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DISCLAIMER:
1: I am not disappointed/angry because " my pictures aren't accepted to White dwarf " , I am demotivated because of taking my time in telling a great story about how I found this forum and joined the monthly challenge endeavor, also showing loads and loads of images (also uploaded to my blog!) and then getting no response -whatsoever- while the WD magazine literally advertised for people to do so. That was the issue, so don't make it into something its not.
2: I am not someone with "bad writing skills" considering I have written fantasy books for godsake. And I guarantee that an hour of time creates a lot of text for me considering my typingspeed is faster than 90% of the population.
3: Thanks for kicking, wrestling-knee-dropping and throwing bicycle tires' at the man who is already down, show's who to socialize with on this site and who not to.
4: Stop taking my thread so seriously, yes it reads like an angry rant but I typed this all out with a pokerface, at best/worst I've sighed at the situation. Again, demotivated is the keyword here. It's demotivating to send (LOADS OF) images and a huge cool story to WD and getting no response while sending even the worst of my work to games workshop will get me an email back telling me in detail what they thought of it.

Here's the original thread:

So, being the naive aspiring dwarf that I am.. reading a distinct standalone advert in the whitedwarf issue of januari.. to send in stories and pics of your content and experiences, I sent them my work and the story of how I found this forum after 10.000 years of opening random portals in the realms..
Finding an upgrade to my painting being the challenge-thread etc etc.. and tried to make the email as humorously (without trying) as possible.

Didn't get a response..

So a week or two later I mailed them again asking why they didn't even bother to respond at all after such a specific advert and me complying with it and all.. and that this was rather demotivating.. and that games workshop -always- responds to me sending them pics of my work..

(didn't add this to the mail btw)--> And was worried that perhaps they thought I was not the real painter of the contents in the pics..

So finally a week ago got a response apologising for not responding blabla, and that "my pictures were not up to standard.."

Well sorry for not owning a 5 billion value professional camera and just having a 450 bucks one and a self made lightbox because NO STORES IN MY TOWN SELL ANYTHING ANYMORE and are currently literally going out of buisiness one by one. And I have no internet-banking (nor want it in my life) so can't order online either... so I cannot make the image look like it was made by hollywood.

But wow.. to throw like an hour of composing a really awesome story to the side with the rejection based on bad photo quality (honestly, go to my blog on this site to see my work.. is that such bad photo quality at all?) is even more demotivating that getting no response at all.

Seriously contemplating no longer buying white dwarf ever again. :/

Feel free to also kick this man who's already downed btw. (not that I expect this from this forum's awesome community, but you know.. its easier to kick someone who's down than someone who's doing backflip zangief kicks)

Kind regards and thanks for hearing my laments.
-Leopold Helveine - dwarf of the realms who's got his beard pulled.

I mean first up you don't need internet banking to do online shopping. A standard debit card works just fine and whilst many have phone apps for approval of payments as a security measure, many also still do one-time phone calls to your registered number to do the same thing.

Whilst I also dislike the death of the highstreet shop, there comes a point where refusing to use any online shopping system at all is going to leave you missing out on a lot of things, especially if you don't live in a major urban area on the up with a lot of retail variety.


As for photos and the White Dwarf, they likely get hundreds to thousands of messages and emails and such each month. They also have a standard to uphold and a quality of photos that need t obe above a certain level in order to print well in the magazine. So there are going to be technical limits, style limits, theme limits, taste limits and just the simple fact that there's a LOT of content going to them and some won't make the cut and some will.


I wouldn't take it personally. Especially today where you can freely setup a blog of your own; or an Instagrame, Facebook, Thread on Dakka - there are oh so so so so many ways to connect with the gaming community and share your stories, models, paintwork - get direct feedback; improve, learn, socialise.



I totally get being bummed out that you didn't get into WD, but at the same time I'd honestly say either take it as a challenge to learn more, up your game, get feedback on your photography, your painting, your writing - push yourself ot meet the standard; or just take it in stride and focus on social connections and communities you are also already apart of and perhaps extend out toward others.

Even most camera phones are pretty high quality these days. One thing to consider is the format you are sending pictures in. What’s OK quality for web posting might not be up to snuff for print. I think the default for a lot of email programs is to send compressed lower quality versions. You might need to dig into the options to make sure you are sending in high-def pictures.

While I use a $50 lightbox you can pickup on Amazon, you can also build your own. You need a lot of light, and defused. But this can be from a couple of desk lamps and a cardboard box with holes cut and covered with some parchment paper.

It’s always rough getting feedback like that.

What do you use for your photos? Format as well is helpful for feedback if you want it. I sure someone can give you some help.




But I do think it’s sad that it was rejected for that, as so much hobby experiances are lost if they push to much for quality.
It is why they have there own promo photos for after all.

 Overread wrote:
I mean first up you don't need internet banking to do online shopping. A standard debit card works just fine and whilst many have phone apps for approval of payments as a security measure, many also still do one-time phone calls to your registered number to do the same thing.

Whilst I also dislike the death of the highstreet shop, there comes a point where refusing to use any online shopping system at all is going to leave you missing out on a lot of things, especially if you don't live in a major urban area on the up with a lot of retail variety.
-

I totally get being bummed out that you didn't get into WD, but at the same time I'd honestly say either take it as a challenge to learn more, up your game, get feedback on your photography, your painting, your writing - push yourself ot meet the standard; or just take it in stride and focus on social connections and communities you are also already apart of and perhaps extend out toward others.

Firstly, I don't want credit/debit cards either, I'm a windowshopper and a realworld kind of person. I do buisiness in first person.

I also don't have a mobile phone (last one was in 2001, yes that's not a typo) nor ever had a smartphone and don't want one for a plethora of reasons.
Well then I guess I'll "miss out on a lot of things", I'll hang out in nature.
-

Tbh I wasn't bummed out for 'not getting into WD' but for not even getting a response at all while the mail I sent them was huge with a great story about how I found this forum community etc and how I came to the themes of my armies and writing even a whole fantasy novel firstly based off of the theorycraft of my armies later rewritten to be a standalone thing..

And then to be ignored.. that was the kick in the sprues for me.

Apple fox wrote:
It’s always rough getting feedback like that.

What do you use for your photos? Format as well is helpful for feedback if you want it. I sure someone can give you some help.




But I do think it’s sad that it was rejected for that, as so much hobby experiances are lost if they push to much for quality.
It is why they have there own promo photos for after all.

Yeah, shouldn't they have a section for "lesser than golden demon quality" people that send in photos? I mean.. not for people who just coat their minis in unthinned lobs of paint and call it done but holy heck my work isn't even mediocre. :/ I may not overly line my mini's but that's because I dislike that hyper-lighted look, I prefer the more grimdark look for my results.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:


Yeah, shouldn't they have a section for "lesser than golden demon quality" people that send in photos? I mean.. not for people who just coat their minis in unthinned lobs of paint and call it done but holy heck my work isn't even mediocre. :/ I may not overly line my mini's but that's because I dislike that hyper-lighted look, I prefer the more grimdark look for my results.

Yes - facebook regularly has "show us your XYZ" posts for community sharing of stuff.

GW reserves certain content for certain formats and WD is simply a higher tier.
There's also places like Facebook - their own stores (most GW stores have at least one display with customer painted models on show).

Plus as I noted there are so so so many ways to connect with communities now that you can use a slew of different websites to interact with and share your work; get feedback, improve and perhaps one day be up to the pass quality for WD if you wish.

 Nevelon wrote:
Even most camera phones are pretty high quality these days. One thing to consider is the format you are sending pictures in. What’s OK quality for web posting might not be up to snuff for print. I think the default for a lot of email programs is to send compressed lower quality versions. You might need to dig into the options to make sure you are sending in high-def pictures.

While I use a $50 lightbox you can pickup on Amazon, you can also build your own. You need a lot of light, and defused. But this can be from a couple of desk lamps and a cardboard box with holes cut and covered with some parchment paper.

This is great advice right here. Hand Nevelon a DakkaDakka trophy 100%.
Parchment paper at the very least, get creative with your photos.
The GW studio camera of the past made for great shots in old WD. It was not the camera quality but the lighting and scenery, the imagination and thought process.

I can't really comment on your experience with GW but stay positive in the hobby community it serves great as a drive to make miniatures to show off to all.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
So, being the naive aspiring dwarf that I am.. reading a distinct standalone advert in the whitedwarf issue of januari.. to send in stories and pics of your content and experiences, I sent them my work and the story of how I found this forum after 10.000 years of opening random portals in the realms..
Finding an upgrade to my painting being the challenge-thread etc etc.. and tried to make the email as humorously (without trying) as possible.

Didn't get a response..

So a week or two later I mailed them again asking why they didn't even bother to respond at all after such a specific advert and me complying with it and all.. and that this was rather demotivating.. and that games workshop -always- responds to me sending them pics of my work..

(didn't add this to the mail btw)--> And was worried that perhaps they thought I was not the real painter of the contents in the pics..

So finally a week ago got a response apologising for not responding blabla, and that "my pictures were not up to standard.."

Well sorry for not owning a 5 billion value professional camera and just having a 450 bucks one and a self made lightbox because NO STORES IN MY TOWN SELL ANYTHING ANYMORE and are currently literally going out of buisiness one by one. And I have no internet-banking (nor want it in my life) so can't order online either... so I cannot make the image look like it was made by hollywood.

But wow.. to throw like an hour of composing a really awesome story to the side with the rejection based on bad photo quality (honestly, go to my blog on this site to see my work.. is that such bad photo quality at all?) is even more demotivating that getting no response at all.

Seriously contemplating no longer buying white dwarf ever again. :/

Feel free to also kick this man who's already downed btw. (not that I expect this from this forum's awesome community, but you know.. its easier to kick someone who's down than someone who's doing backflip zangief kicks)

Kind regards and thanks for hearing my laments.
-Leopold Helveine - dwarf of the realms who's got his beard pulled.

I think you're taking this too personally IMO. First thing, with an advert like this, they're going to get a lot of submissions for this kind of thing, so it may just be the volume of people sending stuff, particularly since it will include actual stories next to the pictures and not just a quick glance at what looks good for the usual submissions for painted models. Secondly, knowing how GW treat their staff, they've likely assigned only one or two people to comb through this huge pile of submissions on top of their usual work. So either they had already basically picked a batch of stories/pictures before or by the time they went through yours and the pictures aren't up to snuff isn't the real answer but just a generic answer they give when they've already chosen which submissions they'll use, or yours just isn't as good as the rest of the people who submitted their stories/pictures. At the end of the day, they'll choose the best ones and they can't fit everybody's submissions in, since you don't know who else submitted it, you can't really claim yours was the best, either in terms of story or in terms of the pictures/painted models. Also, trust me as someone who deals with an absurd amount of emails every day from work, long emails is something most people are not a fan of, even if it's requested, and if you don't have the prose or storytelling ability to really grab someone's attention in the first 15-30 seconds, they'll skim what you wrote at best.

It feels a little entitled for you to feel like yours should automatically be considered to be in their magazine when you know the level of quality painters and people who may have better imaging that you're competing against across the world (who might also do post editing on the pictures to enhance stuff like contrast). If you get showcased in WD, great! If not, dem's the breaks.

First off, if your money is in a bank it's digital and you can purchase stuff online with it. If you don't do that or just deal in cash that's perfectly fine, but that's a choice you've made. In either case I'm not sympathetic because these are your choices. I'm not judging or criticizing you for them, so please don't take it like that, but those are the results of your choices. You can take good quality photos with a mid-range phone and a cheap light box just fine. Again, if you don't have a phone with a camera that's your choice, but you are in control. These are your choices and your problems.

As to the response, they apologised for not responding, and they gave you honest feedback. I'm not sure what was expected here. You're not due a response in the first place, in the same way as you're not due a response when you post stuff online. Sometimes you put a lot of effort into something and get nothing in return and that's okay. If the positive response is what you're after that's fine too, but no one owes you a positive response, not a random dude online and not a company. It's completely fine to be motivated by that, but at the same time it's completely fine for them to not respond or to have responses held behind criteria. They owe you nothing.

This comes across as pretty entitled to me. You have no idea how many submissions they get when they run an advert like that in WD, but my guess would be it's a lot. GW not sending you a response is not really out of the ordinary or unexpected to me. The rejection based on quality of the photograph makes perfect sense. Print production has relatively high standards for images, not just in terms of resolution but also in terms of composition, lighting, etc. Instead of accepting a reasonable explanation for your rejection you have a whole list of excuses for why the image isn't up to standard, but fail to realise the end result of the image is entirely up to you and GW don't really care why an image is not good enough. There were likely hundreds of submissions from people who did submit good quality images but you expect yours to be considered alongside them?

On top of that, you mention it took you an hour to compose this story. That's not really a long time at all. I'd expect it to take longer than that to write something you expect to be published in an international magazine with a circulation in the six-figure range (I assume that's still an accurate estimate for WD's readership). Just looking at how you've written your opening post here I'd be sceptical about the quality of the writing in your submission.

All of this isn't to say you shouldn't keep writing. You should keep looking for inspiration. Keep being creative, whether that's through writing or painting. But you also need to understand how to deal with rejection in a positive fashion. The first stage in that process is being open to accepting the reasons for rejection. It seems like you're not quite there yet.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
DISCLAIMER:
1: I am not disappointed/angry because " my pictures aren't accepted to White dwarf " , I am demotivated because of taking my time in telling a great story about how I found this forum and joined the monthly challenge endeavor, also showing loads and loads of images (also uploaded to my blog!) and then getting no response -whatsoever- while the WD magazine literally advertised for people to do so. That was the issue, so don't make it into something its not.
2: I am not someone with "bad writing skills" considering I have written fantasy books for godsake. And I guarantee that an hour of time creates a lot of text for me considering my typingspeed is faster than 90% of the population.
3: Thanks for kicking, wrestling-knee-dropping and throwing bicycle tires' at the man who is already down, show's who to socialize with on this site and who not to.
4: Stop taking my thread so seriously, yes it reads like an angry rant but I typed this all out with a pokerface, at best/worst I've sighed at the situation. Again, demotivated is the keyword here. It's demotivating to send (LOADS OF) images and a huge cool story to WD and getting no response while sending even the worst of my work to games workshop will get me an email back telling me in detail what they thought of it.

Not sure why you updated the first post but didn't bother to actually reply to me or the last few people after me that responded like Slipspace and Beast when the update is clearly aimed towards our comments.

In any case, for your first point, I mean, like we said, spending an hour that you feel like you wasted isn't great, but an hour really isn't that long to be honest, especially if you claim to be such a great writer to begin with, given that I assume you spend much more time actually writing stories. Also, sharing an insane amount of pictures is arguably counterintuitive, because unless you provide high quality ones or a highlight of the ones that are relevant (which you've admitted that you are basically are not willing to put the effort to compete with others) it's just going to be a slog just like when someone provides a 8 page resume to show how overqualified they are. I'm also unsure as to why you think your story is something so special. Nothing to say it can't be something close to your own heart personally, but just going about how you found a great community through this forum doesn't exactly scream headliner, especially since internet forums are a dying breed nowadays and many readers may not relate. Again, you have no idea how many people actually submitted to this advertisement or how much effort they actually put compared to you, so it's very presumptous to assume that you would get an immediate response or one that is proportional to the time you put into it. It's not like you're on a first name basis with the person actually going through the submissions, for all intents and purposes you're just one of many people and they have very limited space as to who they can showcase. It would be like getting upset at one of the polls some companies run for naming a new product, and being personally offended that they didn't use your submission when you have thousands of other people sending stuff as well.

For your second point, no offense but being a rando fantasy writer doesn't exactly qualify you as a strong writer, especially when you're only talking up typing speed which isn't reflective of being a strong writer. I'm curious if you feel confident enough to link us the stories you're so proud of.

For your third point and final point, it's a bit funny that you complain about being called out when you literally wrote in your original post:

"Feel free to also kick this man who's already downed btw."

From the last three responses, I wouldn't even really consider them rude, so much as highlighting why you're acting a bit overdramatic over something so small (to use your own words, stop taking this thread so seriously!). I'm not sure if you understand what a pokerface is, because it's pretty clear you're upset throughout your posts because otherwise you wouldn't have bothered even setting up a thread solely about not having been responded to for something as little as an advert from WD.

If what you're expecting is a tide of affirmation and validation that yes, WD should be falling over at their knees to prostrate before your amazing email story, I don't really know what to say to you. It's also hard to sympathize when there's little evidence to back your statement that your submission was all that amazing.

It's definitely a weird, slightly passive-aggressive approach to update the OP with oblique references to comments rather than actually engage with those comments directly.

In summary, you've basically admitted you didn't have the best equipment and set-up for taking images but then claimed providing publication-quality image is out of the reach of mere mortals, when that's clearly not the case. You maintain your submission was amazing and should have been given more consideration but show little evidence of that fact beyond your own assertion. Do you know how many people submitted? Have you seen any of those submissions to judge against your own? You equate writing skill with typing speed, which is an odd non-sequitur. My comments about your writing style were based on this post here and your strange, constant use of the not-quite-ellipsis. If you're a published fantasy writer I assume you're familiar with how submissions and feedback generally go. I can't believe someone as sensitive to poor feedback as you seem to be hasn't encountered this kind of rejection from publishers before.

As for kicking you while you're down and taking the thread seriously, it seems like you're not really willing to learn from this experience or listen to more objective viewpoints than your own. What did you expect? You provide no evidence to back your claim that your submission was worthy of printing and almost immediately went off on an odd tangent about internet shopping and banking that only served to deflect responsibility from yourself.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:


Here's the original thread:

So, being the naive aspiring dwarf that I am.. reading a distinct standalone advert in the whitedwarf issue of januari.. to send in stories and pics of your content and experiences, I sent them my work and the story of how I found this forum after 10.000 years of opening random portals in the realms..
Finding an upgrade to my painting being the challenge-thread etc etc.. and tried to make the email as humorously (without trying) as possible.

Its also possible that GW isn't going to put a story about Dakka Dakka (assuming that is the "this forum" you are referring to) in White Dwarf. Now, I will admit that I haven't subscribed to WD in a decade or more, and its had several iterations, but do they regularly give shoutouts to online forums? And I know Dakka has some kind of reputation across the intrawebs...

With re: to picture quality, another option is to find a friend or someone who has photography as a hobby, if you're not able to take high quality pics yourself. Maybe someone you know is looking to get some practice (and some exposure) doing close ups and using a light box. Even with a smartphone, I can't ever seem to get great pictures that would match those in WD, so I'd be leaning on friends of mine that do photography for help. I buy lunch, they snap some photos for me.

And I wouldn't look at the "rejection" as such. You have the story, you have photos, and all that work, so put them on a blog, here on Dakka in an article, or wherever and add the link to your sig to get some traffic. You made lemonade, now pass some around and let the rest of us enjoy it

This is a really weird thread.

If OP hadn't disclosed a bunch of details about their personal life, etc, I'd have pegged them as a teenager or young adult given their.. uh. expectations of GW/WD, view of the quality of their own work and how they expected them to interact with the reality of ..well, reality.

I did look through the small number of working links in OP's P&M thread, (all the pics after the first post there seem to be broken) and the models there are perfectly fine for tabletop, but nowhere near what you'd ever see in a WD showcase of any kind. That's not an insult, either. The vast, overwhelming majority of people out there's work isn't up to that level.

This is a bit of an aside, but having listened to quite a few of The Painting Phase's videos with Peachy and others pulling back the curtain from GW, it's pretty surprising just how badly-resourced and staffed (and managed!) a lot of their internal departments are, given that we tend to only see the slickly-produced outside, so I'd certainly second everything that Grimskul said about emails.

I dunno. I don't see people in this thread being arseholes - just realistic. Perhaps a bit blunt compared to what OP appears to have expected given the tone of the first post is the kind of vent that appears to seek a specific kind of commiseration for the hour that they spent writing, but nobody has gone out of their way to be rude here. As Beast said very well, everyone has choices and we all live with the consequences of those choices that we make.

Cruentus has the right idea.

Also - as I noted in my post - there are many ways to connect with gamers now outside of WD and honestly if your content isn't going to appear there most of us would likely love to see and read it here on Dakka in a thread of its own

 Overread wrote:
Also - as I noted in my post - there are many ways to connect with gamers now outside of WD and honestly if your content isn't going to appear there most of us would likely love to see and read it here on Dakka in a thread of its own

More or less this. WD shouldn't be put on some sort of pedestal in this day and age of the internet with so many people having great hobby content to share and with it being more easy to connect and find people who enjoy tabletop miniatures both outside and inside the GW bubble than ever before.

Could also be that as a person who isn't keen on using tech they were more excited about seeing their stuff in actual print.

 Azazelx wrote:
Could also be that as a person who isn't keen on using tech they were more excited about seeing their stuff in actual print.

In which case I would wonder why they would bother engaging with our forum to begin with. Realistically, it would make more sense to aim being spotlighted by their local game store in some way then, rather than hoping to be chosen by a magazine unless you get to the level of painting or photography that would be considered to be shown for Army on Parade or Golden Demon.

At that point we're back to my first couple of sentences above. Not disagreeing with you there, either...

 Azazelx wrote:
At that point we're back to my first couple of sentences above. Not disagreeing with you there, either...

Pretty much. I'm unsure if the OP will bother posting again in this thread given it doesn't seem like he wants to engage with me and some of the other posters in a productive manner, but we'd need more insight from his end otherwise we're just speculating on where he's coming from.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
DISCLAIMER:
1: I am not disappointed/angry because " my pictures aren't accepted to White dwarf " , I am demotivated because of taking my time in telling a great story about how I found this forum and joined the monthly challenge endeavor, also showing loads and loads of images (also uploaded to my blog!) and then getting no response -whatsoever- while the WD magazine literally advertised for people to do so. That was the issue, so don't make it into something its not.
2: I am not someone with "bad writing skills" considering I have written fantasy books for godsake. And I guarantee that an hour of time creates a lot of text for me considering my typingspeed is faster than 90% of the population.
3: Thanks for kicking, wrestling-knee-dropping and throwing bicycle tires' at the man who is already down, show's who to socialize with on this site and who not to.
4: Stop taking my thread so seriously, yes it reads like an angry rant but I typed this all out with a pokerface, at best/worst I've sighed at the situation. Again, demotivated is the keyword here. It's demotivating to send (LOADS OF) images and a huge cool story to WD and getting no response while sending even the worst of my work to games workshop will get me an email back telling me in detail what they thought of it.

Not sure why you updated the first post but didn't bother to actually reply to me or the last few people after me that responded like Slipspace and Beast when the update is clearly aimed towards our comments.

In any case, for your first point, I mean, like we said, spending an hour that you feel like you wasted isn't great, but an hour really isn't that long to be honest, especially if you claim to be such a great writer to begin with, given that I assume you spend much more time actually writing stories. Also, sharing an insane amount of pictures is arguably counterintuitive, because unless you provide high quality ones or a highlight of the ones that are relevant (which you've admitted that you are basically are not willing to put the effort to compete with others) it's just going to be a slog just like when someone provides a 8 page resume to show how overqualified they are. I'm also unsure as to why you think your story is something so special. Nothing to say it can't be something close to your own heart personally, but just going about how you found a great community through this forum doesn't exactly scream headliner, especially since internet forums are a dying breed nowadays and many readers may not relate. Again, you have no idea how many people actually submitted to this advertisement or how much effort they actually put compared to you, so it's very presumptous to assume that you would get an immediate response or one that is proportional to the time you put into it. It's not like you're on a first name basis with the person actually going through the submissions, for all intents and purposes you're just one of many people and they have very limited space as to who they can showcase. It would be like getting upset at one of the polls some companies run for naming a new product, and being personally offended that they didn't use your submission when you have thousands of other people sending stuff as well.

For your second point, no offense but being a rando fantasy writer doesn't exactly qualify you as a strong writer, especially when you're only talking up typing speed which isn't reflective of being a strong writer. I'm curious if you feel confident enough to link us the stories you're so proud of.

For your third point and final point, it's a bit funny that you complain about being called out when you literally wrote in your original post:

"Feel free to also kick this man who's already downed btw."

From the last three responses, I wouldn't even really consider them rude, so much as highlighting why you're acting a bit overdramatic over something so small (to use your own words, stop taking this thread so seriously!). I'm not sure if you understand what a pokerface is, because it's pretty clear you're upset throughout your posts because otherwise you wouldn't have bothered even setting up a thread solely about not having been responded to for something as little as an advert from WD.

If what you're expecting is a tide of affirmation and validation that yes, WD should be falling over at their knees to prostrate before your amazing email story, I don't really know what to say to you. It's also hard to sympathize when there's little evidence to back your statement that your submission was all that amazing.

I agree with all of this.

I would just like to add that I was very careful to not make personal criticism of OP. I've re-read it and given they're an adult I'm happy with it.

The obvious thing would be to post his WD submission on Dakka somewhere and pretty much announce the sort of feedback he's after - encouragement, positive feedback, or feedback regarding the WD submission.

I make it a point of my own online iteractions not to gak on other people's work regardless of their skill level because we all started somewhere and as long as you're having fun with it, you're doing it right, but if they're asking for specific feedback then to critique at whatever level they're asking for.

 Azazelx wrote:
The obvious thing would be to post his WD submission on Dakka somewhere and pretty much announce the sort of feedback he's after - encouragement, positive feedback, or feedback regarding the WD submission.

I make it a point of my own online iteractions not to gak on other people's work regardless of their skill level because we all started somewhere and as long as you're having fun with it, you're doing it right, but if they're asking for specific feedback then to critique at whatever level they're asking for.

Agreed and I'd be all for it for him to do something like that. It helps them channel the passion/energy he had for his WD submission and get some of the recognition he clearly wanted there while ideally getting some potential constructive feedback at the same time and maybe learning or sharing something new in the process. Whether or not he'll take your advice is another story.

Slipspace wrote:
It's definitely a weird, slightly passive-aggressive approach to update the OP with oblique references to comments rather than actually engage with those comments directly.

In summary, you've basically admitted you didn't have the best equipment and set-up for taking images but then claimed providing publication-quality image is out of the reach of mere mortals, when that's clearly not the case. You maintain your submission was amazing and should have been given more consideration but show little evidence of that fact beyond your own assertion.

I made the edit because a lot of people seem to be under similar impression about the intent of the mail to begin with.
And for reasons that are more likely to come from the twilight zone than reason.. even after thoroughly explaining myself you seem to still not grasp it..

Here' it is in short: I didn't email them to get my pictures into WD, I sent them a story about my experiences in joining a community and bringing new life to my hobby with it, being reinspired after having kindof writersblocked on the themes to make armies of. Also how I wrote an entire novel (and a second one still busy with but ..writersblocked<--) based on the theorycrafting of my first few armies that kindof spiralled out of control and became way too long descriptions with way too much detail therefor turning into the aformentioned novel which i later -entirely- rewrote with different names and descriptions not to backpack on GW's established concepts (but definatly inspired by)

Wether the pictures (loads of them, look into my blogthread to see about half the pics I've sent them) would be "accepted into the magazine" was never the crux, I care little to nothing about that, sure it would be cool' but what griped me was simply that after all that I got no response whatsoever contrasting the ongoing responses you get when you write to games workshop customer support. Go figure. And after I send them a mail telling them reservedly being demotivated by this they answer with the generic "images not good enough" completely ignoring the whole mail I sent them pretty much.

Hope that this matter is settled now lol.

Kind regards regard..less..
-Leopold Helveine.

Yes that was in short.

 Azazelx wrote:
The obvious thing would be to post his WD submission on Dakka somewhere and pretty much announce the sort of feedback he's after - encouragement, positive feedback, or feedback regarding the WD submission.

I make it a point of my own online iteractions not to gak on other people's work regardless of their skill level because we all started somewhere and as long as you're having fun with it, you're doing it right, but if they're asking for specific feedback then to critique at whatever level they're asking for.

Just to add another angle to the good points already made in the thread:

From a legal perspective, it's very bad mojo to do anything with e.g. stories, pictures etc. that get sent in without prompt or call for it - usually, as an editor, you can't guarantee that the person who sent it in even owns all the rights to allow you to actually use it, hasn't published some of it before, hasn't sold rights to other parties, and so on. When doing calls for stuff like that, you usually have a whole bag of terms and conditions to make sure that these risks are mitigated or put on the party sending stuff in, and even minor errors on their part like not putting the correct line of text into an email title or whatever can lead to summary disregard of an entry. Not saying that this is at all what happened here, but it's a common source of non-response: legally, not even acknowledging unprompted entries at all beyond an automated response is a policy many places have.