Anime Boston 2016 Art Contest: Undōkai! Field Day!

[Faceman]

Anime Boston is proud to announce that we will be once again hosting an art contest!

The 2016 theme "Undōkai! Field Day!" celebrates the tradition in Japanese schools where students participate in competitive athletic activities for trophies and prizes. In the spirit of that tradition, we're holding a competition for our artists community.

For this year, we'd like each artist to create their own representation of Field Day. It could be a scene of a friendly game, the tension before a race starts, a student preparing their gear, a challenge between rivals, or anything else that you can think of.

In addition, you must also submit a brief back story (100 words or less) to describe your representation.


Judging
Judging of entries will be based upon several criteria:
-Adherence to the 2016 theme of Undōkai! Field Day!
-Creativity and Originality
-How well the artwork depicts the back story.

Judging will be performed by the Anime Boston Social Media Staff. Results will be announced within two weeks of the contest's conclusion. Judges will select one (1) Grand Prize winner, one (1) Runner Up, and up to ten (10) Honorable Mentions.


Prizes
Of course, no contest is complete without prizes! But this year's prizes will be a little different:
-Grand Prize: One (1) complimentary 8-foot table space in the Anime Boston 2016 Artists' Alley and one (1) complimentary weekend badge for Anime Boston 2016.
-Runner Up: One (1) complimentary weekend badge to Anime Boston 2016 and one (1) guaranteed (not complimentary) table space* in the Anime Boston 2016 Artists' Alley.
-Honorable Mentions: one (1) guaranteed (not complimentary) table space* in the Anime Boston 2016 Artists' Alley.
-Grand Prize, Runner Up, and Honorable Mentions will also be featured in the Anime Boston 2016 Art Gallery, in the Hyne's Convention Center third floor hallway. This prime location will increase your visibility beyond the walls of the Artists' Alley.

*All guaranteed table space in the Artists' Alley will be at least 6 feet in size. 8 foot table spaces may be allocated, depending on availability. Any such 8 foot table spaces will be allocated randomly.

All entries will be posted on our website and forums, along with information about the piece and artist.


Rules
There are some simple rules to this contest:
-All artwork must be your own original creations.
-Artwork must not be fan-art. They cannot reference existing properties, including original characters in existing properties.
-Artwork can be either 2D or 3D.
-2D artwork should be either digital, or scanned from the physical artwork.
-3D artwork should be submitted via photographs. We suggest multiple photographs of each piece to capture different angles.
-Back story text should be 100 words or less. This will be displayed along with your entry.
-Back story text will not be proof-read or edited prior to being judged or displayed. Make sure it represents you as well as your art does.
-Artwork can depict a single character, a scene, or even a comic format (such as 4-koma).
-Artwork should depict at least 1 character. Multiple characters in an entry are allowed, but will only count as one entry.
-Multiple entries may be submitted by an artist.
-Artists must be 18 years of age or older at the time of submission.
-Failure to adhere to these rules may result in disqualification from the contest.


Submission
-All entries must be emailed to contest@animeboston.com with the subject line "2016 Art Contest". You may include multiple entries in an email. Each entry should be a separate attachment in the email.
-Include in each email the following information:
Your legal name
Your email address
Title of your entry
Back story text (100 words or less)
Medium of the artwork (digital, water colors, pencil, etc).
Studio name (if any)
Website (if any)
How to credit you (legal name, pseudonym, studio, etc)
Contact Information for public (email, website, etc)
-All submissions must be received by 11:59 PM EST on Sunday, September 20, 2015.


Other Rules
-Anime Boston and the New England Anime Society, Inc. have the right to post and use all contest entries for promotional and programming content.
-Anime Boston and the New England Anime Society, Inc. will not have the right to sell the likeness of the artwork without the expressed written consent of the artist.
-Artists will retain the right to sell their artwork.
-Artists may withdraw their submission from the contest at any time before the contest concludes.
-Prizes are not transferable, refundable, or exchangeable.
-Winners must abide by all rules and regulations of the Artists' Alley and Anime Boston.
-Artists who decline their prize may be removed from their placing in favor of another artist.
-Staff of Anime Boston and the New England Anime Society, Inc. are not eligible to win Grand Prize or Runner Up prizes.
-Anime Boston staff reserve the right to alter the rules of this contest at any time.


We can't wait to see your entries! Good luck to everyone!

[hygiei]

Ah, so excited! Last year I missed the submission deadline, so I am glad I will get to do it this time around !! Will start working immediately(Because you have to kill a man to get a table at this con, so I'll kill a man with my art, I guess?)

[Ree]

Ooh cool theme!
I'm a little confused on one part though. As far as characters go, are we making up characters for the piece? Should we incorporate anime boston's mascots into it?

Thank you!

[Nemra]

As far as characters go, are we making up characters for the piece? Should we incorporate anime boston's mascots into it?

Thank you!

it can be anything you want! (though I'd stay away from other works for legal reasons)

If you'd like a reference to see what others have done before, you can check out the art gallery for 2013 here and for last year here

[Ree]

Thank you! : D

[Faceman]

As far as characters go, are we making up characters for the piece? Should we incorporate anime boston's mascots into it?

Thank you!

it can be anything you want! (though I'd stay away from other works for legal reasons)

If you'd like a reference to see what others have done before, you can check out the art gallery for 2013 here and for last year here

Just to clarify, we do ask that you do not use the Anime Boston mascots or logo in your submission piece. Mainly for two reasons:
1) To keep the variety of submissions strong (it'd get a little old if everyone used A-chan and B-kun).
2) So you can sell prints of your submission artwork without using Anime Boston characters or trademarks.

[Shattered-Earth]

I'm working on my entry full steam ahead now! I had a question, since the Artist Alley information was just posted this weekend, announcing that pro-row sign ups start Oct 1st, will the selection/winners for the art context be announced before then?

That way any winners/honorable mentions don't have to apply and basically unnecessarily use up the time of the artist alley staff?

Thanks for holding the contest as always

[Nemra]

that's the plan!

though in the case like last year, if not announced then at least notified via the email that you provide in the submission form and announced later.

[Shattered-Earth]

Ah that's great, that'll be helpful to everyone! Thanks so much!

[toast]

I just have a quick question.
I know you guys are pretty open with the medium for the contest, and I was just wonder if I was allowed to enter a short comic thats a few pages long. You only mentioned 4-koma on the contest page and I wasn't sure if it was because you assumed people wouldn't want to do anything longer than that, or if you just wanted to limit entries to 1 image. I've just been having more ideas for a comic format rather than a single illustration :3

[Nemra]

I would definitely keep it short to fit on one page. Others have done a comic book style piece for submission and they do go over well like this one, but having multiple pages submitted as one piece is slightly unfair to other artists since we'd only be judging the one page for everyone else.

That being said, you can submit multiple individual pieces that would be judged completely independently from each other and so raises your chances of winning incase one doesn't make the cut