One day out of every year there comes an event where the ghouls, witches, hobbits (they're fashionable now!) and general freak-shows come out of hiding to rein their boogeyness on us folk. I speaketh of Halloween! [Insert scary orchestral music here! -- Ed.] And we're here now to help celebrate this most grand of spookfests with a contest of epic pixely proportions in collaboration with our jolly friends at PixelJoint!

Prizes, scary dreams, rapid indigestion of defected candy-corn purchased at a discount: it's all happening at this year's PIXELWEEN 2005!

RULES:

Here's the giggidy-giggidy:

• Create a complete scene from, or inspired by, your favourite Halloween/horror themed movie. You must use the following template:
  
  
  



• Submissions must be in pixel art form! Read this if you don't have a clue as to what pixel art is. (Tisk, tisk!)



• Save your work in either .gif or .png format. For the love of humanity and all its future generations, no .jpg's! Animated .gifs are allowed if you want to spice things up.



• You can not use more than 32 colors!



• You can submit as many submissions as you wish (though you can't win more then once!). Remember however: it's quality, not quantity!



• You must submit your work by October 29 so that the winners can be announced on Halloween, which is October 31!



• If you do not follow the rules, your entry will not be considered for prizes and it may be relocated/removed!

HOW TO SUBMIT:

Since this is a joint conest with dA and PJ, you must submit your works on both sites in order for your entry to be valid.

Using your dA account, submit your work as you would any other into the CONTESTS > PIXELWEEN 2005 section during the submission process. (If the section is not visible now, it will be shortly.) You do not need to link to your work in this article (though you can if you want to!) nor do you need to note me it. Just make sure it's in the right section and you're set on the dA side of things.

Using your PJ account, (create one here, and make sure you put your dA account name in your profile), just simply submit the work. That's it! The admins who screen submissions at PJ will recognize the Pixelween template and put it in the appropriate location for entries.

You see? Easy as pie!

PRIZES:

• 1st: 1-year dA subscription, $40 in deviantDOLLARS*, dA t-shirt of your choice**



• 2nd: 3-month dA subscription, $20 in deviantDOLLARS*



• 3rd: 3-month dA subscription, $10 in deviantDOLLARS*

<sub>* - deviantDOLLARS can be used anywhere, such as at the dA print store or getting more subs for yourself or others if you choose to share the love!

** - Due to the limited edition nature of deviantWEAR t-shirts, it may not be the shirt your heart desired because of availability issues. It has to be in stock at the time of your winning, in other words.</sub>



The judges for PIXELWEEN 2005 will be:



Entries will be judged on the usual criteria: quality, creativity, how well the rules are followed, and how your skills blow us away.

Both experienced pixelists and pixel-virgins are welcome to enter into the contest! It's all for fun, first and foremost. We can't wait to see what you guys have to show us.


If there are any questions, feel free to post them in this article and wait for one of the above judges for an official answer.