The Eye of the Beholder

We try to have some kind of special event occur at least once every month in XIII. I'm not counting this month's as the sexual health advice clinic we had to set up for one of our members (who will remain totally anonymous). Apparently, he had managed to contract chlamydia in his eye. Now, I wasn't even aware that was possible, but then again, I've never been quite careless enough to have any kind of fluid mishap to that area of my face.

Needless to say, we were all very sympathetic. 

OK, we took the piss mercilessly. We also have a tradition of granting a title for notable actions, so to celebrate such an incredible feat (more admitting it to everyone than catching it), we gave him the title of "The eyes have it".

This did end up giving me an idea, though. I'd read about the Eve portrait competitions run by Reality X (below).

If you've not visited www.eveportraits.com, I would definitely say it's worth a visit. Basically, Reality X runs Eve Online's closest thing to a beauty contest and gives out prizes for the best portraits. What is interesting is how unexpected the winners have been, but afterall, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I came up with idea of running XIII's own portrait competition. This would have been easy enough for me to do, however, Reality X had experience in this sort of thing and would likely choose some interesting winners, given how left-field some of the winners of his official contests have been - in my humble opinion. So, I got in contact with him and he agreed to judge our own private contest. Top bloke!

I announced it to the guys and some even made their way to K-Space to find a station, a NEX store and a character re-customisation button. A few days later, Reality X sent us his verdict:

1st Place - Gabriela Arch

RX - "Gabriela: I really liked the simplicity of Gabriela's portrait, the elegant posturing of the figure looking away, and the neutral brown colours of the background, hair, eyes and clothes. It's very well done and comes together nicely."

JJ - Interesting choice for a winner. Wouldn't be the one that I picked, but that's the whole point have having RX judge it for us. Can't argue with his reasoning though.

2nd Place - Athanor Ruthoern

RX - "Athanor: Most of the time when I'm looking for outstanding portraits I try to see if the player spent time with it, maybe by changing the structure of the face, or adding little details (instead of just keeping a "default" face). I can see time and effort was spent with Athanor's portrait. Also, the shadow placement, background choice, and again the posturing of the face looking up is well done."

JJ - To be fair, Athanor did re-do her portrait for this. Definitely better than it was before, but I'm not sold on the blonde cornrows! She did put effort into the new portrait though, so that's fair enough.

3rd Place - Thornir

RX - "Thornir: I picked Thornir because he just looks like a bad-ass dude I woudn't want to run into in a dark alley. The Guristas coat is a nice touch with the background, again with an overall brown colour scheme which works."

JJ - For fuck sake. Really? I was expecting some left-field choices for winners. When I announced the winners to XIII's directors, there was much swearing about this choice. Not because it's a bad choice per se, but for the effect it might have on his ego. Oh well, hopefully it made his eye feel better ;)