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Joe: Producers, Art directors, Lead Artists, Creative Directors--Fred does a good job finding a good mix of seasoned, highly respected artists and developers. This year's judges haven't been announced yet, but you can see what some of last year's judges had to say here: http://www.gameartisans.org/dominancewar/2/judges/index.htm

Joe: Well, on a company-wide level this year is the first year that Dominance War has sponsors. So far 38 Studios, Blizzard, Infinity Ward, Ensemble Studios, Saber Interactive, EA Mobile, and Maxon have signed up to lend a hand, and hopefully that list grows next year! On a more individual level, with the size of this year's contest being as big as it is, I'd say it's pretty tough to be an artist in the game industry and NOT hear about it. As a "Publicity Manager" I'd love to take credit for that--but I think it has more to do with how chatty artists are--were always wanting to share cool art and show off our best stuff. Often times artists are unable to really show off what they've done because of NDAs, so the Dominance War lends itself perfectly as an outside-of-work, just-for-fun outlet for sharing. And after all, what game artist WOULDN'T want one of those cintiqs? So, to answer your question, professional game artists are not only watching from the sidelines, but a lot of them are joining right in on the fun. Veterans, students, hobbyists, freelancers--Dominance War is a pretty nice blend of all of the above.

Joe: This is an easy one--there's always a number of top-tier artists that enter Dominance War that everyone on the boards is familiar with. These guys are sort of mini-celebrities, and everyone flocks to check out their stuff--which is usually quite awesome. However, the best part of these contests is when a top-tier artist joins up that NO ONE has heard of. For whatever reason these artists slipped through the online-community cracks or never felt like showing off or contributing. Perhaps some of these people have been working in the industry for years--but they never felt the incentive to build up an online presence. There's always a couple of them every Dominance War--usually they get dragged into the contest by coworkers and they completely wow everyone. It's one thing to be amazed by an entry by someone you know delivers--it's another thing to open up a stranger's thread/entry and be completely floored off-guard. :-)

Joe: Well, Fred Hultqvist would be the best person to contact. You can email him at "fredh [at] dominancewar [dot] com". This last year the sponsorship was broken into tiers, with the highest one including logo and link placement on Dominance War splash pages and various subpages, "official sponsor" status, which is usually referenced whenever anyone writes in magazines or online. In addition, all sponsor logos are shown on any event signage and posters, the sponsors receive a one year job-posting service on gamartisans.org, access to gameartisans.org's beta employer functions, (which include all sorts of filtering based off of member locations, experience, software preferences, availability, etc.), and the ability to view the final submitted entries before the public. That last one is pretty key, because if a company hasn't been following all the individual threads, they can still get the scoop on talent! Oh, also, sponsors were encouraged to write an 'opening paragraph' about themselves and why they decided to sponsor Dominance War. All-in-all, it's a pretty fancy list. Hopefully next year we can offer even more!

Joe: Oh, now there's a question that could get me in trouble! *winks* There's far too many potential winners to go listing them all, but that hasn't stopped people from trying. A couple of 'spy threads' have started up--basically they are discussions on who's doing exceptional work on competing forums. It's not really 'spying', since cross-forum chatter is what the contest is all about, but the name seems to have stuck. There's also the official thumbnail gallery of all the entries, right on DominanceWar.com.

Joe: It's not too late to enter yet! Also, when Fred isn't busy running Dominance War, he runs GameArtisans.org. At GA there are smaller, month long competitions and even week-long mini-competitions. There are also showcases, artist galleries, a big brother mentor-ship program, tutorials, and a lot of nice people. It's always good to see new faces too!

What do you think of the Dominance War contest and it's artwork? Would you want to enter? Let us know on the forums!