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May 4 - It's That Time Again


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June 24 - Intergalactic Zoo


2006 Challenges

November 11 - Let It Snow


2005 Challenges

January 23 - 2001 Calling


2005 Challenges

July 31 - The Need for Speed

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January 19 - By Candlelight


2004 Challenges

December 12 - Southwest Holiday

October 28 - The Room

September 26 - Drivers, Start Your Blenders

Ausgust 8 - Shootout at the Cafe Corral

April 15 - Red Rock Challenge


2003 Challenges

October 26 - A Name You Can Trust

July 6 - Judge a book by its cover

Apr. 14 - Myst Opportunity

Feb. 9 - Home Sweet Home


2002 Challenges

Dec. 29 - The name is Claus, Santa Claus

Nov. 24 - The Flight of Man

Oct. 6 - Ancient Civilizations

Aug. 11 - Parfum de StrataCafe

June 11 - These boots were made for...

Apr. 26 - The Illustrated Man

March 29 - Salt and Pepper

March 8 - QTVR Spacecraft


2001 Challenges

Dec. 28 - SnowGlobe

Dec. 3 - StrataVectors

Oct. 19 - Sinister Toys

Sept. 14 - "Falling Apart"

Aug. 24 - Fantasy Computer

July 19 - A Plate of Food

June 11 - Cellphone

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Challenge Submissions

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StrataCafe Challenge - April 26th - The Illustrated Man

April 26th Challenge - Winners' Circle

First Place - 09 - Scott Clark


Second Place - 06 - Christopher Richard

Third Place - 05 - Dale (dasch) Schulz


April 26th Challenge - Entries

01- Maximiliano de Seixas Gonçalves

02 - Don Burchfield

03 - Patrick Bliss


04 - James Donnell

07 - Steven Hood

08 - Roger Grow


10 - Jerry Baker

11 - Steven Richards


12 - Michelle OHaire

13 - Scott Mason

April 26th Challenge "The Illustrated Man" - Outline

You just got a great job as an illustrator for a publishing house. The pay is great, your boss is great, but your first author won't let you read the book. (He's a bit of a prima-donna =). This is your challenge: you have to come up with an illustration based on the following excerpt from the book. No title, text or other book-like features, just the illustration:

"Long before the creation of the angels, avian beings flew the towering vaults of her spokes, looked out the clerestory windows, and knew the shape of God. Nowhere in the darkness did they see another like Gaea. This was the natural order of things: God was the world, the world was a wheel, and the wheel was Gaea."

Back to reality. This is a real quote from a real book, but I'm not telling you what it is. Bonus points for getting the subject right =)

This is the great part: Kevin Willis from TextureWorld.com has graciously donated a complete set of the textures from TextureWorld to be given away as first prize in the challenge. That's 3 CDs, containing over 1900 photorealistic, fully tiling texture maps. Most of them have bump, specular and stencil maps included as well. It normally sells for $399 US, which is already a great price, but you can get it here for the low, low price of winning this challenge.

Go to the site, check out the textures. If that isn't enough to make you want to enter this challenge, then I quit. There ain't no way to please you people =)

Entries will be accepted until April 26th 2002. The judges will be considering the quality and creativity of the piece (vague enough for you?) and I will be awarding honorary mentions to those who get closest to what the quote is actually describing. That part isn't for real prizes, I just like bugging you.

Rules and Conditions

It does have to be fully modeled, textured and rendered in Strata3D (any flavour).

Entries will consist of a 640 x 480 Jpg, and a screenshot of your model in Strata3D.

Judging will be done by a panel of 7 or more judges. I will select the panel after the close of the challenge from among community artists that did not enter the contest. The judges will not know the names of the contestants.

The results of the challenge will not be changed for any reason. Once the winners have won, that's that. Please don't email me to tell me that you should have won.

Please, if you have any questions or suggestions regarding the contest, please email me at: michael@stratacafe.com

The benefits of the contest:

1) Winners will receive a charming banner to place on their website. The first place winner will get one too, plus 3 CDs absolutely stuffed with textures.

2) There will also be a smaller graphic, that looks a lot like the larger graphic, that will reside on the winners profile page on StrataCafe, forever and ever.

3) People can come to this page to get information on up and coming contests and view past winners (That would be you!)

4) You will receive the adoration of your friends and family, as well as most of the people who visit StrataCafe. (Note: Adoration not a guarantee.)

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