candleveraAlso, every time I see your name I keep misreading and thinking you're the Dwarf Fortress dev lol

Nope, not me. I just develop random ideas from time to time. Whether they are any good is highly questionable though.

ZitzabisA discussion came up regarding why we don't see teen skins in contests.
A theory was put forth that there are some judges who hold a grudge against teen skinners and are purposely guiding the themes to exclude them.
I disagreed with that and chose to make this to give us a better idea.

While the data is not 100% accurate, and it's hard to define teen skinners, we should hopefully be able to gather at least responses on why or why not people who self-identify as teen skinners are entering or not entering the contests.

Thus far, I am not seeing any correlation found that suggests teen skinners are not joining since they feel excluded. The reasons seem to be different, but still reasons we can consider and possibly help us improve our themes.

I think this is highly worthy of an investigation. Inclusion should always be the goal of a community - especially one of this size. I'm interested in what your results will end up being when it closes. Given what you have shared thus far it raises the question of how to include teen skinners more often and how to toss in themes that are better aimed at them occasionally.

For someone like me who is just learning, the theme is only there to generate an idea or serve as inspiration and allow me to stretch my wings - assuming I can get over my "stage fright". For more advanced artists, they may be looking for themes that will allow themselves to shine.

ZitzabisA discussion came up regarding why we don't see teen skins in contests.

I've seen a lot. Most just get disqualified because they don't fit the theme of the contest. A lot of teen skinners seem to focus on one kind of style and it might be hard for them to break away from this style and make a valid contest entry. Just a general theory (A GAME THEORY).

-snip-

I don't enter contest because I don't have the time nor the inspiration to do a theme I am not interested in. Usually I just make character skins because I am inspired by those characters/people, and since I am a junior I don't have time to enter every single contest out there.

Zitzabis
A discussion came up regarding why we don't see teen skins in contests.
A theory was put forth that there are some judges who hold a grudge against teen skinners and are purposely guiding the themes to exclude them.
I disagreed with that and chose to make this to give us a better idea.

While the data is not 100% accurate, and it's hard to define teen skinners, we should hopefully be able to gather at least responses on why or why not people who self-identify as teen skinners are entering or not entering the contests.

Thus far, I am not seeing any correlation found that suggests teen skinners are not joining since they feel excluded. The reasons seem to be different, but still reasons we can consider and possibly help us improve our themes.

To continue, the biggest piece of information we can conclude from this thread/poll is that teen skinners don't browse the forums much, if at all, which would contribute to why we've never really seen skin contest theme polls be heavily influenced by the teen skinning community (and thus, a teen skinning friendly contest has never really been had).

candlevera
Anyway, I don't understand why this thread is a thing? Like, no offense or anything. I just don't see the point, especially considering how vague the term teen Skinner is. I have barely ever seen any teen skins in contests, and when they managed to make finalists, they didn't score that well because the design wasn't creative enough.

Like, uhh, I don't see why this is an issue at all/is worth investigating/caring about.

And, well, like I said, teen skinner is way too vague of a term, and I'm sure there's plenty who aren't active enough on the site to know what it means. Any data collected is probably going to be really inaccurate or just hard to use.

I mean, right now, none of the options are in the double digits beyond "Not a teen skinner" which is in the 50's.

A discussion came up regarding why we don't see teen skins in contests.
A theory was put forth that there are some judges who hold a grudge against teen skinners and are purposely guiding the themes to exclude them.
I disagreed with that and chose to make this to give us a better idea.

While the data is not 100% accurate, and it's hard to define teen skinners, we should hopefully be able to gather at least responses on why or why not people who self-identify as teen skinners are entering or not entering the contests.

Thus far, I am not seeing any correlation found that suggests teen skinners are not joining since they feel excluded. The reasons seem to be different, but still reasons we can consider and possibly help us improve our themes.

47th non teen skinner

I'm a teen skinner, but I really don't make skins anymore. I have entered some contests, but I probably won't be entering another one again as I don't make skins anymore.

I don't enter skin contests because I'm not that good at making my own character. Every skin I made either game from a video game or a cartoon or whatever, and I was able to use pictures made as reference. Not like I'd win anyway.

Honestly, I don't get why people get so upset over teen skins vs. non-teen skins. It's not like having one kind being more popular is detrimental to the survival of Minecraft.

Myra_What are your criteria for being a teen skinner? I guess I'm one since I tend to make female cartoony/not-quite-realistic skins, and I mean, the four-pixel eyes are always a major qualifier...
I know this (http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/8013741/hot-girl/) is a teen skin, but is this? (http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/myra-the-magnificent/)

Generally whatever people identify with.

What are your criteria for being a teen skinner? I guess I'm one since I tend to make female cartoony/not-quite-realistic skins, and I mean, the four-pixel eyes are always a major qualifier...
I know this (http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/8013741/hot-girl/) is a teen skin, but is this? (http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/myra-the-magnificent/)

Nevertheless, I voted according to my being a teen skinner. I generally try to join contests, but some contests are really not my thing; I liked the desert skin contest because it was so open-ended, but I didn't join the nuclear winter one because it was such a narrow theme that I couldn't have a ton of creativity with it, esp. with my rather limited skill set.

Well... I lack confidence first off with skinning so there's that.

With that said, I have one complaint/concern with the last two contests - the skin contest and the currently running solo build contest.

My complaint/concern applies more to the skin contest. The theme was too broad and vague. And it shows in the skin entries. I mean I can really mince words with this, because technically retro means "clothes or music whose style or design is imitative of those of the recent past" [https://www.google.com/search?q=retro&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8]and since the current year is 2016, that puts "retro" into the 90's bracket. Anyway, that aside, the rules called for 70s to 80s which anyone taking the time to do their research should have been able to find plenty of material to work with, yet there wasn't much coming up - I didn't see anything that I would have identified as "teen skins". A lot of those skins came across to me as "I don't know what I'm suppose to be doing with this theme, so I'll make this and hope for the best." It ended up feeling really disjointed, disorganized, and overall lacking the intended theme.

The theme itself for the solo build contest is great. Steve is seeing something in the desert. Is it real or a mirage and what is he seeing? Awesome question, but the given terrain is plain and uninspiring. Perhaps this is intentional to allow the maximum creative efforts of the builders, if so then kudos. For me though it triggered "blank page syndrome." Perhaps not your fault. Perhaps I'm just derailing. I'll own that. It's just that it was a bit disappointing since one of the best parts for me about the building contests has been being able to build in really interesting and creative terrains. And that was not the case for this contest.

I have never entered a contest, because I know that I have no chance of winning. Wether it be a skin contest, or a contest of who can sleep longer...

I don't have what it takes to do contests. Besides... i'm not missing out on much, the prizes aren't all that interesting.

-snip-

Out of the loop, What the heck is a teen skinner?

-snip-

I am a teen skinner, and I do enter most contests (there's some where I don't enter mainly because I have zero ideas).

I've tried at my own hand making non-teen skins and teen skins for said contests and I've noticed that my teen skins ,or the skins that are more teeny-like than others, seem to be diamonded more than my (attempted) non-teen skins. Not sure about anyone else tho.

what is a teen skinner?

tl:dr teen skinners typically don't enter contests which don't facilitate teen skins. Just like any skinners who only make a specific type of skin.

bump

Personally as a teen Skinner.(I post on other websites because every time i do here it gets taken down >:( )
I would enter contests more if i actually knew how to make original skins.
I think contest skinners have alot more creativity than teen skinners but their are a handful of really good and original teen skinners out their

Bump.

I guess I'm a teen skinner, but I try to enter every single skin contest as they come (I've only been on here for two though), as I find they kind of help me to branch out a little in what I make.

is this supposed to be like a experiment thing so teen skinners can have separate contests???

i hope so

I think what he meant by 'don't vote if you're not a teen skinner' is don't pick one of the teen skinner options if you aren't one.

If you're not a teen skinner you're free to just choose 'I'm not a teen skinner.'. He doesn't want the relevant data scrambled by people choosing whatever they feel like.

Oh, and also, I don't enter contests because 90% of them contain prizes that are real-life - like the Steve action figures or the t-shirts. I don't want to have those sent over to me for privacy reasons. I find this pretty frustrating because a lot of the contests that seem really cool do have these sorts of prizes, and the only ones that don't seem to do this are the project contests, and I'm not much of a project person.

If you don't want people to vote if they're not teen skinners, then why on earth is there a "I am not a teen skinner" option in the polls?

I enter contests depending on the theme. If I don't feel like I can bring out something good for the theme, I don't enter. :>

I love how it says "don't vote if you're not a teen skinner" and yet 13 people have selected "I am not a teen skinner" xD

Really tired of the over saturation and under-moderation of these skins. Yes, I understand some have a few differences but do we really need to upload 50 versions with different bows and shoes? Its coming to a point where I think we need to regulate them.

...? What?

o;