Flight Rising Discussion

If you're down to it- can y'all answer a few questions I have?

1- Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?
2- Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?
3- Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?
4- Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?
5-Would you consider entering the contest worth your time? And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?

1 - 3: Yes, I can't remember the exact amount. 4. If you win or get honorable mention, you'll know the same time everyone else does (ie the moment the news post goes up). Although it looks like each deity posts their festival's announcement, it's Undel who you get a ping from. I assume because admins write these posts from their accounts using the deities as a proxy. The prizes are handed out manually so it takes anywhere from 3 days to a week after the festival to get your prize. 5. I keep entering because I like it! And because I want to see more of a certain aesthetic of skins available for cheap to everyone. Money and prize wise, it's not worth the time. The gem award for winning is less than the amount you'd make from a single run (assuming you print 10 copies of a skin and you sell the copies for 850g each, which is pretty standard). The Vista might be worth it if you don't have it yet. Otherwise, I only enter for satisfaction and fun. --------- edit: here's what the ping + the prize PM looks like. I assume the skin mods who managed the queue on site are also the ones who hand them out. [img]https://i.imgur.com/4ogGGZu.png[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/fOSTCid.png[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/DUu0xXS.png[/img]

1. Yes, iirc it was the Light festival prior to this most recent one. (You won't find my name on the skin itself anymore as I asked to have it removed, but I imagine you could still find my entry in the submission thread if those don't get deleted.)

2. Yes, a couple.

3. No, I stopped after the first.

4. Don't remember but the above poster answered.

5. No -

a) While it's lovely to feel like you're giving something to the playerbase, you do not get a say in any edits made to your submission by the staff, likely due to time constraints (unlike with a UMA, where they'll just send it back to you to fix if it doesn't meet their expectations). The changes made to mine looked so awful that I refuse to have my name on it. It hugely soured me on accent making.

b) Entering, losing, and releasing your entry as a UMA is more profitable. Which is hilarious.

If you enter, do it for the glory or the vista, or to get eyeballs on your skin/accent shop, and only do it if you're okay with having your work changed.

1- [i]Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?[/i] Yes! Rockbreaker's 2020! [skin=36738] 2- [i]Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?[/i] Only three that I recall being before 2020. I went on a pretty long skin-making hiatus before and after. 3- [i]Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?[/i] Nope, just one! Hoping to change that these next few festivals, heehee. 4- [i]Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?[/i] Yee, pinged in the News post + PM with the copy of my skin, BPs, and gems! The vista came about a week later. 5-[i]Would you consider entering the contest worth your time? And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?[/i] Only if you're chill with edits done out of your control, constant losses, and really no monetary gain directly. I treat it as something to do for fun and free advertisements for my skin and art shops. [emoji=cat 2 size=1]

1. crystalline gala 2017 (it was bad i dont know how i won in retrospect) and mistjam 2020
2. just one skin and that is the only one i will do
3.yea
4. yeah you just learn this only when the festival is up! in experience i get my rewards a little bit after
5. id say its worth it if youre ok with this just being a free thing and if youre decently ok with losing it
also theres a really good post with tips for fests on tumblr https://aequorin-fr.tumblr.com/post/724742615582588928/fr-skin-contests-and-you-and-me

1- Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?

Nope, been trying for years but no luck so far (I did get an honorable mention once though!)

2- Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?

Prior to entering a fest? I think I had... 1 because I wasn't planning on making a skin shop or anything, I just made something for a dragon and sold a run.
Prior to winning... I have quite a few and counting!

3- Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?

Nope

4- Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?

888 already answered this, but based on my honorable mention, a winner would know when everyone else finds out.


5-Would you consider entering the contest worth your time? And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?


Not particularly, or not all the time. I used to make an entry for every fest but it felt like all the effort I was putting in wasn't worth it 90% of the time

I now tend to just enter the ones I can actually feel extra inspired to, which limits the chances of winning but I'd rather do that than feel drained with 'failed' entry upon 'failed' entry.

People do say it's good advertising though, as many users may ask to be pinged if an entry doesn't win.
I'd say from my own experience it's a toss-up on if you get people saying they'd want a ping or not, which honestly can suck if I really, really liked a design I made and it's something no one else looks twice at or I struggle to fill slots for. (But this last part can happen even with accents outside the fest, so not a reason to turn away from entering fests)

Generally, I found it didn't give me much more attention than just pinging GASP. Honestly, unless you're trying to win for the prizes or to just say you got a win/site skin, it might be better to @ the GASP list since it's more profitable than winning anyway.

1- Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?
Nope.

2- Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?
I have two accents posted to the site.

3- Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?
Nuh uh.

4- Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?
Haven't won or receieved an honorable mention before so I wouldn't know haha. I'd probably not figure it out until I recieve a ping-

5-Would you consider entering the contest worth your time? And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?
Yes! It gives me more opportunities to practice skin-making and overall I've been finding them very fun to work on. My goal is to be skilled enough at skin making to reach an honorable mention for Mistral Jamboree one day cause that's my flight festival!!

1- Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?

Yes! Lots - thank you staff! My earliest was 2015 for RoR. :)

2- Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?

Not before my first win - but many have been printed after that.

3- Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?

Yep! - again, thank you staff :'D

4- Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?

I am a night owl, so I often check the festival post right before I fall asleep and I'll see then if I've won or not, but mostly I'm just curious to see what other skins got picked because everyone always does such a good job. A lot of the times I've won, I was surprised to see myself there because again, everyone always knocks it out of the park. My partner is also on the website, and they'll usually find out before me and tell me. LOL

5-Would you consider entering the contest worth your time? And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?

I think it's worth my time! I enter when I can because it's super fun to do and I love to challenge myself. I also enjoy trying to find different ways to express the identity behind each flight, and it's a good way to try and figure out which dragon needs more representation, too. Plus, it's a great way to help contribute more affordable customization to everyone on the site. C:

Edit: I'd like to add and confirm that the staff can and will make changes to your winning entry if they deem it necessary; some are changed due to community feedback regarding sensitive topics, and some are changed to help the entry better fit with the requirements of the skin submissions (e.g. line art layer, shadow layer, etc.) This personally doesn't bother me, but it can be a problem for others.

1- Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?
>> Once! Wavecrest 2019. Accent: Entangled Tentacles

2- Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?
Not at the time no! Was never good at selling what ones I did make. unu

3- Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?
Nope. But I have gotten quite a number of Honorable Mentions.

4- Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?
Woke up to the ping!

5-Would you consider entering the contest worth your time? And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?
I throw an entry every now and again. I just don't have it in me to keep on top of proper skin/accent making, but making the occasional entry is fun. Especially since you do get one blueprint for honorable mentions.

1. Have you won a Skin Contest? Which Festival & Year?

Yes. I have winning entries for the following festivals:

Accent: Sun Scatter for Brightshine Jubilee 2016
Skin: Stormcloud Construct for Thundercrack Carnivale 2016
Skin: Barkhide for Greenskeeper Gathering 2020


I also have these honorable mentions for the following festivals:

Accent: Starsea Oracle & Accent: Sealeaf Frills for Wavecrest Saturnalia 2016
Accent: Gladeveins Strider for Greenskeeper Gathering 2016
Accent: Scorched Mantle for Flameforger's Festival 2016
Skin: Frostbrood for Crystalline Gala 2019
"Tradewings Scavenger" for Mistral Jamboree 2019 & Wavecrest Saturnalia 2022


2. Did you have prior self posted skins to the site? If yes, how many?

Yes, I had 7 accents/skincents publicly printed prior to my first festival win. All of them except one were previous festival submissions.


3. Have you won multiple Festival Skin Contests?

Yes. (See the first answer.)


4. Did you know that you won before the Festival? Or did you wake up to a ping like "oh! neat." with the items that winners get in your inbox/inventory?

Winners are only informed they've won when the festival news post goes live and they receive the ping. There is usually a delay (sometimes of several days) between that news post ping and the PM with your prize.

It is very neat to win lol.


5a. Would you consider entering the contest worth your time?

It depends.

If you are making an accent (30% of less coverage), I think it can be worth entering. If your accent doesn't win, you can always make it available as a public print and earn some money.

If you are making a skincent (over 30% but not full 100% coverage) or a skin (100% coverage), you need either a cool/unique design or good execution because—in my opinion at least—skin(cent)s are a harder sell.

The reason I say that is because most UM accents sell for about 400g while skins and skincents sell for 750g or more. Meaning that you can buy two UM accents for the price of just one skin(cent). So unless that skin(cent) has a great design, they don't fill as many runs compared to accents and they're harder to resell. Accents are generally more versatile, resell fairly well, and I know from my own experience that I tend to pass over skincents unless I already have a dragon that fits perfectly, whereas I'm happy to buy an accent I like even if I don't have a dragon for it yet.

All that said...I really like making skincents for festivals because if I do happen to win then I don't need to stress about getting the funds to print it myself lmao. That's the only positive to making a skin(cent) for the festival, you don't have to pay for blueprints.

There's also something to be said for entering because you think it's fun! :)


5b. And after you won, did you keep entering the Festival Contests?

Yes, I've entered in more festival contents after winning. (Obviously, if I've got multiple wins lol.)

Honestly, I wish I had time to create new designs for the festivals. I have a number of dragons that I would love to get elemental-themed accents for, but the UMA scene ain't providing lol.

I do have a number of WIP accents languishing on my hard drive that I really ought to finish, but it's been so long (years even) since I've touched them that if I opened the files I'd probably be at a complete loss of what I was last working on. :')