Come one, come all! Welcome to the 2nd Annual E4 Art & illustration Contest! Any and all are welcome, and we have 4 diverse categories from which interested contestants can select. Anyone from any range of skill or talent can find one to enjoy. Please do not let a lack of artistic skill or experience discourage you from entering. See the categories! It is free to join and is a blast! Please take a few minutes to read the rules below, should you wish to enter. Contestants must understand & follow the rules.
WE ARE CURRENTLY IN: SIGN UP PERIOD / SUBMISSION PERIOD / VOTING PERIOD
(ends June 11th 10pm EST) (ends June 18th 10pm EST) (June 19th - 26th 10pm EST)
RULES
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To enter, your account must be at least 2 months old as of this thread’s creation. Simply post in this thread indicating your category(s). Max 2 categories.
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To submit, post quality pictures / uploads here in this thread, ONLY during the submission period. Do not do so before then. You MUST name your art piece(s).
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You are allowed to include multiple Pokemon in your illustration—the sky is the limit! However, one must be the focal point, or main subject of the artwork.
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Imagine your card in an art box; trainer card concepts and full arts are allowed, but must follow rule number 3.
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Do not plagiarize. Not only will that get you disqualified, but that’s just… lame.
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Dimensions: Please submit art with a ratio of 4 width by 2.25 height (ex: 4000x2225), or as close to that as possible, in the highest quality resolution you can. 1st Winners of each category will be placed into a template of an old back trainer card. Anyone who deviates far from these dimensions won’t be denied, but just know your image will be cropped/stretched to fit the placement. Full arts are an exception, just standard card dimensions.
VOTING
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Voting is anonymous, through our google form ballot. All contestants MUST vote, ranking top 3 of each category. Contestants CANNOT vote for their own piece. ALL of E4 is welcome to vote as well, and is encouraged. Didn’t sign up? No prob, vote for your fellow E4ians anyway.
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Non-contestant memberships must also be 2 months old. Mods will be cross checking info, so no funny business, or we will know, and there will be serious consequences.
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To submit ballots, click ______. Link will be made available at start of voting period.
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Voting is easy! We have provided a grading criteria document (below) to refer to for general guidance (not required). We trust that contestants and non contestants alike will rank the art based on the best of their objective judgment of the quality of art. Should a tie happen for first place, we will address it with a tie-breaker round.
PRIZES!
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Tradition! The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winner of every category will be awarded a unique No. 1, 2, or 3 digital, high res trophy card! See our lovely banner for a sneak peak at the trophies you can obtain!
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1st place additionally receives a digital illustrator card with their winning artwork placed within! Due to copyright requirements we cannot distribute physical cards. Check out last year’s winners, some have displayed their wonderful works in their signatures!
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1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of each category will be awarded a respective 2022 placement badge, courtesy of @gareth !
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1st place winner of each category will also receive a gift card from that good ‘ole familiar website we all use
(we do not disclose the amount—it is but a modest sum. We do not wish to have this be the main motivation for entering, but rather the art and passion—this is a cherry on top prize).
THE CATEGORIES!
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Child drawing. Inspired by the wonderful, historic illustration contest submissions. This is for all kinds of artwork, hand drawn or digital creation, that embody a child-like quality to them. Look at the far left artwork on the banner for examples. Any style, anything goes! Low skill level? This is the category for you! Technical skill is not a criterion.
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Recreation. For those who want to recreate/revamp any preexisting Pokemon design or entire Pokemon illustration. You can either recreate a whole artwork from the TCG and wider non-TCG, or recreate a preexisting design with an original or altered background. You are allowed to expand on it in any way, including use of color or detail, but if the basis from which you are building already exists, it falls in this category. *For this category, you MUST submit, along with your art, a citation of the original. Either post the card, or name the card by name, set, and number.
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3D Virtual. Use photoshop, image capture, or a similar program to use imagery from the wide, official video game franchise (and spin-offs), creatively, to make your own art with them. This is for any kind of submission that uses Video Game Pokemon media that you manipulate artistically. This might be a good category for you to make use of pastiche or collage style, or simply make use of video game images, but would like to alter in ways you enjoy. NO POKEMON SNAP, new or old, will be allowed. You MUST be using official, pre-existing Pokemon media and assets from the Pokemon video game franchise. However, if you want to create an original computer-made background (or alter/add to a video game background with original assets created by you), you may do this. We have provided a list of all games from which you can use.
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Original Creation. This is any original creation of any kind that does not fall within the above category parameters. Hand drawn or computer/photoshop made, doesn’t matter. It just has to be from scratch. If you are intending to do CGI, but it is your own work, this is still your category. You can also do sculpture or 3D printing in this category. Anything original, period. You want to go as wild as Morii style, but your own invention? Go for it! Sky’s the limit.
A tip: you can view the first art contest submissions to get inspired, or, if needed, to see what kind of art belongs to which category.
While you must declare your categories, if your intended art is in perceived gray area, let us know and we will assist. If you have any questions at all, post your question here, or message either @azulryu or @brendantheclayboy .
We are excited to bring this back to the forum for year 2, in both the spirit of Pokemon, and the spirit in which they are created for us fans to enjoy–the very illustrations/designs themselves. In the spirit of neutrality, transparency, and sportsmanship, us organizers do not participate. But we of course got our art urges out in our designing the trophies! We will, however, not miss out on judging, as we will be casting our own ballots as well!
Many thanks to all who helped, & a special thanks to these fine people:
fourthstartcg
andrewvt36
gareth
and especially to @reinasierpe , who, despite not being able to help coordinate this year, is a fellow founder of this event, and will always be recognized, and hopefully be back for more fun next year 
, and all the mods/admins/founder for allowing this to take place!
Voting Ballot (link available at end of submission period)**Voting criteria guide here
3D category list of games here
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Contestant sign up list (closed for business)
Child: (closed)
- sparky55603
- muk
- purevito
- ayoveer
- boogus
- Frosty.Puppy
- MaxyMaxy
- seafoamarticuno
- Martin
- khairis
- trainerjack
- DizzyLochs
- Quuador
- aspyd
- qwachansey
- gareth
Recreation: (closed)
- kromaticlanturn
- expedition
- lyleberr
- Martin
- Doug
- Gus
- 0rion
- fate
- trainerjack
- PkmnFlyingMaster
- PokeNastic
- Liron
- Soap
- ferny
- amwolf
- aspyd
- Fiery
3D virtual: (closed)
- turtlemode
- boogus
- knotchi
- Fazool
- DizzyLochs
- Fiery
Original: (closed)
- kromaticlanturn
- sparky55603
- purevito
- ayoveer
- G1TLandon
- lyleberr
- MaxyMaxy
- seafoamarticuno
- defluo
- Doug
- thatpikachuguy
- Fazool
- 0rion
- fate
- PkmnFlyingMaster
- Liron
- smokemon
- skinst
- Warp
- amwolf
- gareth
- chrisundrum
