[MBC] - Monthly Banner Contest Rules & Hall of Fame

[Zhanton]

[MBC] - Monthly Banner Contest Rules
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It's been quite a while since a regular contest has been held in the Digital Media section, but lately the section has seen some incredible growth and decent levels of activity, so it is with great pleasure that I unveil to you SPPf's Official MBC!

Like any contest, however, there are many rules that you need to follow in order for this regular contest to proceed smoothly, so please read these rules thoroughly before entering a contest.

Schedule

• The MBC will be operating on a four-week schedule.
• A thread will go up on the last Monday of the month. This thread will contain all the details for the MBC for that month, including the medium and themes.
• Entries will be open for two and a half weeks. This means that they will be open until the Friday two weeks and four days from the posting of the theme.
• On the Monday after entries close, a new thread will be posted which will contain all of the entries and it is in this thread that you will vote for the entry you think is the best.
• Voting closes on the Friday, with the winner subsequently announced that day. The cycle then repeats itself.
• The winner will have their name entered for eternity into the MBC Hall of Fame - yes, this does mean there are no other prizes, unfortunately.

Submitting Entries

• Anyone is free to enter.
• Once the thread for the relevant month is posted, you have until the Friday two weeks and four days from then to get your entry in. Late entries may not be accepted.
• All entries must be sent via Private Message to zhanton.
• Once you submit your entry, however, you may not change it.
• You can upload your entry to any image host, but I will be reuploading them all to the Photobucket account "SPPF_MBC" to maintain anonymity and also just in case someone's image hosting account runs out of bandwidth or something.
• Entries must be made in full by the contestant. The only exception to this is the usage of fan art; fan art will be allowed in some months but not in others, and this will be outlined in the relevant month's thread. However, you are by all means free to use any free resources in your work (which includes but is not limited to the usage of brushes, fonts, renders, etc) provided that you do the rest of the piece entirely on your own.
• You may only submit one entry unless said otherwise.
• Entries must adhere to the restrictions of the medium, size, theme, etc, which will all be outlined in the relevant month's thread.
• Contestants are permitted to submit a short description of how their piece matches the theme if they would like to. This description will be posted with your entry during the voting period to help the voters understand your interpretation of the theme.
• All entries must be specially created for the contest; you cannot use a piece you made earlier and submit it for the contest.
• As all entries will be posted anonymously, please refrain from adding your name or signature on your piece.

Voting Process

• Anyone is permitted to vote as long as you have not been banned from voting due to not following the voting rules previously.
• All entries will be posted anonymously and you will have to choose one piece to vote for. Do not vote based on content or based on who made the piece, but instead on skill, aesthetics, appeal, etc.
• All voting will be done in the relevant voting thread. Voting will last from Monday to Friday.
• All voting will be done through posts, not through a poll. When voting, you are required to briefly critique each and every piece of art before making your final decision. Please note that this critique does not need to be extremely long: a sentence or two on the piece's merits or flaws will, in most cases, be enough. However, reasons such as, "I hate Mareep!" or "I'm not a fan of the colour pink!" are not acceptable. In doing your critique, please explain at the end of your post, after critiquing each and every piece, why you voted for the banner that you did.
• Contestants are permitted to vote, albeit not for themselves.
• Contestants are not permitted to bribe or ask people for votes.
• Votes which are deemed unsatisfactory or spammy will not be counted and thus are invalid. For your vote to count, you must briefly critique each piece. This is to ensure that all voting is for proper reason and it also helps the contestants as they will be receiving helpful critique for their pieces.
• If you continually make poor votes, you may be banned from voting in the future and may face an infraction.
• The entry that receives the most votes when voting closes is the winner, and the contestant who submitted their entry will have their name entered into the Hall of Fame.

If you are unsure of anything, please let me know by posting in this thread or sending me a VM/PM. I hope you enjoy the MBC and I'm sure it will be a blast.


Upcoming Dates:

February 27th - March 2012 Contest Posted
March 16th - Entries Close
March 19th - Voting Opens
March 23rd - Voting Closes; Winner announced

 

[Zhanton]

[MBC] - Monthly Banner Contest Hall of Fame​

​

Those who place in the top three for each month will have their name forever engraved in this thread. This is the Hall of Fame.



February 2012

[February 2012 Thread] [Voting Thread]

• Theme: - Music
• Medium: - Banner & Icon Set
• Specifics: - Banner Size: 390 x 150 pixels; Icon Size: 100 x 100 pixels. The banner and the icon must complement each other; they do not necessarily have to feature the same style/render/etc, but they must complement each other and clearly form a set.
• Animation Permitted? - No

1st Place - Mew_ [Banner | Icon]
2nd Place - Skiyomi [Banner | Icon] ; Kamajama [Banner | Icon] ; Keldeo 647 [Banner | Icon]​

 

[Doodles]

Looks like this is going to be fun! Can't wait. :3

 

[Jew Bagel]

This sounds amazing, I definetily plan on entering.

 

[pkmnfn]

I'm really interesting ( as someone new to art) to see and critique some more advanced pieces. Can you make a mailing list for people live me interested in Voting so we can all come and see the art?

 

[#chelloressurection]

Cant wait either!!! Looks cool!!!!

 

[kyogreblue3]

ooooooh, finally there's another regular contest in DM!
Hopes this keeps Digital Media lively enough for as long as it goes on

Strangely enough I was thinking about putting up a MBC last night, but I guess you beat me to it, zhanton. GL on running it.

I can't wait for January 30th now xD

 

[Doodles]

^ Same here. I think I'll be getting my computer back then, so I can use Photoshop for it instead of GIMP. :3

 

[Zhanton]

I'm really interesting ( as someone new to art) to see and critique some more advanced pieces. Can you make a mailing list for people live me interested in Voting so we can all come and see the art?

I'll see if I can do that.

ooooooh, finally there's another regular contest in DM!
Hopes this keeps Digital Media lively enough for as long as it goes on

Strangely enough I was thinking about putting up a MBC last night, but I guess you beat me to it, zhanton. GL on running it.

I can't wait for January 30th now xD

Thanks, and hahahaha this has been in planning with the mods for about three weeks now sooooo

 

[Kelz]

Hopefully this will bring DM some activity. I can't wait.

 

[PrismaticPrincessAnna]

Finaleh! Some excitement !
Ima be shore ta enter c: nya~

 

[Kamajama]

This may get me re-interested

 

[Northern Lights]

All voting will be done through posts, not through a poll. When voting, you are required to briefly critique each and every piece of art before making your final decision. Please note that this critique does not need to be extremely long: a sentence or two on the piece's merits or flaws will, in most cases, be enough. However, reasons such as, "I hate Mareep!" or "I'm not a fan of the colour pink!" are not acceptable. In doing your critique, please explain at the end of your post, after critiquing each and every piece, why you voted for the banner that you did.

Thank the gods - It's infuriating when people base their entire vote on content alone, this will have to be monitored pretty closely though.

Good Luck everyone!

 

[pupintheturd]

I have a few questions regarding the rules, as personallly I don't see their use.

The rules in question are:

Once you submit your entry, you may not change it.

Why not? I mean, if you realized after you handed in your signature it's kind of bad you'll want to improve it. But with this rule you're forced to enter something you know is sub-par or not enter at all.

All entries must be sent via Private Message to zhanton.

Back to my previous point, why can't we change our entries? All the entries, before the contest thread, are only seen by your eyes, so what would spark us to change our signatures other than realizing it is bad?

Entries must be made in full by the contestant. The only exception to this is the usage of fan art; fan art will be allowed in some months but not in others, and this will be outlined in the relevant month's thread. [most important]

I have contacted you personally about this but the whole reason I'm posting this is so others can voice their thoughts on my issue because I think this is the most important issue here. But yeah, this rule, I realized as I took a second look at the rules after I had made my entry, is very, very, limiting. Following this rule means my entry would be disqualified. My question is: Do we even have to make the brushes, fonts and most importantly, images, ourselves? How full is full?

If you have a opinion on this matter please share it.

 

[Zhanton]

I have a few questions regarding the rules, as personallly I don't see their use.

The rules in question are:

Once you submit your entry, you may not change it.

Why not? I mean, if you realized after you handed in your signature it's kind of bad you'll want to improve it. But with this rule you're forced to enter something you know is sub-par or not enter at all.

All entries must be sent via Private Message to zhanton.

Back to my previous point, why can't we change our entries? All the entries, before the contest thread, are only seen by your eyes, so what would spark us to change our signatures other than realizing it is bad?

Well if you think your entry is sub-par, then just don't enter it: fix it up first before entering it. If you're still sending in a sub-par entry and you feel there's not enough time to fix it up, well then that's your fault, not mine And that rule is also there because it makes my job a bit easier in the end. ^^; Basically, if you think what you're submitting is terrible, then just don't submit it, make something better/fix it up, and then submit something better. If you only realise that your entry is 'bad' a few days after you submit it, if it was really that bad you would've noticed it before submitting it.

(And also, if you're questioning the PM rule and not just using it to support your argument, the PM rule is to keep the entries anonymous and to keep a level playing field)

Entries must be made in full by the contestant. The only exception to this is the usage of fan art; fan art will be allowed in some months but not in others, and this will be outlined in the relevant month's thread. [most important]

I have contacted you personally about this but the whole reason I'm posting this is so others can voice their thoughts on my issue because I think this is the most important issue here. But yeah, this rule, I realized as I took a second look at the rules after I had made my entry, is very, very, limiting. Following this rule means my entry would be disqualified. My question is: Do we even have to make the brushes, fonts and most importantly, images, ourselves? How full is full?

If you have a opinion on this matter please share it.

Yeah, sorry, I was far too vague with this rule. What I meant by it is you're free to use any brushes/fonts/renders etc, but using whatever resources you use, you have to do the rest. So you can't, for example, ask your good friend Bob123 to make the text look good because you're terrible at text, or you can't ask your other friend Mary321 to make the background and then submit it as your own, because your entry was therefore put together by either Bob or Mary, not just you.

So you can use whatever resources you like, but after that, the rest is up to you to do.

Hope this has cleared up any confusion

 

[pupintheturd]

OK, fair enough.

However, I still do not really see the pros of the not being able to change your entry outweighing the cons. I'll stop being all anal about it though because in retrospect, my entry isn't that bad and I don't really have mayor issues entering it.

Thanks for clearing everything up. :]