First Place - 01 - Dasch

Second Place - 07 - Maximiliano de Seixas Gonçalves Third Place - 08 - Andrej Witbrot

02 - Kathy LaFollett 03 - Mike Patton 04 - Christian Moore

05 - Willard Black 06 - Ahmad Zaki 09 - Patrick Bliss

I wasn't going to post a challenge at all, considering how close the holidays are. People may go on vacation, all the decorating and planning, cooking, shopping, etc. But then, I guess, there's another group who have a little more time on their hands during the holidays. Work slows down or you have a bit of time off of school. I figure I'll post one anyway and see who comes out to play.

Santa really gets it easy. He only gets portrayed as a happy, jolly fellow and he only has to work one day a year. So that makes Santa an easy target. Lets make fun of him =)

Your challenge, should you chose to accept it, is recreate a scene from a famous movie with Santa as one of the key players. Maybe he's Indiana Jones running from a giant boulder. Or Santa as Luke Skywalker duelling with Darth Vader, or as Rhett Butler leaving Scarlet on the staircase. Whatever you want. The goal is to make it funny and absurd.

It doesn't need to be realistic. It can be cartoony or stylized. That's up to you, but it has to be a complete scene. Santa has to look like Santa: Big guy, white beard, possibly dressed in the red suit with the fur lining. Frankly, the point here is comedy, so the red suit would add to the silliness of the whole scene.

No Poser models.

There is a slight modification to the rules this time. You may want to add a caption or captions to your piece (text to show what the characters are saying). You are welcome to add these with Photoshop or any other image editor after rendering. Other than that, there still shouldn't be any other post-processing.

Of course, it's always important that whatever you do is well executed. No matter what style or subject, quality always matters. The most important thing this time is that it's funny.

Rules and Conditions

As always, the entry must be entirely done in Strata, and all effects must be done "in-camera" (no post-render Photoshop trickery). No models from other programs may be used (this includes Poser) no photos may be used as backgrounds (no composition) although the use of altered photos as textures is fine, of course.

No Poser models.

If you have any questions regarding challenge rules or theme guidelines, please email me at michael@stratacafe.com

Entries must be JPG files, but they can be any size. Just try to keep it reasonable. If it doesn't fit on anyone's screen, it doesn't leave a good impression.

Entries will be accepted until midnight on Sunday December 29^th 2002. The judges will be considering the quality and creativity of the modelling, texturing and rendering.

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

Entries will consist of a JPG file, and a screenshot of your model in Strata3D. The image cannot contain your name or email address anywhere on it, as the judging will be anonymous.

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.

These rules may be subject to change without notice before the close of the contest.

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.

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.)