I'm really happy that we were able to work it out! ^-^

The staff was quite impressed with that new pic and it really did change their minds. I'm trying to talk them into being more forgiving, but that's what happens when you set up a voting committee. I still think it's more fair then having one person call all the shots, though.

I'm currently considering the idea of having a group of artists do the voting, instead. Do you think that would go over better? Let me know what you think. The main point of it is to make sure people who are drawing stick figures for attention don't end up with a tag. But I don't want artists voting against people they consider to be a rival, either (this possibility was brought up to me). Tough choice. :/

Anyway, you should really post that new pic to /artist when you are done with it. The detail on it is quite good. :D

Well personally artists can normally tell when someone has the skills and are on par with themselves or what artist they are on par with. Now I'm saying this from my personal thoughts on my own ability.

The hardest thing is to tell whether an artist is a copy-cat artist, cause believe it or not a while ago I used to attempt to copy the artistic styling of Karabiner. Though that failed, my studies of Karabiners art did help me develop my own style cause at the time I was searching for a style to call my own cause I hated the style my old pencil drawings had. That is when I turned to the digital alternative.

In short, yes I believe that a board of artists judging them would be a more fair, cause art critics are well, normally too critical.

Not only that but you're own resident artist did actually help me which shows a sign of community rather than a sign that you're just trying to create a place for art-whores. even if both probably are true.

The main thing I had a problem with was not the you're artist judge board. It was Reason 2.
Help to establish novice artists who have been accepted as on par with some of the more popular names or who have shown a rather unique and individual style.

The word "Novice" and the term "rather unique and individual style" is a very broad base to work with. I felt that was extremely unfair of the judges to say that I don't have either qualifications.

I also want to admit this is probably my worst piece in 1996 http://www.furaffinity.net/view/260199/ and was a good example to show me of why I was not initially accepted. But the reason lies in that I was tired of working on the piece when I released it so basically its un-critiqued and I brought it out on the off-chance someone would like it a lot.

Correction worst pic of 2006 ROFL yey for being a decade off.

Okay. Thank you for your input. ^^

We are trying to be a lot more lax as it is, but we will continue to consider having artists do it. The /artist board is still pretty experimental, as are the tags. The tags have been around for a while, but the influx of people requesting them has increased a great deal since the board launched. So the way we work with them will change a little as time goes on, until we find the very best way of running it.