INFO - Community Contest

Created: 12 October 2020, 10:32:46 EDT

Last updated: 14 June 2023, 22:34:23 EDT

Community Contest by Browbird

The contest is now closed, it's time to vote!

THE FINALS ARE HERE! Be sure to cast your vote to determine the new community designs!

This poll will close on October the 22nt at 8:00 PM EDT

Vote!

Hello all! It's been a long time coming, but we're here today with the community character contest. This will decide the new community character designs used by newcomers and future NPCs used in the event stories. We love our old community characters, but we felt a fresh set that's inclusive of all three species would be a good fit moving forward. Along with the end of this contest will come a few tweaks to how community characters are handled.

When it comes to characters that community members will interact with and new owners will try out drawing we felt turning to the community to help with designing them and deciding on which designs are the favorites of the bunch would be better than designing NPCs as we normally do.

It's a bit like collaborating with staff to create new designs. And if your design is picked as a favorite by the community you'll walk away with a MYO slot and other useful items!

Please take your time to read over everything carefully before entering or asking questions. Not following the event rules will see your submission disqualified!

We also encourage those interested in the community to pop into the discord if you haven't already!

Join the Discord

Contest Guidelines

Important: Do not post your design publicly! Do not show WIPs publicly or ask for advice on the design in public spaces! We want the final vote to be as anonymous as possible and will only reveal the names of the entrants and winners AFTER voting concludes. This choice was made to avoid it being a popularity contest between users. We want designs to speak for themselves as much as possible so we can be sure we're getting community favorites.

Posting your design publicly before the contest concludes will result in it being not accepted OR entirely removed from the contest.

✦ You can enter one time for each species for a maximum total of three entries
✦ You are only able to win up to one time
✦ You must use the bases provided
✦ All designs must comply with TOS, they should be safe for work and not feature anything offensive or gorey.
✦ Designs should be your own creation, please do not heavily reference an existing design
✦ Designs should be clean without large amounts of color outside of the lines. Please be sure to use clipping masks or opacity lock your layers!
✦ Make sure the background is transparent
✦ Please do not change the size, angle, or direction of the design when submitting
✦ Digital art submissions only, we cannot accept traditional designs
✦ Follow all species trait guidelines. The painted satyr should have striped patches on their tail, horns, and hooves!
✦ The admins managing the contest can reject or remove any design submission for any reason

Design Specific

What can you do?

✦ You can use any colors you'd like
✦ Any patterns are okay for the clothing
✦ You can use any markings for the design including rare and mythic markings. Remember to make sure the painted satyr is given proper patches!
✦ You can use any eye type, including rare and mythic eyes
✦ You can add any common, uncommon, rare, and mythic additional traits that do not change the silhoette, such as talonscale, satyr mask cracks, satyr moss flora, satyr mask materials, horn carvings, tusk teeth, fangs, whiskers, scales, and sparkles to name a few examples.
✦ You can make small tweaks to expression, add strands of hair, and otherwise make minor additions to the overall design that do not drastically change the core lineart and silhouette. Such as scars, piercings, rings, glasses, longer or shorter claws, tweaks to the hands of the browbird to create gloves, or the satyr's open shirt to create a fully covered design.

What Can't You Do?

✦ Do not change the existing horn and tail traits.
✦ Do not add horns or tails
✦ Do not entirely change the clothing style
✦ Do not change the weapon
✦ Do not change the species
✦ Do not add shading/lighting to the design, while dramatic shadows would look cool we want the palettes of each design to be as clear as possible
✦ Do not erase large portions of the design or make areas translucent
✦ Overall please keep the core idea in tact and do not heavily edit the lineart!

When coloring your entry and making the edits to the character please consider... If you were a newcomer to the species and community, what sort of design would you want to try drawing? What kind of palette do you find inviting and fun to play around with? Try to apply these ideas to your submission!

You are allowed to message Corrin or Areas to get your design checked before submitting!

How to Enter

Anyone can participate aside from Corrin and Ares who are working on hosting the polls and answering event questions and therefore cannot participate or vote in the contest.

To get started on your entry first, download the base you wish to work with. Click the images below to download the corresponding PSD!

You will need a program that can open PSD files, use layers with clipping masks/opacity lock, and save transparent PNG images. The designs do come with some layers, but you are able to add your own for coloring ease as well.

Alternative Sta.sh Downloads:

Kitbull Base Browbird Base Painted Satyr Base

PNG Bases:
These are JUST lineart with no layer information. Please take extra care when coloring them to ensure they are clean. Excess color outside the lines may see your submission declined.
Browbird Base, Kitbull Base, Painted Satyr Base

Once you've finished, you can submit your design here:

Submit Browbird Submit Kitbull Submit Painted Satyr

Keep in mind you'll need to be sure you have a fully validated website account to enter and win prizes! We won't be accepting any entries from unverified accounts.

Contest Prizes

For each species category there will be 4 prizes given out for a total of 12 prizes. There's 6 Celestial Tickets up for grabs, which can be exchanged for a MYO slot of your choice upon winning. Along with that we have tons of other useful items being given away to winners!

The winning users will be displayed alongside their design once voting concludes!

Winning Design

✦ Your design becomes the new official Celestial Seas community character ✦

1 Celestial Ticket, 30 Stargold, 5 Celestial Shards, 1 Rare Trait Potion, 1 Uncommon Trait Potion, 1 Crafting Supply Crate

2nd Place

Celestial Ticket, 25 Stargold, 3 Celestial Shards, 1 Rare Trait Potion

3rd Place

20 Stargold, 2 Celestial Shards, 1 Rare Trait Potion

4th Place

15 Stargold, 1 Celestial Shard, 1 Uncommon Trait Potion

Note 1: If you place in first or second and decide to use your Celestial Ticket on a kitbull you can contact Corrin to switch out potions for kitbull items if you would prefer those items instead.

Note 2: If you win you can request your Celestial Ticket go to another user if you do not plan to use it!

Bonus Raffle

We are also hosting a raffle alongside the contest!

To enter all you have to do is promote the contest or Celestial Seas as a whole in a Deviantart journal or status! Doing so will gain you a single entry into the raffle for the free design. Please be sure you have a fully validated account before entering!

This design will be given to free to the winner of the raffle. Since this design was created for free to be given away for free it cannot be traded or sold, only gifted to anoher user or returned to staff to be raffled again.

If you are drawn for this raffle design you will not be able to enter for the next Corrin-made design!

Enter here!

Thank you for helping us get the word out!

✦ FAQ

★ How will voting work?
Once the entry period conclues we will host a big vote to pick the finalist designs! We'll then do a second vote of the 4 finalists in each category to determine the winner order. We do encourage everyone who enters to refrain from voting for yourself but we can't stop you!

★ What happens if two winning designs tie?
If this case pops up we'll have to hold an extra tiebreaker vote.

★ What happens if someone gets enough votes to place a finals design in two different species?
They can only win once, so only one of their designs can move to the finals. We'll be deciding which moves forward in these cases with priority given to whichever has more votes.

★ What happens to my design if I don't get first place?
You can reuse the design elements elsewhere (just not the specific base/all the exact same features as the base)! We will only have the right to use the first place winning designs for website display and community use. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place won't be used!

★ What does it mean that staff can use the winning design?
It'll be displayed on the website and used as a community character that anyone in the community can draw to practice. New members can use them in prompts and depict them in different ways. It also means staff can edit the design and use them in official Celestial Seas event and quest stories, banners, and other content. Even if the artist departs from the community we will still be able to use and display the character for these purposes. We can't sell the design or profit off the design.

★ Can I check in before submitting my final design to be sure it meets all requirements?
If you have questions regarding your design or idea please use discord to contact AgentCorrina (Corrin) OR Uwi (Ares) to discuss the design privately. DMs are always open and we are happy to help! While general event questions are fine for discord, anything that would involve discussing or showing your specific designs should be done in private to keep the contest fair.

The contest and raffle will close for submissions on:

october 19th at 11:59 pm edt // 8:59 pm pdt