Congratulations to all the winners! Nice giveaway zeogold.

I agree, becoming good at something takes hard work, but it seems like drawing is just not something I'm cut out for. I'm so clumsy about it, I am seriously capable of messing up a stick figure. :P

Other things I couldn't do but learned through perseverance, like writing, video editing and ... well, crocheting. :P But the drawing thing does not work out for me. I really enjoy seeing other people's awesome works, though, and yours were definitely a highlight.

Why was this time so much more successful than the five times I did it before? Is it my karma?
I'm very glad about zeogold's activity in the forums, he seems to have a knack for such things and the right spirit.

Thanks for the two games too, I actually didn't expect to gain anything here apart from spreading creativity.

I think it could be because some people have favorited my HQ thread which I bump every time I do something new. And on top of that, I did a bit of "scouting" as well to find entrants and had some other people doing the same (there were actually still about 2-3 others who wanted to enter in the competition but didn't make it in time).

And let that be a lesson to you! Nobody gets away from the Puzzlemaster empty-handed so easily!
Alright, then your games will be passed down to the other winners.

This should teach me to never underestimate the American's power of advertising!

Thanks again! It sounds like you already do many different things, you don't have to do everything (at once) so as long as you enjoy those things that you currently persist in, you are fortunate already.
Btw when I haven't drawn anything for 3 days or longer, I become more and more clumsy, as well. Some people don't get rusty that quickly but I do and so do many others. Fortunately it only takes a couple days or in worst case a couple weeks to get back into things but longer breaks are to be avoided as much as possible. 2 years ago, I traveled to Poland and because I hadn't drawn for a couple weeks before the trip, I was so terribly rusty that I flew back home after less than 2 days. The weather was far too hot and I felt like I could not see proportions and couldn't put down any remotely accurate marks. I then took a couple days of rest and tried again, that time the weather and my mindset was better and I stayed for about 3 weeks and got a decent amount of drawings and paintings done. It was a struggle and I was low on energy but I managed to persist. Reasonable perseverance generally pays off, being too stubborn can (and does) lead to burnout but taking a short break and then trying again and again and again - that makes all the difference even if one isn't 100% focused and purposeful all the time. There's this cheesy but completely true saying that the master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried so let's all fail many times until we eventually and without great fanfare master something. In other words, we expect a master scarf from you for Mark VII :)







Karma works in subtle ways - don't sell yourself short, it's the 5 previous rounds that put this giveaway series on people's radar. I can't speak for other people but in my case, I just couldn't slack off for yet another round regardless of who hosted it so had you hosted it yourself, I'd have participated just the same.
You know that tale about the Chinese artist who was asked to draw a fish and when he finally delivered the perfect drawing after many months, the client asked why it took so incredibly long? The artist then brought the client to the back room and showed him 999 fish drawings lying around in one huge pile. The one he gave to the client was the 1000th attempt.

In other words, all previous giveaway rounds accumulated into this round and they were all necessary.

You can just smell the capitalism every time you walk past a McDonald's.
But misteryo's right, you did have 5 games before this which people remembered. Heck, it's the whole reason I decided to start this round!

Whenever I smell a McDonalds nearby, I instantly have to think of Terry Pratchett's personified American spirit:
Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler

Forgot to say thanks misteryo, much appreciated :)

Since I couldn't give you an exact answer in this post, I made another sketch compilation where you can see who is staring at their smartphones and who isn't. Of 21 people, 14 were busy with their phones so that makes 2 out of 3. Including the Korean girl in the top row, second from the left. She was holding a coffee cup but had a phone on her lap that isn't visible on the sketch. Most of these sketches are from February and 3 or 4 are from January.

Statistics: (of 21 people total)

-14 were using a phone
-3 were talking to other people
-3 were just sitting and waiting
-1 was studying from a book (psychology student)

Great drawings. That's about what I did expect, you could make a huge compilation of those smartphone users and call it "Socially Connected Isolation", "Technocracy" or something like this, properly advertised it would be worth something in a gallery.

Thanks again, interesting idea even if it would be putting the cart before the horse - those drawings were not made for the purpose of Gesellschaftskritik, they are first and foremost the by-product on my path to get good at this particular skill.
Some of these drawings have stories behind them that would be quite entertaining if I wrote them down because when you spend so much time around random people in public, interesting/odd things are bound to happen even if those things are for the most part incidental to the drawings themselves, or entirely unrelated.

Did you sneeze, or can I get a translation of that word?

criticism of society / social criticism

Ah. That is also how it is for me when I sneeze. It's a criticism of society's allergies.
Jokes aside, the idea of putting together a collection of this stuff sounds interesting. Could make for a nice exhibit.

I like strong pictures with social criticism, especcially this one: