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THE 5 RULES

Please read the 5 rules carefully before submitting entries. The rules are slightly different from last year's contest. They are also different from the rules for the regular gallery submissions. Please be sure to read them all. Entries that don't follow the rules or artwork specifications will be ignored, or even worse, disqualified! :-o

1. You must create 100% of your own entry. The drawing and the IDEA of the drawing must be completely yours. If you don't understand this rule completely, or if you have a question about your entry, please feel free to ask me or show me the pic if you're not sure. I won't disqualify you if you show me the pic just to ask. No eyeballing of screencaps or official RK canon art. Eyeballing means looking at a picture and copying the entire pic as you draw. It's fine for practice, but it's not for a contest. It is not fair to the people who came up with their own poses. No tracing. Tracing means putting a picture under a piece of paper and following the picture's lines with your pencil. No photo-edits or paintovers, please. Photo edits are when you take a photograph and digitally alter it in some way. Paintovers are when you paint on top of a photograph. No photographs as backgrounds even if you took the picture yourself. No wallpapers, please. Collaborations are allowed only if all involved artists agree to participate in the contest. Please provide information as to which artist did what part of the pic. No stealing of other people's works and claiming them as your own. This one should be obvious, people. If you find a contest entry that you think has been stolen or referenced, please contact me and let me know.

2. Artwork can be any style or medium, but it must fit the theme. Last year, I received several submissions that not only didn't fit the theme of the contest... but the characters weren't even from RK. Please, folks. Keep to RK, and keep to the theme. As long as you follow the theme, you are encouraged to be as creative as you want. And really, the theme is so broad, it shouldn't be hard to think of something. Creativity is a huge factor in our judging of this contest. Any style of artwork is acceptable: anime/manga style, realistic styles, etc. They're all good. In fact, using your own style (instead of the canon artwork style) is highly encouraged. Traditional and digital media are both welcome. If your entry is a 3D work (like a sculpture), then send a photo of the sculpture.

3. New artwork only. Sorry, but you can't submit stuff that you did months ago and posted at other sites. Artwork must have been finished after April 1, 2005.

4. Artwork MUST meet the following image specifications. This rule is extremely important! Read it very carefully. Any image that does not meet these specifications will be ignored. Entries must be sent as JPG or GIF files (preferably JPG). No other formats will be accepted. No PNG, BMP, TIFF, PSD, PDF, DOC, etc. allowed. No submissions by snail-mail. Images must be less than 1000 pixels in width and height. Scanned images are often much larger than this, so be careful. Also, Windows and IE tend to automatically shrink images for viewing so that they look smaller than 1000 pixels even if they are really much bigger than that. Don't be fooled. Always check your file properties. Files must be less than 200kb in size. Please make sure images are oriented right side up. Unless a pic is supposed to be anything other than upright, please don't send me images that are rotated sideways or upside-down. (Yes, people have done this in the past.) If your image dimensions or file sizes are too large, they will be returned for you to fix. I will not fix them this year. If you don't have a program to shrink and convert your files, I highly recommend IrfanView. It is a small, FREE program that's very easy to download, install, and use. You should be able to figure it out yourself, but just in case you're still confused, I've got instructions (with pictures) for it at the... IMAGE HELP PAGE If you don't understand these specifications, check the Image Help Page. If you're still confused, please find a friend or family member to help you. Please do not aske me to make exceptions.

5. Please note the following restrictions: Maximum of 3 entries per contestant. No NC-17 level pictures! Many regular visitors at this site are minors, so please try to keep pics at a PG-13 level. R-rated pictures will be dealt with on a case by case basis. No racist, sexist, or otherwise hurtful themed pics. Judges cannot enter the contest. Obviously!

SUBMISSIONS

READY TO SEND IN YOUR PIC? Last year, there were a large number of submissions. Many were sent as e-mails, many were sent as PM's or messages at websites. Some pictures that I thought were for the contest were actually just for the regular gallery. And some e-mails were sent to the wrong address. I'm afraid it all got rather confusing after a while. So this year, I've made an entry form. Please fill out the form no matter how you plan on sending an entry. Only the sections in red text are required. The rest is all optional. Thanks so much! CLICK HERE TO FILL OUT AN ENTRY FORM WHAT HAPPENS TO SUBMITTED PICS? All submitted pics will be uploaded to my website. There will be a special contest page in the fanart section that will become a permanent page of the site. Sometime during or after the contest, I will incorporate all contest pics into the regular fan art gallery. For people who have never submitted pics before, I will make a profile page for you. As you can see from the fanart gallery, profile pics contain your name (or alias), e-mail, and website URL. If you do NOT want your artwork incorporated into this website, or if you want your e-mail or website info withheld, please check the appropriate square on the entry form!

DIGITAL ART RESOURCES

BUT WHAT IF I HAVE NO SCANNER AND NO DRAWING PROGRAM? Don't give up just yet. There are plenty of excellent free drawing programs available on-line. FREE ART PROGRAMS: Art Rage: This program simulates traditional media very well. The only thing to remember with this program is that if you want to make your picture into a JPG file (the kind of file I require for my contest) you'll have to EXPORT the picture as a JPG file. The program doesn't allow you to just save as a JPG. The Gimp: I've never tried this one, but it's supposedly like a poor man's Photoshop. Oekaki Board: You can always use the oekaki board at this site. It's free, and it doesn't require you to download anything. ART PROGRAMS WITH FREE TRIAL PERIODS: In other words, the program normally isn't free, but you can download a free sample version of it and use it for a short while (usually about 30 days). Open Canvas 4: Personally, I've never been able to get this program to work on my computer, but other artists I know have used it and say it's really good. I'll take their word for it. Adobe Photoshop CS2: Photoshop is one of the best art programs out there. I use an older version of it (version 7.0) for all my art. The program is very expensive and takes up a lot of space on your hard drive compared to other programs, but it's very good. If you're interested, you can click on "tryout" in the "Download" menu for a trial version.

JUDGING

PANEL OF JUDGES Hakubaikou: Artist, consumer of coffee and ice cream S-girl: Artist, writer, coolness all around Fevereon: Artist, sci-fi nut, rabid SHMUP enthusiast Conspirator: Writer, mysterious on-line persona Co-Conspirator: Artist, editor, co-mysterious on-line persona Calger: Artist, writer, creator of wonderful things Dlin: Artist, vessel of infinite patience Kimaya: Artist, paragon of elegance Akai Kitsune: Splendid writer, artist, and webmistress to boot ChiisaiLammy: Artist, writer, and voice of reason Thanks so much to the judges for agreeing to help me out with the contest. Are they not the coolest people on Earth? Yes. Yes indeed. To get a better idea of what judges might be looking for, try looking at the Judging Criteria page from last year's contest: Click here.

CATEGORIES & PRIZES

Click here to see the current list of categories and possible prizes. I might make a few minor additions between now and the end of the contest.

SPREAD THE WORD!

PLEASE HELP PUBLICIZE THIS CONTEST The more contestants there are, the more fun this will be. Click here for contest banners.

Rurouni Kenshin characters are the property of creator Nobohiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shounen Jump, and Sony Entertainment. This is a non-profit fan-site for entertainment purposes only. Permission was not obtained from the above parties. If any of the above parties or their representatives have a complaint regarding any fan artwok posted on this site, please e-mail me, and I will comply with any stated requests.