BIONICLE Canon Contest #3: Honor Guard

[ToaKebaka]

@Hazash

But it’s not. The rules essentially say “you can give consent to changes or not, for whatever reason the artist might want.”

For me, I would give consent to all changes to my designs, but only in the interest of consistency. I don’t want artists to change my design just because they feel like it. That’s my point. These consent rules were put in place to avoid duplicates and inconsistencies, yet they leave the door open to artists just redesigning things on a whim, which isn’t in the spirit of why that rule was implemented. By all means people can allow artists to redesign their entries on a whim, but that’s a completely separate sentiment to allowing changes for the sake of wanting consistency. And the rules being written without any explanation as to why it was included leaves the door open to people assuming it was for no other reason than the former (letting artists change their designs on a whim).

I see you have it backwards Hazash. More specifically you seem to have a wrong idea about what the actual reason behind implementing this rule was.
I should know, because after all, I am the one who suggested it in the first place. Here is the discussion topic with the poll were it is explained: Toa Hagah Canon Contest Survey and Final Q&A
As you can see the reason for this rule was specifically so that final group shot artists could NOT alter your work on a whim. Steering incosistencies was not the purpose, but a mere bonus in case you allow for the changes to be made.
If not for this rule everything would be under risk of being changed and the creative vision of the first stage mocist/artist jeopardized.

So that is the real explanation for this rule. The reason it is not here is because it was already thoroughly explained and discussed on the topic Iinked and TTV did not want to repeat themselves here.
…
Also this “consistency” you are talking about is not really there to begin with, there are only preferences certain people have. Some want there to be just two metallic colors, some three, others one for each Hagah, and the rest do not care. There is no actual consistency to be witheld.
Wathever the final combination of Hagah and/or consents will be, that is what the group shot artists will have to work with and everyone will depict what they believe to be “consistent”. And then there is still voting. Ultimately the final winning artwork will reflect what people consider “consistent”.

That is why the current rules work well and what you suggest could not be properly implemented because there is no way to define what is consistent. Some external factor would need to define that first.