I'd be perfectly happy to host the second round with the same rules and regulations IF you'd like me to do so...

I don't think I should have a proxy to organize the next contest for me for two things:

1. I need to get involved and get in close contact with Designers. This allows me to better collaborate with Designers for possible future projects.

2. Having multiple contests of this sort so soon can be very tiresome and taxing onto Designers. Designers have lives with Jobs and school too. The time in between gives them time to rest and work with real life.

If there is going to be another contest, the judging system should probably be retooled.

I'm inclined to agree. If anyone has any suggestions, I would like to hear them. We need to find a way to effectively award those who are deserving of praise. Until then...


The Awards for the Angel Design Contest Summer 2008:


Today we Award the Final two:

The Award for Best in Contest went to the Angel that was, overall, the most-well rounded and interesting product in the entire contest. The description of the Angel, design, symbolism and how it compared to all of its rivals were important in determining the best in this contest.

The top nominees for this Award for Best in Contest are:
Erikael, the Angel of Nature by Avatar of Dreams
Kushiel, the Rigid One of God by AsukaChan
Uriel, the Angel of Knowledge by TheAyanamiOtaku



And the Winner is:



AsukaChan for Kushiel, the Rigid One of God



It was a long road, but at last we have crowned a top winner! If any of you have been paying attention to the nominee lists, you would see that it would appear that this contest was nearly dominated by exactly these three top nominees. All these Designs were very well done and were conveyed according to the unique styles of their Designers, and in all honesty, it was a narrow race between them.

AsukaChan's Kushiel came from left field and wowed all of us with its stunning illustrations and totally elegant and unique form. The artistic drawings truly conveyed the Designer's intent and vision; deceptively simple, yet alien and abstract. The weapons and features of the Angel were equally as simple and unique; effective but not too powerful. While not the most characteristically well-defined or the most skilled of our line-up, Kushiel was a very solid and attractive Design.

Do not be fooled by the less number of Awards, because Avatar of Dream's Erikael was a very strong contender. Perhaps in another dimension somewhere, Erikael could have won the Award for Best Character Design and perhaps even this Award. A detailed and enjoyable-to-read body of text was followed by a set of illustrations that not only effectively communicated the composition and detail of the Design, but went further and resembled storyboard sketches for an actual episode of NGE. With inspired design, and features and powers that make it worthy of an even greater class and rank, Erikael was one of best products that anyone could have asked for in this contest.

TheAyanamiOtaku's opus, a very late entry that was in danger of being barred from the contest, was very well worth the wait. Uriel stood as one of the most complete and epic Designs to appear; as a matter of fact it is along the same vein and even rivals many of my own Angel Designs that I have been toiling in R&D for the past four years or so. A very long text description written in a style that was both informative and yet wild was supplemented by a large number of well-drawn and detailed sketches. As one person mentioned, looking at these sketches was like reading the notes of a half-mad scientist who was either trying to design a weapon or studying this creature when it appeared. As it was also observed, said text was daunting in length and its style made the reading somewhat jarring to follow. Further, it would be difficult to implement such a powerful and varied creature into NGE's overall story. Still, TAO's Angel was a surprisingly well-done entry into this contest.



The Award for the Quirkiest Design was a late addition to this contest. It was given to the design that came out as being endearingly quirky and interestingly odd.

The top nominees for Quirkiest Design are:
Trasafel, the Angel of Bodies by Hazukari
Jerahmeel, God Pities by devil_eAter
Metatron, the Voice of God by Omegagouki
Dumah, the Angel of Deathly Silence and Vindication by Team New Guys
Kushiel, the Rigid One of God by AsukaChan



And the winner is:



Omegagouki for Metatron, the Voice of God



Ok, so Metatron may not have been as epic or as detailed as some of our other big winners. But it gets noted for its bug-like form and dependence on good-old fashioned LAZER (and sonic) weapons rather than anything particularly fancy. It may not live up to the name it borrows from (Metatron is one of the higer-class Angels in the Bible) but the Design gets us for being particularly weird.

Jerahmeel and Kushiel have interesting designs, but for what they are, I think they really fall into the "epic" and "cool" categories than simply "quirky".

Trasafel, while it has a lot of potential for producing a lot of cannon fodder, is notable for being short. Dumah, oh man, had a lot of honorable mentions in this contest and, still, stands as one of the best in the contest. Its form and combat skills are practical and exciting, and has some semblance of a personality as well - and yet no award for all of this!

A name that I'm a bit surprised is not on this list was our first contestant, Jophiel by IrkenEvangelion. That thing took the over-the-top route and was armed with CHAINSAWS for forelimbs. Sure, it doesn't have too many fancy abilities and seems over-ranked for what it does, but then again it can disembowel an opponent with its chainsaw arms. Maybe the resulting exotic and violent deaths of its enemies are what give Jophiel its title as the Angel of Beauty - or something.


Thank you all for your efforts and attention! Stay tuned for some Afterthoughts!

All done?

I was waiting for the end to offer congratulations to all who participated (so as not to have to type the same thing 6 times or so). There were definately some interesting ideas created by this contest, and it was enjoyable to take part.

I suppose Dumah ended up a bit like Tolkien's dark god Melkor (Sauron's boss), who had a share of power in all dominions but could not claim superiority in any of them. Not a bad place to be, all things considered.

Quirkiest Angel, huh?

Awesome! No, really, it's just the sort of thing I just do, so it's an honor to win this award. I hope that if there's a second contest, I can be just as quixotically pleasing.

Yay! I'm so glad to have been nominated for so much, but I never expected to win anything!

Thank you so much everyone who commented and to the people who judged! It feels really great to know others liked it, but it feels even better to get such a positive response from fellow Eva fans. And, let's face it, we can be a pretty picky bunch when it comes to our fandom.

Thanks again for all the great feedback! Coming on to find all this out really made my night!

i think i might've went a little overkill on Uriel's offensive capabilities....

Afterthoughts: Iblis Design

As I said, I had been working on Iblis for four years. I was inspired by the symbolism behind the interpretation of the Devil in Islam, and the more I dug, the more fascinating and far-reaching ideas I found.

With his personality, I was looking to produce something that would more humanize the Angels. I know how dangerous this could be, as some can see the after effects of doing such to classic monster villains in recent movies, like Hannibal Lector or Jason in their prequel stories. However, the effect I was shooting for was to include the Angels with the human drama that permeates the series. It always bothered me when people said that the Angel battles were essentially just eye candy for the real meat of NGE - mostly because it was true. My aim was to make an Angel who was an active participant in the drama and was not merely for show.

Iblis' nature, I think, turned some of you off because it seemed to be very un-NGE. I know what that feeling is like and I have been spending a lot of time to better smooth him out. However, all of his traits and qualities were presented in a form that was completely divorced from its context, and I deliberately cut out any indications of a back story to keep things simple and secretive.

For those who wonder why I chose to make him way I did, I will say this: Iblis is in someways like a pseudo or even proto- Adam or Lilith. He represents a way of thinking and being that is deliberately extreme and obsolete, yet holds something of great value that we should at take from and remember - even for NGE.

As for his battle capabilities, I realize that it is quite unlike NGE and feared it was too much. I was particularly worried about the inclusions of the Dual fields, AT-F Modded Blades, and Muy-Tai kickboxing moves in the concept, but people seem to be rolling with it. The idea I was going for was to create something that, in a battle, would give a much more visceral, graceful and powerful experience that has never been been before in NGE.

At the same time, I could not make him too much of an efficient, graceful fighter - otherwise we would not have the kind of brutality that characterizes the battles in the original. The scene that particularly illustrates this is the battle between Unit-02 and the MP Evas in EoE: all of whom fought extremely inefficiently yet with great savagery.

So, to offset this, I made my Angel lack punch but be speedy and sadistic - thus forcing him to rely on rapid, multiple hits and sheer brutality. A likely battle with him against a strong opponent would progress from opening up with their fancy ranged skills, to continuing with close-range chop-socky, to ending with a wrestling match that results in one party missing their limbs and with their eyes gouged out.

Overall, I see that reception for my Angel was decent. But without the artistic prowess of our top three Designers, I guess wasn't able to generate the kind of thunder I'd liked. Still, I was satisfied with the writing and I hope it got the point across.

Next time:
Contest Statistics and Afterthoughts, and plans for the next contest.

Post-Contest Statistics:

Below are the stats I've gathered over the course of the Contest:

Designers:


Number of Contestants: 12
Number Withdrawn: 2
Total Number of Entrants: 10

Distribution of Angel Classes:

This is a bar graph of the number of Angels that were registered in each class. Note that Hazukari's Angel was registered as a B-Class, while TheAyanamiOtaku's Angel was registered as a B, A and S-Class (something I will not be doing in the future).

Judges:

This chart details the number of entrants each Judge nominated for an Award and how many of their nominations actually won the respective Award.

Number of Judges Volunteered: 4
Number Withdrawn: 1
Total Judges: 3

Contest Afterthoughts:
I think we had a pretty good turnout for our first time. I think the ten Angel Designs turned out to be plenty for our needs and offered enough variety for our Judges.

I was a bit worried when I realized I couldn't attract resident creative powerhouses like Reichu, Sailor Star Dust, and Bobbq to the Contest, and even now I still would like to hear what kinds of things they could have brought.

However, those worries were put to rest when we uncovered some serious gems from the likes of AsukaChan, Avatar of Dreams, TAO, devil_eAter, NemZ, etc. I was impressed by the diversity of ideas and the beautiful pieces of art that were made just for this Contest. I hope I was able to express my appreciation enough for all of your hard work!

I think some of your Concepts worked really well with the spirit of NGE and were very unobtrusive to the plot. Others were a bit more involved and required some stretching of the plot. Of course, that isn't a bad idea at all, I just wonder what kinds of adjustments would be needed without damaging the overall Concept in some of these. In short, I could really see some of these working with NGE by itself and a few working with my own project.

While I saw that everything was innovative design-wise, I didn't see too many people pushing the envelope on the idea of an Angel in general. That is, a great many of them were like the traditional Angels in the series, but I didn't see too many that worked the angle on religious symbolism or plot connections. While I don't necessarily mean that I want to see more Angels screwing with the plot after I said that might not be the best idea in the future, I am pointing out that this could be a direction some of you might like to take: challenging the notions of what an Angel is and how to characterize that.

I also notice that there were some problems with the current system of Judgment. The process was slow and I previously expected a higher degree of agreement, but that was not the case in some instances. Apparently, there needs to be some re-tooling that needs to be done in this aspect in the future.

I am personally very proud of all of your achievements and glad that I organized this Contest in spite of the hassles. However, things don't stop here - indeed things can only go up. Stay tuned for my next plans for this Contest and beyond - as long as I realize that I'm not typing to myself over here...

Next time: Future Plans

---

those are pretty nice, well drawn. They might have needed some more writing if you wanted to have competed in this contest. They sound like interesting ideas, but they would have needed more in the execution department. More writing, and more thinking it out. The second one sounds waaaaaayyyyyy too powerful: it is literally a continuous nuclear blast. Do you know how much ambient energy it must give off per second? That goes far and beyond an S class angel; it literally cannot exist on a planet without scorching the surface on the opposite side of the world.

BTW, most BBS systems don't resize pics. The best option is to either resize it yourself, or simply post a link.

Well, it's not a blue giant, it's more analogous to a white dwarf on its last stages of activity. Not even stars can scorch the surface on the other side of a planet (Par example, Mercury is completely frozen on its dark side) unless you're talking about gravitational influence, which Adirael lacks given its small size. Another case you might be referring to is a "hot jupiter," a gas giant orbiting a star very closely. In that case, the planet is screwed, but it takes a star the size of a... well, star, and the powerful air currents of a boiling gas planet.

Also, as for the nuclear blast thing, a star has a continuous, controlled nuclear fusion reaction, while an H-bomb is an ucontrolled one, so this one isn't much of a nuke as it is one damn big (yet very passive) ball of plasma. Most of what it emmits is radiation (which can be presumably stopped by an AT field if gravity and magnetism can) an lots of heat.

Okay, scorching the other side of the planet is a slight exaggeration. However, the higher energy hard rads that a star can throw off even late in its life can pass through quite a bit of solid rock and still be deadly. And that is not taking into account any atmospheric effects it might cause, even if you turned it into a mere plasma ball. If you did that, it would essentially turn into a giant fire. Do you know what a forest fire does to the local weather patterns in the short term? The heat and the conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide does some pretty crazy shit.

Also, no, there is absolutely no difference between nuclear fusion inside a star and nuclear fusion in a nuclear bomb. What is there to change? Control? Control my ass. Nothing controls a star except its huge size and fuel. In fact, the only reason life is possible on this planet is because the atmosphere and magnetic field generated by the planet shields us from the worst of the harmful radiation from the sun while letting the warmth through. With this angel, it is let inside of those protections, and the Earth is exposed to all that hard radiation directly.

Fusion in a reactor is controlled (by humans). Fusion in a star is natural, and therefore uncontrolled. Thank you for making me laugh.

No, I'm sorry, but as much as you like this angel, it suffers from a lack of consideration about the consequences of its nature as a star. The art is cool, really cool, but as an angel, it is simply too much.

It is controlled, controlled by gravity and other forces which govern the life of a star (if it wasn't controlled a star would just explode), and when it goes out of control (because it runs out of fuel or another thing such as extra helium being added to binary dwarf-giant pairs) we get stuff such as supernovae or planetary nebula. It is obviously capable of setting off fires around and altering the climate on a very localized point by boiling lakes and other stuff. However, as we've seen that most angels don't go around completing word puzzles and asking for directions before attacking, I don't think the scorching would last for a lot of time. The tiny size for a star Adirael has (look at the eva sketch on the right of the drill form) prevents it from causing some kind of earth-ending cataclysm. Besides, Sahaquiel would have caused slightly more damage to the planet if it wasn't stopped in time.

Also, I'm still yet to see the first form of energy that is deadly, or the first star that emmits pure energy. You must be referring to radiation. Which can be stopped by enough material, such as the armored hulls of nuclear reactors or a mountain, which are commonly used to store radioactive isotopes.

In any case, I'll write up a more descriptive bio for it later

"Energy is energy, no matter where it came from." -Gargoyles

All stars emit pure energy! What do you think light is?!

If pure energy was not enough to kill if found in sufficient quantities, why are lasers so deadly?

Look, it isn't a bad design, it just needs more forethought. What is its purpose? What would it be doing if it didn't have humanity to destroy? What is it thinking? Maybe, in the grand scheme of Adam based life, it was designed by the FAR to help terraform planets that were too far away from their stars to recieve enough thermal radiation for life, even hardy adam based angelic life, to survive. Therefore, it would be one of the spacefaring angels like Sahaquiel and Arael, orbiting planets, serving as an artificial sun. When it is brought into the conflict of NGE it therefore makes an orbital attack, simply sitting in orbit disrupting sattelites and being an environmental threat. Nerv would have to find a novel method of attacking it, and fast, especially if it happens after the operation against Arael where they lose the LoL. Maybe its transformation powers mean that it can turn into your other angel when it wants to land, providing a convenient method for dealing with it.

How would an angel like that think? Not all the angels went straight into attacking just because they could. Leliel arguably didn't attack at all, but mearly wanted to study humanity (via Shinji who made himself convenient by being a Leroy Jenkins). Arael, who we know is sentient, similarly was not immediately hostile, and the mindrape scene can be interpreted in many ways, not all of them malevolent. Although this particular angel might be intrinsically dangerous, its shapeshifting abilities suggest intelligence. How does the angel use it?

By the way, although what you say about stars is true (although I might point out supernovas as an example of how stable a star in the long term really is), it still does not make them any different from nuclear blasts. In the core of a star nuclear fusion occurs just as in a nuclear bomb, releasing the same amount of pure energy as a nuclear blast. Its just that it is sustained for longer due to the huge amount of fuel present in a star. It literally is a continuous nuclear blast.

Perhaps you are confusing fission and fusion?

First angel looks too much like general greivous for my tastes.

Second one is kinda nifty looking. I guess you could tone down the heat from a typical star by several factors of ten and make it a reasonable enemy though.

Formless One wrote:"Energy is energy, no matter where it came from." -Gargoyles

[i]All stars emit pure energy! What do you think light is?![/i]

Light being a form of energy? Light is a wavelenght of the electromagnetic spectrum. And light doesn't damage anything, as you can produce lots of light with very little heat, such as in LEDs and other gadgests

If pure energy was not enough to kill if found in sufficient quantities, why are lasers so deadly?

Because lasers produce heat with light. A laser doesn't produce pure energy, if we're referring to the type of energy that results from stuff such as nuclear fission/fusion or anihilation.

Maybe, in the grand scheme of Adam based life, it was designed by the FAR to help terraform planets that were too far away from their stars to recieve enough thermal radiation for life, even hardy adam based angelic life, to survive. Therefore, it would be one of the spacefaring angels like Sahaquiel and Arael, orbiting planets, serving as an artificial sun. When it is brought into the conflict of NGE it therefore makes an orbital attack, simply sitting in orbit disrupting sattelites and being an environmental threat. Nerv would have to find a novel method of attacking it, and fast, especially if it happens after the operation against Arael where they lose the LoL. Maybe its transformation powers mean that it can turn into your other angel when it wants to land, providing a convenient method for dealing with it.

Well, couldn't have came up with a better explanation myself for the first one, but he doesn't simply keep orbiting, as that wouldn't bring him any closer to Adam. He appears out of nowhere, like many angels, already in the surface of the earth and slowly floating its way towards Tokyo 3.

How would an angel like that think? Not all the angels went straight into attacking just because they could. Leliel arguably didn't attack at all, but mearly wanted to study humanity (via Shinji who made himself convenient by being a Leroy Jenkins). Arael, who we know is sentient, similarly was not immediately hostile, and the mindrape scene can be interpreted in many ways, not all of them malevolent. Although this particular angel might be intrinsically dangerous, its shapeshifting abilities suggest intelligence. How does the angel use it?

The shapeshifting is more of an intuitive ability with very little sentience put into it, such as Ramiel. It detects a threat, it morphs, it shoots, it waits for any signs of everything being dead, it mophs back. I essentially didn't gave him any other purpose to probe into the human mind or something like that, but he's more like the early angels of the series, who just wanted to intiate third impact.

@NemZ: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about doing

Heinkel wrote:Light being a form of energy? Light is a wavelenght of the electromagnetic spectrum. And light doesn't damage anything, as you can produce lots of light with very little heat, such as in LEDs and other gadgests

(...)

Because lasers produce heat with light. A laser doesn't produce pure energy, if we're referring to the type of energy that results from stuff such as nuclear fission/fusion or anihilation.

Yeah... you ever notice how it's warmer during the day than at night? That's because light causes heat transfer. Microwaves heat things using electromagnetic waves. So do fry warmers at fast-food resturaunts. So does an easybake oven, powered by just a typical light bulb.

Yes, but what produces the light is the heat that irradiates from the incandescent bulb, not the light itself. In any case, I don't think I want to derail the topic even more, and I will certainly tweak it to make it not as hot, but keeping the stellar nature.

Heinkel wrote:Light being a form of energy? Light is a wavelenght of the electromagnetic spectrum. And light doesn't damage anything, as you can produce lots of light with very little heat, such as in LEDs and other gadgests

Heinkel, I know you want to defend your favorite angel, but I have honestly not heard anything this ignorant in ages.

wikipedia wrote:Planck's theory was based on the idea that black bodies emit light (and other electromagnetic radiation) only as discrete bundles or packets of energy. These packets were called quanta, and the particle of light was given the name photon, to correspond with other particles being described around this time, such as the electron and proton.

And the page on energy:

Wikipedia wrote:Several different forms of energy exist to explain all known natural phenomena. These forms include (but are not limited to) kinetic, potential, thermal, gravitational, sound, light, elastic, and electromagnetic energy.

and again on the page for photons, the elementary particle for electromagnetic energy, which includes light:

Wikipedia wrote:The above description of a photon as a carrier of electromagnetic radiation is commonly used by physicists. However, in theoretical physics, a photon can be considered as a mediator for any type of electromagnetic interactions, including magnetic fields and electrostatic repulsion between like charges.

Also, you are confusing wavelength with energy: a something can be of a certain wavelength and still get brighter and brighter without changing wavelength. If you find it get bright enough, any amount of energy can be harmful. You can be blinded by visual light: and you know what heat is? infrared radiation, light at a wavelength lower than the visual spectrum.

I think we both agree that heat damages things.

Because lasers produce heat with light. A laser doesn't produce pure energy, if we're referring to the type of energy that results from stuff such as nuclear fission/fusion or anihilation.

Read: Energy is energy, no matter what form it takes. It cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed from one type to another. When a laser hits something, yes, it does turn into thermal energy. But that energy was produced by the laser in the first place! This is extremely basic physics. A nuclear bomb produces light energy. That energy can convert into heat energy when it interacts with the environment around it. This is what causes the massive explosion: the atmosphere takes the light energy and turns it into heat, which creates a shockwave. But the energy was always there in one form or another, it simply turned from light (pure energy) to heat (kinetic energy).

What about this is so hard to understand?

Well, couldn't have came up with a better explanation myself for the first one, but he doesn't simply keep orbiting, as that wouldn't bring him any closer to Adam. He appears out of nowhere, like many angels, already in the surface of the earth and slowly floating its way towards Tokyo 3.

I'm sorry, but in the form he is in now, he can't land without destroying everything, possibly including Adam.

Actually, the angels may think that they are going after adam, but you do know that they consistently went after Lillith, right?

The shapeshifting is more of an intuitive ability with very little sentience put into it, such as Ramiel. It detects a threat, it morphs, it shoots, it waits for any signs of everything being dead, it mophs back. I essentially didn't gave him any other purpose to probe into the human mind or something like that, but he's more like the early angels of the series, who just wanted to intiate third impact.

Well, we don't really know how intelligent Ramiel was either. OH, and BTW, Ramiel was not a shapeshifter in the original show, that was something they changed for webuild.

I don't really see why it needs three or four forms if the main form is already powerful enough to boil the oceans if it landed. But if it had a form that was like the first angel you posted, then it might start making sense.



Before you continue this conversation, please understand, I am only trying to help. If I saw this in a fanfic and the author forgot to consider the consiquences of how their creation worked, I would tell them. I am not the type to ignore stupidity if I think that the person is otherwise talented and creative. However, that only goes so far before things start to not make sense. A childs drawing might be considered creative or even talented, but would you honestly say that tanks made of guns firing guns at guns (to steal an example from the Simpsons) makes sense? I doubt it. That is the problem with having this angel land on Earth at the power levels it currently displays. It does not make sense!

BTW, one of my friends here in RL also wanted to point out that even it you tuned down its power output, this angel is still going to be basically untouchable by an Eva. Its still too hot.

First of all its temperature doesn't equal a star's. It's about 1500 (2300Cº) degrees Kelvin, as otherwise it would damage its own core, which is shown to be able to withstand temperatures like that, judging by Sandalphon.

Ok, I'm still yet to see the first case of a star landing in earth, but with its aprox. size and temperature I don't think that would destroy the world (Lilith, Adam, anyways. You can't get them from orbit and that's my point). Also, the angel's damage from radiation would be greater in orbit than in the surface, where there's much more stuff to block out the radiation such as mountains and whatnot instead of simply irradiating everything from above.
Also, the drill form concentrates the plasma beam downwards, at which point it passes from a sub-M class to a K class, albeit with a concentrated, downwards-facing beam that melts trough the many layers of armor quickly (which takes a damn lot of time if a laser-tipped drill going at a decent rate took 16 hours to go trough it).

As for your last comment, I already have a death for it, where Unit 00 corrodes its AT field while on the drill form, Unit 02 covers unit 01 (which is equipped with some parts of the D-type armor and mostly covered in RCC) with another heatshield. They leap high into the air, and come down to pierce its core with a sonic glaive from above, where the AT field is weak. The glaive is of course melted down by the extreme temperature and the EVAs are heavily damaged, but it manages to hit the core slightly, so the unstable core implodes in on itself.

Besides, why is my angel considered too powerful if Uriel created the universe?

Besides, why is my angel considered too powerful if Uriel created the universe?

1. I don't remember Uriel creating the world. Then again, this is a really long thread.
   
   
2. Uriel still had to engage his enemies in a straight fight, with weapons and everything.
   
   
3. Related to your idea that your star angel would be more damaging from orbit, remember what I said about atmospheric effects? This thing would create anywhere from impact-like effects (if comparable to a nuclear blast) to altering the jet stream at lower ends of its power.
   
   
4. Although it is more excusable in anime, you might want to know that plasma makes a rather bad weapon. But don't take my word for it.
   

After that, lowering the things power to about the temperatures Sandalphon endured should be about good. But you might want to double check.

Edit: it occurs to me that the surface of the sun has a temperature of about 6000K. That is the coolest part of the sun. I hope that helps you in some way.