Out of curiousity...
How long, on average, does it take for you to come up with a daily entry? Do you download the image, think on it over tea and go back to it later? Do you come right off the top of the head? Or do you wait to see what everyone else is doing?
I usually download the image first thing in the AM and immediately go with whatever ideas come to mind. Some chops I can polish off in under 45 minutes (those are obvious...to ME anyway...others may take a while to really get into.

So, how 'bout it?

Do you mean 'get an idea' or actually complete the chop?

Well...from start to finish.
Take the "Duck Portrait" I did.
I was done with that in less than an hour. I just played around with no particular idea in mind and THAT just came to me.

Usually I do them during a break at work. 1/2 an hour from beginning to end. I will update them many times after I post them later when I get home. The ones that I actually take time and think about I never get alot of votes on. I'm better under pressure.

I look at the source to see if it looks like anything or reminds me of something" then whatever comes to my mind for an idea, I think about it and make sure it meets the requirements so it wont get removed ~ I spend about 1 to 3 hours on a picture, then go back later and add some details, Then I come up with a real idea a week after the contest has ended and say to myself" Why did'nt you think of that before ~ but most of all I have fun, see some great artwork, meet some good people, learn and sometimes get a good laugh ~ ~

Before I got Advantage, I'd download the source sometime in the morning (CA. time)...by then there were about 25+ entries already up. I don't look at what's there. Usually, I get an idea or two pretty soon and then it's just dumb luck or finding adequate helper images to get the job done. Since getting Advantage, I've a little more time to think. This is quite the double-edged sword, however, as I don't want to OVER-do something or spend an inordinate amount of time on it.

What I find most gratifying is setting out to accomplish a particular effect/scene/feeling or whatever and then, the few times I actually attain it, reading the comments from you guys. Do I sound like a loser or what?!

Ah it really varies, on idea, to amount of manipulation, to ammount of sources needed, to if I need to go out and about taking photos myself. but on average now I would say about 3-4 hours, some less some more. But usually I get 1 done between when I get up at 3am and 8am, and also start another maybe.

sometimes the idea needs several days to come, but in most cases i start chopping by cutting something out and in combination with google the ideas come on chop. I do my chops during (beside) work, because at home I just have ps6 and a weird trackball-mouse, which is pretty hard to chop with. my chops need between 10 minutes (simple copy/paste and some additional settings) and 6 hours (detailed vector graphics). most time is usually needed for the search for picture materials. and thats just PSC - there is another contest I take part too ...

for me usually i get to work an hour before the contest starts, i get the image as soon as its posted, then i usually take about a 1/2hour to think about the image and what id like to do with it, then i find the pictures sometimes during that time, then the actual chopping, usually anywhere from a half hour to the longest i think ive spent is 4hours (with tons of tweaking) funny thing is my 1/2 hour chops usually do great and the ones i spend too much time on do poorly, so i too work well under pressure. i feel piggys pain and thus the reason i dont chop at home on the weekends, i have a nice G5 with PS7 with the stupid puck mouse. but at work i have a brand new OSX with CS loaded on it and alittle something extra...

this thing is the greatest tool ever invented for PS, the pen tool has like 200 pressure settings so you can draw like a pencil, or a brush and get different stoke weights just by how much pressure you apply, oh and it has an eraser on top!! how effing cool is that!!! THANK YOU WACOM!

Can I hate you now? Okay maybe not hate but severely envy?

I have Win2k on a LAPTOP (1.2GHz & 528MB RAM) and a MS optical mouse. To boot I DON'T HAVE PHOTOSHOP. I have Macromedia Fireworks MX2004 (but Adobe bought Macromedia so hopefully I'll get better toys in the next upgrade at work).

As for me chops. I depends on the chop. Most take an average of about 2-3 hours from idea to fruition. So I'd be better if I took longer I'm sure.

As for ideas.... I'm in a drought lately. Seems like ideas for the first ten posts came in a flood. Many days I had two or three ideas for each comp (just not the skills to accomplish them). After that they started to peter out. Now it seems like I couldn't see an idea if it were gift-wrapped in a box and I tripped over it.

I think that the problem is I've come to know the limitations of my software and skills with that software. I think that's what's causing my "choppers-block". I've tried using the GIMP for Windows but that's almost laughable. I've got SOOO many habits to overcome.

For Shaman...




And I'll say it...I HATE YOU!

Ok...I DON'T hate you...much...

I've yet to break down and buy one of those...maybe for Christmas...Hmmm....

maybe santa can get you guys that same wacom... its only $99.99 (well it was when i bought it like 5years ago) and theres way better ones, bigger tablets with more pressure points... you can even program the top buttons to do other functions... but for a hundred bucks, it comes with a wireless mouse and pen, the mouse runs on some sort of magnet or something, takes alittle getting used to, but the pen... oh the pen.... i cant speak enough about the pen!!! ive had this one for a few years now... , and it works with both MAC & IBM. i must say it helps out alot... cause like i said, its like drawing, instead of using a mouse. i wouldnt want to chop anyother way.

im suprised more of you dont use this technology, its been around for quite sometime now.

I've got one of those wacom tablets, and I can't get the pen pressure to work. Also the "eraser" button on the sylus is stuck on the brush tool, and I can't fix it! James is more than a little annoyed that he bought me that thing and I used it for about two days before swearing at it and going back to the mouse.

As for my entries, the ammount of time I spend seems to be inversely proportional to the number of votes I get--it's nuts. That really graphic vector thing that I did for the Trex contest took about 30 minutes total, and got 47 votes (my personal best). The most time I ever spent doing a chop was for "disc toss" and it got 10 votes.

Clearly, I'm best when I don't think too much. This must be the secret of my success.

queen
did you try going into the settings part of the program, theres a pressure sensor part where it detects how hard and soft you press, to get a more detailed account of your style....
just curious
it took alittle tweaking to get it just right, and i agree, i barely use if ever the eraser, but it is there for those to use

QLT-
did ya set the "brush propertys to pressure" in PS?
Wacom upgraded all their software and drivers about a month ago.
On my last tablet i had to "ctrl+alt+delete" and close the tablet program
and then reopen it from programs-tablet every few hours, no idea why- maybe you could try that. Luck.
I average twenty hours per chop.