Weekend Update (June 1)

Hello everyone and welcome to June!

The winner of the COTW vote for May 19-25 was Dylan W!

Full Results

Dylan W. - 3

Mat W. - 2

Mike S. - 2

TG - 2

Tristan - 0

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The new COTW nominees for May 26-June 1 (last vote of May) have been listed on the side of the page. Automatically entering this week's vote is Kevin P's Jokerit concept. It won the Jokerit KHL Competition and I forgot to place it in last week's vote. So you'll find it in this week's vote instead. You would probably consider it the favourite because the other concepts were not seconded for COTW. No concept was seconded for COTW this past week. The four concepts from this week that are in the vote were the only concepts that even got one nomination.

You can click the black banner, listing the entrants, to see the concepts or you can navigate to the CONCEPT OF THE WEEK tab. Email your votes in right now, before the Friday deadline.

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There were only seven entries into the HJC Open Logo Competition, so we will conduct the voting in the same way we do for COTW votes. You will only vote for ONE entry. The entry you want to win. The entry with the most votes by the end of Friday will be the winner! Get those votes in now...to the competition email!

If you're one of the few people clever enough to read what I write here, you are now privy to this info; When the tournament starts in July, every concept entered into the HJC Open must be a new concept. New as in never before seen on HJC. That means the winner will need 4 brand new concepts to go all the way.

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When we all sit down for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final this Wednesday, you should also have your computer nearby. At 9pm Eastern the HJC Live Chat will return!

These live chats have typically been very fun. We'll talk about the game. We'll discuss concepts. There will be some polls. The Head-To-Head votes will return. That's where we take two concepts and place them up against each other in a quick vote to determine a winner. Nothing on the line except for some bragging rights. For the Game 1 Live Chat, we will be placing concepts against each other from the two teams in the Final. That's the Rangers and whoever wins Game 7 tonight (LA or CHI).

Click the banner at the top of the page to get all of the details

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I bet you're kicking yourself. Everyone had a chance to get a Rangers white Lady Liberty jersey for $3, when the raffle was up. No one bought a single ticket though.

Now all of those prizes are on eBay and going for whatever someone wants to pay for them. Click the eBay icon near the top right of the page to get in on all of the bidding action. We have the Lady Liberty jersey, a 2014 Olympic Canada jersey, and a replica Lightning Stanley Cup ring. Hopefully this stuff sells well and I can keep coming up with some more auctions. Or if these auctions start doing REALLY well, I can pay for a PollDaddy Pro account and place voting on the side of the page for the COTW, like you guys want. Now it's clear, you must buy these jerseys!

These auctions start to end on Tuesday, so get in on the fun soon.

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HJC is very cyclical. Every 12-18 months a group of artists will find new interests, other than HJC, and a batch of rookie artists will take up those spots. This change seems to be happening right now and it's about the 3rd time that HJC has gone through this cycle.

Seeing as there are quite a few rookies here now, let me bring up an old image which may help some people identify areas of a jersey that a writer may be referring to during their critique.

Take a good look at that image and get to know some of the parts of a jersey. It may help clear up some confusion.

Also remember that the review given on any day is only the opinion of that day's writer. Also keep in mind that we want to help everyone improve. Always. We always want to see artists improve. It's a really cool feeling when you watch an artist start by getting consistently rated 4 or 5 out of 10 and then make their way up to 8 or 9 out of 10.

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Dylan W. created one of the first realistic Shop.NHL.com templates for HJC readers. It has been on the TEMPLATES page for a while. What I like about it is that Dylan is always updating it and trying to make it better. He has recently released his 3rd version of the template. It can now be found on the TEMPLATES page.

If you hop on over to the HJC Design Blog right now, you can download the template there too. However, the biggest feature found there is a 3 part video tutorial that Dylan has done which will explain how to properly use his template. Awesome!

The template is for Photoshop, but if you have the plugin for Paint.net you can use it there too.

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Speaking of Photoshop, Adobe has made a very old version of Creative Suite (CS2) available for FREE!!! You need an Adobe account or you need to sign up for a free one. Creative Suite includes Photoshop and Illustrator, among other programs. They aren't spectacular in this version (obviously), but I find they can get the job done. No more complaining that you don't have Photoshop or Illustrator to make your concepts good. Besides, blaming a computer program for a bad concept is never an acceptable excuse.

DOWNLOAD HERE

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COTW May 26 - June 1 vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

HJC Open Logo vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)