Hap has an emergency.

At some point or other along the hosting chain, the nice pretty images that were on the main page of AFF have been unceremoniously murdered. The bodies remain on the main page for all to see, displaying nothing more than a sad, rotting

This is, of course, an utterly unacceptable act of vandalism, and in response I will do what I do best.

Get someone else to fix it.

Hi, I'm Hap. I'm the head honcho of AFF. Normally the group is super low-maintenance which is great, but every now and then I do in fact have to get up and do something or other. In this instance, several images on the AFF main page have broken. Since I was not, in fact, the one to put them there, and the links seem to go back to some discord host or whatever, I have no idea what they were. Zilch clue.

And I don't care. It is time, methinks, for some redecorating.

It has been a while since those images have been up, whatever they were, and the group, its members, and the very landscape of the site itself has changed, I have decided that it would be super to get some local art up on that main page. Something to show off a little about what kind of talent we have, and also some variation in styles that we have gracing our forums.

Therefore, I am going to run a contest, a challenge of pencil and paper, of tablet and vector. There will be three images required to replace the old ones. That is what I require at the end of the day. An image that will link up to the Group Rules, an image that will link to the Forum, and last but certainly not least, a grand magnificent image to sit on the main page itself.

There will, naturally, be cash prizes. I do not intend to reward my artists with exposure alone. These rewards will be $50 for the main page image, and $30 for the forum and group rules image each. For those that do not win, they will still be shown in a lovely thread dedicated to the contest (a museum, of sorts) highlighting some of the talent we still have, even in this late stage of the fandom's lifespan.

All in all, I intend for it to be a jolly good time.

RULES

- No pornography, or nsfw art in general. Look, I'm as upset about this one as you are, but porn and other graphic content cannot be shown on FimFic in art form. If I see even a single nipple I am going to be furious. Refer to the site rules for what constitutes nsfw images.

- Your submission must be your own work. No nicking anyone else's art. If you want to collaborate, that's fine, I guess, but in those instances I will sending the prize money to one individual (this is to lots and lots of tiny paypal payments in the eventuality some of you nutters make a giant 100 user collaboration and, somehow, it wins), so make that clear when making the submission and I'll be leaving the responsibility of dividing up the cash for everyone to that guy/gal. Also, make sure all collaborators are properly credited.

- Any given artist can only win one category. You may enter multiple, or all categories, but for the sake of variety, I would like a different artist to win different categories. 

- I will be paying prizes via PayPal, so do make sure that works for you. 

- The art must be publicly available. I will need the art to be shown on the main page of the group, and even non-winning entries will be highlighted in a forum post; therefore the art must be available online. This also means that a marble statue you carved in your back yard won't qualify unless you take a picture of it that can be uploaded online.

- The winner of each category will be decided by me. I will select each entry based on how well they represent the theme of each category, detailed below. Why nobody else? Because, silly, if I got the other admins to judge, how would they participate? 

- Entries must be, somehow, pony related. Last I checked this was still a pony website, so let's stick to theme, shall we? Besides, drawing ponies are easier than having to draw hands. You guys should be thanking me. 

- Submit your work by embedding an image of it into this thread. If you have trouble embedding images, let me know and I'll help you out. Once the contest is over, I'll be collecting all the images and reposting them in a grand recap thread for everyone to marvel at and pat each other on the back about how well they did. 

- Deadline is 23/09/2022. That's in one month, folks. Hap doesn't do deadline extensions because deadline extensions are for the weak. If it's unfinished, submit it unfinished. You've had all summer to relax, people. Go go go.

CATEGORIES

- MAIN IMAGE: This is the image that will go at the top of the main page (not the banner; that one stays). It should represent Art for Fanfiction as a whole, so let that be your inspiration; art, ponies, drawing, painting, and the community itself. The prize for this most crucial category is $50.

- GROUP RULES: This image will link directly to the group rules (my favourite page). Therefore, your inspiration should be rules, law, order, or even a great big picture of me with a gavel or something. Preferably flattering. Cheers. The prize for this category is $30, plus a thumbs up if you make me look especially handsome.

- FORUM: This image will link directly to the forum page. Therefore, your inspiration should be about communication, meeting places, groups, discussion, and exchanges. The prize for this category is $30.

As for how you interpret these themes, well, that's up to you. Go creative, or keep it simple and straightforward! Use canon characters or some OC nobody has ever heard of. It can be a polished piece of digital work or even a sketchbook style mishmash of unfinished ideas, in whatever style you choose. Linearts, paintings, scanned watercolour, it's all good. G4? It's all good. G5? It's all good. G3? Firstly, why, but also, it's all good. I'm playing this one fast and loose. Art comes in a lot of different forms, and we have a lot of different kinds of artists around here. I'm in a mood to celebrate that a little.

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. 

7731104
First off, this post is not an entry, and any images I post on it are ineligible.

On the categories, there is an image missing. Specifically, there's a broken image for "Talent Listings" on the main page, too.

It probably is time for new images, but if anyone wants inspiration, here's what some of the previous ones looked like:

And ones from further back:

As I said, not my images, just did some searching around.

--Sweetie Belle

7731111 I am going to pretend I didn't see those. I have no idea what the old images looked like.

Oh and feel free to participate! You could finally live the dream of having sweetie giraffe immortalised as a link to a rules thread.

7731114
You probably do want a "Talent Listings" image, though, which isn't in your contest, or you'll be short an image, unless you're planning to remove that link.

And that did occur to me, though I was hoping TheMajorTechie'd enter, which could very well result in a Sweetie Giraffe image on there anyways.

--Sweetie Belle

7731117 Page is dead, apparently. I omitted it on purpose; the link'll be yeeted once the contest is over.

7731118
Oh, okay, didn't notice the word "Dead" in the title, or that it was locked. Never mind, then!

--Sweetie Belle

7731104
what is the image format you are looking for all of them?

7731121 Anything that can be embedded as an image using fimfic's image embedding tool. I'm honestly not fussy. If you want to make use of transparency, .png would be easiest, but I'm open to folks using anything that works, or even think outside the box a bit and include something like a .gif animation.

Sorry if that sounds non-committal; there are a lot of different art approaches out there and also a lot of formats, and quite frankly I don't even know all of them. So long as it can be effectively embedded online and can function as a link, I'll be happy.

The only thing I might have an issue with is size; pixel-art will likely have to be scaled up to be visible, and giant huge resolution images may have to be scaled down to help with loading times, practically speaking.

7731111 Looks like the upstream errors are already claiming them again! Entropy at work! The universe is endlessly siphoning away into nothingness!

Only the Rules seem to have survived. As it should be.

7731117
I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED

7731674 Am I to assume this is your contribution?

- Submit your work by embedding an image of it into this thread.

7731683
sure, we can go with that lol

though, it's an older piece that I drew months ago :V

7731689 I was mostly joking. You are of course free to create whatever magnificent piece you wish, for any category.

I am however, excited to see what you come up with.

7731104

Just getting the obvious one out of the way.

7732142
nice

but you should have him be dress as a Judge

7731111
wow, i remember that old title banner. big boomer feels from that

7732385
Yeah, threw that one in from nostalgia. That was from when Moon Shooter was the founder!

Finding those was kinda fun. Basically went to archive.org, put in the groups url, and started browsing through old snapshots. A lot were missing the images, but some weren't.

7731674
Hurray!

--Sweetie Belle

7732142

We'll see about the prize when the contest comes to an end, but as promised please enjoy your thumbs up for making me look gorgeous. And may I say very well done on your speed. Nice to see that the art of the quickdraw is going strong.

7732412
i remember joining in 2013/14 and doing art for smaug the golden who i believe was an admin at the time, could be wrong but they've long since left fimfic.

7732420 There have been quite a few changes in administration. AFF has been passed around a bit; even I'm not aware of all of them.

7732420
7732421
It has been passed around a bit, and I think I do remember Smaug being the admin at some point. The very first snapshot of the group in 2012 shows Moon Shooter, though, and while this isn't an absolute guarantee, Moon Shooter is the first member in the member list, which usually means original founder...

--Sweetie Belle

7732421

7732440
ive definitely seen the faces change frequently enough, even tho im not the most active member. does feel somewhat fun but also chilling to have been around so long -.-

7732451
Yep, know that one. I told a buncha people "Hey, I'll help out with your group", then was on the site long enough that I looked around, saw all the other admins were gone, and realized I was running those groups...

--Sweetie Belle

7732489

7731104
any submissions yet? im not seeing them here like you said to put them

7736290 Just the one so far; I know a few folks are working on them or are waiting to submit though. I was actually just about to put out a reminder for folks who might have missed it.

7731104
I have a few questions.

1. Does the image have to contain a pony? I want to participate, but bodies (even faces) aren’t my strong suit. I can still draw other objects and situations, though. Can I enter with those kinds of images?
2. Submissions are allowed anytime within the allotted month, right? Also, does the deadline have a specific time? ‘Cause we’re all from different places on the planet, so not everyone is going to be the 23rd of September at the same time.
3. What does it mean to embed an image? How do I do that?

Other than that, it sounds like a great contest and I want in!

7736324 1: The image needs to be pony related. Whilst the most obvious way of doing this is to draw a pony, there are a lot of things that aren't ponies themselves that are pony related; EqG, anthro versions of ponies, the landscape of Equestria, items from the show (the elements of Harmony, for instance...) or even word-art that uses imagery from the show, like Canterlot, could count. So long as it is recogniseably pony related (and not, say, an OC that never appeared in the show drawn in human form against a Manhattan backdrop... at which point, there really isn't anything left tying it to the show itself, is there?) then it's good to go. Hap is not fussy!

2: Anytime within the month, yes, so there should be about 16 days left, if I'm counting right. As for when on the 23rd it ends; when the entire world enters the 24th of September, time is up. As long as there is a timezone still on the 23rd, then the contest continues to run. Even New Zealand. Even Tonga Time.

3: To embed means to use the embed function on fimfic; for example, this image below has been embedded onto fimfic.

This can be done by typing [img*]image link[/img*] into fimfic or using the embed image button, situated on your comment toolbar between the 'Add Link' button (shaped like two links of a chain) and the 'insert embeddable content' button (shaped like a piece of paper with a camera image on it, which, for the record, functions in much the same way as embed image, but for things like youtube video links).

This means that your image must be uploaded somewhere (say, deviant-art, twitter, or even a free hosting website like postimage.org) and a link to the image must be used to embed itself onto this thread. If you need technical help with it, feel free to send me a message!

7736327
Thank you, Hap.

See you on the 22nd!

7736338 See you then! Let me know if you need anything. : )

7736340
I have one more question. Should I write the word “Rules” and “Group Forum” for the respective images?

7736968 Nah you don't have to, so long as they satisfy (vaguely) the prompt and theme for each category. They can, though!

7736988
Okay, got it.

7731104
My submission for the “Rules” category:

7737292 Very nice; gotta love the rainbow banhammer. The pastel colours are all delightful too!

7737443
Thank you!

The rainbow gavel is taken from the show, actually. Season 4, Episode 22, “Trade Ya!”

7737443
Although, I do have to ask: do you recognize those three books?

7737522 I think I only recognise two; I must confess that the individual books were not something I tended to hone in on whilst viewing! What are they?

7737615
Starting from the bottom one:

• The journal that Twilight used to communicate with Sunset
• The old, beaten down friendship journal
• The top one is the Elements of Harmony guidebook

The two books with words on them are original ones I created.

7731104
Hiya there, Hap.

Me again. Anywho, behold! My submission for the “Group Forum” category:

7731104

Been a while since I've been on here, haha! Couldn't resist when I saw the contest post though, so; here! My submission for the main image!

7740129 Very nice, and welcome back! I love how the guy is levitating paint; that's very cool.

7739577 The castle round table is very fitting for a forum theme; very nice! Glad to see us get a couple of these going now.

7740129
It’s beautiful. Your OC, I take it? So colorful and aesthetically pleasing. Love the way the magical aura looks like a bubble.

7740147
Thanks! There’s one more image coming right up.

7740149
Yep! I designed the pone for this image, though beyond their design I haven't developed further, haha

And yeah! I experimented a few times with the magic to get it looking interesting, glad you like it

7731104
And for the final piece, behold! My submission for the Main Page Image:

Inspired by you, HapHazred. More specifically, this little gem:

G4? It’s all good. G5? It’s all good. G3? Firstly, why, but also, it’s all good.

So I was like, ‘Why not draw all three?’

7740168
It’s always interesting to see how different authors draw the magical auras. Good work.

7740168 The magic is legit the thing I like the most. It's real cool how the colour is straight up getting liquid'd onto the books. Real creative and feels straight outta mlp.

7740184 Ah, great to see some word-art. I was hoping we'd get some in the contest!

7740275
Thank you!

Running out of time, boyos. About three days left! Get drawing!

main image

7741950 Glorious! So colourful! And transparent background, too! I think we've only had one other that's done that so far.