2022-03-24 - Festival of Eggs Submissions

[TJ09]

We've been opening up submissions for the annual Festival of Eggs and the Halloween Trick-or-Treat events to community submissions for some time now. Both events have been receiving a lot interest, so we're continuing the process this year.

 

All submissions must be sent via PM to @Event Art Submissions. The deadline for submissions is April 13.

 

Here's some base guidelines:

• The egg is the main theme, so you must be able to see the egg in the sprite.
• Size limit of 50x50px.
• Images must be submitted in PNG or GIF form.
• Eggs must be pixel art, which generally means that overall color count is limited and pixels are intentionally placed. Do not use filters or anti-aliased tools such as Photoshop's paint brush.
• Eggs may be animated, but should not use rapid or flashing effects.
  • Animated PNGs are allowed, but your mileage may vary.
  • The first frame of animation should be identifiable, to accommodate situations where animations are disabled.
• Semi-transparency is allowed.
• Images must not be shared publicly before the event begins.
• Images should not have blank space around the outer edges.
• Images must use the standard DC egg base.
• Eggs may be rejected for reasons other than those in this post—namely, there will be a general quality bar. This post from last year outlines the most common quality issues.
• Only one submission will be accepted per-person.

 

There are a limited number of spots available. Art will be accepted on a first come, first served basis which only applies when the art is deemed to meet all of the above guidelines (that is, if you need to make changes and resubmit, that bumps you to the back of the line).

 

By submitting art to the Festival of Eggs event, you grant Dragon Cave a non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license to host, use, distribute, modify, copy, display, and create derivative works of your content. You can end this license any time by contacting us, though the art may not be immediately deleted. The license also ends immediately upon notice from us that the art will not be used in the event.

[Ashywolf]

It's already that time of year again, huh. Good luck to all those who submit this year!

[Crowsfold]

And here I was just thinking about this yesterday. Hopefully it'll be hard to pick favorites again this year, we keep getting so many good ones!

[XDLugia]

If anyone needs an egg base, these are provided in the Dragon Request Forum's Ultimate Dragon Request Guide:

 

Blank Basic Egg    -  

Blank Drake Egg   - 

Blank Pygmy Egg  -  

[ShadowMistaken]

Ooo hope there's candy-themed dragons, haven't seen those before

[Feral71]

Well, I was ready for it this year, let's hope I've improved enough. LOL And good luck to all who enter!!!

[Vic]

I wish I could participate but my art skills are garbage.

[Crowsfold]

If anyone happens to know the answers, these questions have been bugging me:

Is there a limit on the number of frames for an animated egg, or just color and size as hard limits? 

Also do discord group DM's count as public, or private? I'd like to get feedback from friends but not sure where that would lie. They themselves would'nt share the images elsewhere, so it would be the matter of if group DM's themselves count as private, as it will only those people able to access the image.


And a side note to those wary of entering due to perceived skill, consider giving it a try anyways! Worse case that could happen would be the same as not entering at all, but what could be gained is practice and possible feedback on what places are lacking and what you could give more practice to.
Besides, half my friends who think they're bad at art are actually solidly average or even good and simply can't see it themselves because of doubt. The other half have great potential if they'd stop ding dang doubting themselves!

Edited March 25, 2022 by Crowsfold

[XDLugia]

30 minutes ago, Crowsfold said:

And a side note to those wary of entering due to perceived skill, consider giving it a try anyways! Worse case that could happen would be the same as not entering at all, but what could be gained is practice and possible feedback on what places are lacking and what you could give more practice to.
Besides, half my friends who think they're bad at art are actually solidly average or even good and simply can't see it themselves because of doubt. The other half have great potential if they'd stop ding dang doubting themselves!

 

I agree with this so much! As the saying goes, nothing ventured nothing gained.
The artist(s) in charge of the Event account will usually try to give constructive criticism if there are issues with your submission.

 

As for hearing for feedback, it does typically take a while to hear anything back from the Event account. At least, from past experiences it does. So, don't panic if it's a while before you hear anything back.

[Moonlightelf]

30 minutes ago, Crowsfold said:

Is there a limit on the number of frames for an animated egg, or just color and size as hard limits?

As far as I am aware, the color count hasn't really been an issue with FoE submissions (in the end, we've had quite a few rainbow eggs in user submissions before). So whatever works with your egg, color-wise it would be pretty safe.

As for the frames... I've observed and sometimes grabbed some previous animated submissions and there have been animations with over 100 frames. So amount of frames most likely doesn't matter, more the first frame of the animation needing to be recognizable.

 

I'm not entirely sure about the file size though... I recall there was file size limit at one point mentioned, but I might be misremembering? Someone else may need to confirm this one.

 

29 minutes ago, Crowsfold said:

Also do discord group DM's count as public, or private? I'd like to get feedback from friends but not sure where that would lie. They themselves would'nt share the images elsewhere, so it would be the matter of if group DM's themselves count as private, as it will only those people able to access the image.

As far as I know, they don't count as public. You could even have your very own private server in Discord and submit everything there. Just make sure that the sprite doesn't get leaked anywhere before the critical moment, and that you have absolute trust on the people who see it.

I have sometimes shared the results of my spriting with very close friends and my boyfriend via Discord DMs even, and majority wouldn't think much of sharing my stuff before the critical moment (though majority aren't even in Dragon Cave).

 

46 minutes ago, Crowsfold said:

And a side note to those wary of entering due to perceived skill, consider giving it a try anyways! Worse case that could happen would be the same as not entering at all, but what could be gained is practice and possible feedback on what places are lacking and what you could give more practice to.

Very much true! Anyone who is feeling that they are not skilled enough, or think that they art plainly sucks... One will lose nothing if one gives it a go. The first works can suck, true... but at the very least one tried and learned a new skill! And maybe improve the skills enough to participate in future FoE or ToT events! I highly recommend giving spriting a go for anyone who is feeling unsure about even trying. Even a more simple design will have a chance to be accepted.

 

Also a small tip to anyone who wants to give it a go, if the shading is giving you trouble, reference one of the single-colored eggs that are already in-cave. White dragon egg is ideal to get some shading reference, while Blacktip dragon egg gives pretty good guideline about contrast. If you are in Dragon Cave Discord groups, by all means ask if someone could help by giving bit of critique through private messages!

[Crowsfold]

10 minutes ago, Moonlightelf said:

As far as I am aware, the color count hasn't really been an issue with FoE submissions (in the end, we've had quite a few rainbow eggs in user submissions before). So whatever works with your egg, color-wise it would be pretty safe.

As for the frames... I've observed and sometimes grabbed some previous animated submissions and there have been animations with over 100 frames. So amount of frames most likely doesn't matter, more the first frame of the animation needing to be recognizable.

 

I'm not entirely sure about the file size though... I recall there was file size limit at one point mentioned, but I might be misremembering? Someone else may need to confirm this one.

 

As far as I know, they don't count as public. You could even have your very own private server in Discord and submit everything there. Just make sure that the sprite doesn't get leaked anywhere before the critical moment, and that you have absolute trust on the people who see it.

I have sometimes shared the results of my spriting with very close friends and my boyfriend via Discord DMs even, and majority wouldn't think much of sharing my stuff before the critical moment (though majority aren't even in Dragon Cave).

 

Very much true! Anyone who is feeling that they are not skilled enough, or think that they art plainly sucks... One will lose nothing if one gives it a go. The first works can suck, true... but at the very least one tried and learned a new skill! And maybe improve the skills enough to participate in future FoE or ToT events! I highly recommend giving spriting a go for anyone who is feeling unsure about even trying. Even a more simple design will have a chance to be accepted.

 

Also a small tip to anyone who wants to give it a go, if the shading is giving you trouble, reference one of the single-colored eggs that are already in-cave. White dragon egg is ideal to get some shading reference, while Blacktip dragon egg gives pretty good guideline about contrast. If you are in Dragon Cave Discord groups, by all means ask if someone could help by giving bit of critique through private messages!

So i'm good to go on both fronts, fantastic thanks! And one of my past festival eggs I was actually requested to reduce the color count on, believe it was the eye eating snake but I forgot for certain. Ever since then I try to keep the total count around or under 20ish, and will share colors wherever possible if it doesnt look weird. 

And while were sharing tips, another i've found useful for pixel shading is while two shades of the same color may look good close up always make sure to zoom out to their end viewing size to tell if it still looks good far away, and still looks like two different colors or if it starts to sorta merge into one with hardly any difference. Generally you'll want to have more value difference (lightness darkness) than you'd normally think. If any of that made any sense, i'm terrible at explanations!

 

 

[Moriaty]

What happens after you submit? If it was rejected would a reason be given? I've never participated in this in previous years and am curious

[XDLugia]

1 hour ago, Moriaty said:

What happens after you submit? If it was rejected would a reason be given? I've never participated in this in previous years and am curious

 

From my experience, if there are issues with your submission (shading, cropping, etc) the artist(s) in charge of the Event account will let you know.

If there isn't anything really wrong with your submission, then they will likely tell you "Thank you for your submission"

No one will know for certain if their art will be used until the actual event and they see their art on site. So do keep in mind not to share your submissions publicly nor have it saved somewhere public!

[Moriaty]

1 hour ago, XDLugia said:

 

From my experience, if there are issues with your submission (shading, cropping, etc) the artist(s) in charge of the Event account will let you know.

If there isn't anything really wrong with your submission, then they will likely tell you "Thank you for your submission"

No one will know for certain if their art will be used until the actual event and they see their art on site. So do keep in mind not to share your submissions publicly nor have it saved somewhere public!

 

ic, thank you!

[Leidarendi]

Good luck everyone!

[Strekoza]

In last Trick o' Treat I saved my paint incorrectly, and it got more than 100 colors. I got the letter about it, when I tried to send this picture. When I fixed it and sent again, had the answer "Thank you for your submission".

 

Try to take part again now)

 

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Strekoza

[chariset]

Phew.

 

Ambitious ideas take a long time to put into a 50x50 image!  But I finally turned a submission in.  Fingers crossed.

[Ashywolf]

Thinking of a good idea took me a while this time, I hope I wasn't too late :'D

Edited April 9, 2022 by Ashywolf

[wobster109]

Submitted! Fingers crossed!

[sh20000sh]

On 3/26/2022 at 12:00 PM, XDLugia said:

No one will know for certain if their art will be used until the actual event and they see their art on site.

I can say something about this. I submitted something and finally rejected on 2019 egg submission. At that point, I got message about final rejection at around submission deadline. That time was first time for user submission so I think whole process might be different from now though. I believe it will be used if you didn't got another message after thank you message this point.

[wobster109]

I’m in a weird spot. I submitted my first version on April 9 and it’s been rejected twice. My third submission was just after midnight on Apr 12. I haven’t heard anything either way since then… neither “thank you for your submission” nor “hey please change X”. Now that the deadline has passed, I’m really nervous. 😅

[Starbit]

I am so incredibly excited to see if my egg made it in! Good luck everyone

[chariset]

10 hours ago, wobster109 said:

I’m in a weird spot. I submitted my first version on April 9 and it’s been rejected twice. My third submission was just after midnight on Apr 12. I haven’t heard anything either way since then… neither “thank you for your submission” nor “hey please change X”. Now that the deadline has passed, I’m really nervous. 😅

I'm in a similar situation.  I guess we'll know soon