First Stage Cover Design.
And I do have a bitter rant about this one. Don’t read if you don’t want bitter ranting. So, me and all of my classmates did three illustrations for first stage in the hopes of publication and the chance at $300 for each illustration. I wasn’t counting on winning, but it’s always nice. I slaved my ass off on getting this cover right, and, theoretically, it was the hardest of the ten possible assignments to do, because it has to include references to all nine plays, target all possible audiences, and still look like a striking cover.
I knew I wasn’t going to win for Peter and the Wolf or To the Promised Land (the result of which was such crap I won’t even bother). And I felt pretty snubbed in the assignments, because the play I was born to illustrate I somehow didn’t get picked for. And I’m not just making stuff up, everyone was pretty surprised. But since I got the cover, which is kind of an honor, I didn’t bitch and moan about it.
The selection occurs. They decide to not do any of the covers and instead run the interior play illustrations as the covers, alternating seasonally.
So, okay, those things happen, right? And even though I tried really hard at this, and effectively lost a chance at winning some other prize because of it, I can deal with this just being the way things go.
My teacher puts up the top 4 selections in the hall for each category, with the winners always place in the upper right corner, second place upper left, and so on. Lo and behold, the “winning” cover selections are also put up, and mine was in the “first place” spot. I nearly flipped my shit. Maybe I should be happy that I did such a great design, but to know that I would have won, and then didn’t…really pisses me off. :|