago, biostem said:

I don't dispute that a full matching set can look good.  My point is that it is less of a creative venture to do so than to put together pieces from different sets and make them work...

I see what you mean now, just saying that using boots and gloves or boots and shoulders or w/e, couple of pieces of the same set often look awesome when mixed with other stuff, especially Elemental or Celestial. Unfortunately they look so good it's often hard to choose something else, but yeah just doing a straight up IDF without any changes is kinda lame, I'll give you that. 😁

[tidge]

On 2/7/2024 at 7:48 PM, Snarky said:

why i suck? lol

 

I see what you did there.

[Force Redux]

On 2/8/2024 at 11:19 AM, Shenanigunner said:

 

Step 1: dial the giraffe legs down to minimum, which is only into Usain Bolt/supermodel scale.

I see I'm not the only one to cut back on the default Rob Liefeld skyscraper legs...

[Clave Dark 5]

The legs and other over-emphasizing stuff goes back to at least the 70s Marvel, if not further.  They put out a book back then called How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way or something, and I remember they said they wanted stuff like the hands to be drawn overly large compared to "real people," and the bodies should be taller (via the ratio of "how many heads tall" one is), al in the service of making things "more dramatic and dynamic" on the page.

[Force Redux]

I think I remember that book...8 heads tall was "heroic", IIRC.