The Non-Existent contest, DeviantART's first official ANSI/ASCII contest kicked off on the 16th of October. It was originally going to end on the 25th of November, but it was extended for two weeks. Originally we had separate categories for ASCII and ANSI as I was really expecting some ANSI artists from the artscene to join the challenge, but no such luck. It turns out the people who have been making textmode art since the early 90s or even the late 80s were too busy basking in their elitism to participate. So in the end we had to combine the categories. Instead of handing out three prizes in two categories we now have a total of five prizes, including two copies of the Dark Domain DVD just like in the original prize list. And we added some surprise prizes to the list, as well.

The number of the entries wasn't so huge, but there were many top notch works, even from people who had never drawn ASCII or ANSI before. There were many wonderful intepretations of the contest theme "Non-Existent", including monsters and other fantasy creatures, abstract concepts, classic and mythological characters from Phoenix to Cthulhu, surreal scenes and combinations of two different concepts to form an entirely new kind of creature. While I was a bit disappointed at the small number of participants I have to say people's creativity really amazed me and I glad I picked this theme for the contest.

But enough of the babble, now it's time to present the five winners, judged by ~jSepia, `roy-sac, ^Aeires and yours truly.

The fifth prize (a three-month subscription to DeviantART) goes to



Flask-Man by ~naknak

The fourth prize (a three month-subscription to DeviantART) goes to



The Witch by ~MagdalenaTR

The third prize (a six-month subscription to DeviantART) goes to



Face to face by ~scumah

The second prize (a six-month subscription to DeviantART and the Dark Domain DVD) goes to



Uninteresting contest entry by ~Olympic-Dames

And the first prize (a one-year subscription to DeviantART and the Dark Domain DVD) goes to



Impossible Love by ~Jaybirdy

Congratulations! Also, as a special surprise all of the five winners will get ASCII themed mousepads (and possibly other stuff from DA prints), generously sponsored by `roy-sac!

I'd like to thank all the participants. We'll probably feature some more of the entries in next issue of TextCanvas - the textmode art spotlight, which would have normally come out at the end of December, but since it's almost the end of December we're delaying it until the end of January as not to drown the whole site in textmode art at once (no matter how nice that would be). But don't worry, we'll compensate for the delay by featuring more art than usual.

You can create more exposure for the winners by faving this article (click the heart icon at top left). Feel free to feature the winners in your journal if you wish, whether it's by links, thumbnails or just a link to this article.

And even though the contest is over, don't stop drawing ASCII and ANSI!