Annual Cel Contest 2015!! - WINNERS ANNOUNCED!!!

[Jadeduo]

Hi All!

It's that time of year again!

Turn out for last year was pretty awesome-sauce! And the Sketch contest even had more people turn out this year! Let's see if we can top both for the Cel contest in 2015! So I will be doing everything the same way I did for the last two contests. All voting will be through Survey Monkey, and entries will be sent to me directly as well! This year I am planning on putting together the RS site at the same time that I put up the entries into the voting pages, it is much is easier to do as the entries come instead of slogging through backlog afterwards, much more efficient!

For volunteers this time around, I will need an awards creator, and someone that will be available to test out the site after the accepting entries period has ended to check for errors and make sure everything matches up.

Volunteer Positions:
Awards Creator: Goalie Zero has claimed the awards creator position! Thanks so much!! Sugoi!!!
Site Tester - Star-Phoenix (Position Filled!)

(C) = Cel (H) = Hanken (MC) = Model Cel (O) = Other (P) = Painting (R) = Rilezu (SH) = Shikishi

Accessory - Emphasis on what the character is holding, using, swinging, playing, aiming. (C, R, SH)
Action - Scenes of action, movement, motion. (C, R, SH)
Background - No characters allowed. (C, P, R, SH)
Bliss - Dreamy, joyful, heavenly, euphoric. (C, R, SH)
Blood on the Ground - Characters on the verge of death, or those that really are gravely injured, dying, or dead. (C, R)
Chibi/Superdeformed - Characters drawn in a semi-deformed, comical style (C, R, SH)
Femininity - Delicacy, gentleness, maidenly (C, R, SH)
Tomboys - For all those lovely ladies that are redefining what it means to be a woman! (C, R, SH)
Funny - Laugh out loud moments. (C, R, SH)
FURRIES (have a cel of a furry friend? A dog, a cat, a cabbit, a catgirl/boy? a Kero..... you know ANYTHING with fur) (C, R, SH)
Group - Art of two or more characters. (C, R, SH)
Hanken - Art used for merchandise or other non-production special circumstances. Hankens are not allowed in any other category except hentai. (C, H, P, O)
Heroic - White knight saves the day. (C, R, SH)
Itadakimasu! (Our favorite characters stuffing their faces with deliciousness) (C, R, SH)
Love - Kissing, hugging, cuddling, any displays of affection, innocent or physical – just not explicit. (C, R, SH)
Muscles - Beef, brawn flesh, sinew, tendon. (C, R, SH)
Bishonen - Young men whose beauty (and sex appeal) transcends the boundary of gender. (C, R, SH)
Mech and Tech - Robots, vehicles, ships, cars, gundams, Oh MY! (C, R, SH)
Monochrome/Weird Coloring - Those scenes that require you to see the world through a different lense... Must be oddly colored, black and white, or shades of all the same color. (C, R, SH)
Outfit - Best dressed, emphasis on clothes and costumes. (C, R, SH)
Rage - Mad, angry, extreme agitation. (C, R, SH)
Shocked - Stunned, horrified, utter dismay. (C, R, SH)
Sorrow - Tear-jerkers, sadness. (C, R, SH)
Tranquility - Characters who have found inner peace or a welcome opportunity to unwind. (C, R, SH)
OP/ED/Eyecatch – Cels used only in these special animated sequences. These cels are not allowed in any other category. (C, R)
Villainy! - Love evil things? Show off your Villainesses and Villains, only requirement is they must be irredeemably evil! (C, R, SH)

OPTIONAL - Eyes on Me, Anime Eyes, love them hate them, they must be the focus of the cel. (C, R, SH)
OPTIONAL - Novel Set-Up - Cel or cels with an UNMATCHING background that creates an original image. The background must be an original production item (not photocopied or Photoshopped). (C, R, SH)
OPTIONAL - Hentai/Yaoi/Yuri - The risque genres, nudity not a requirement however it must be from a Hentai, Yaoi, or Yuri anime with a higher maturity rating! (C, R, SH)
OPTIONAL - POSTERIORS - the Backs of anime in a non sexual way. (do you have a cel of someone's butt?, the back of their head? the back of their knees? do you feel it is not appreciated because its someones back, this is the category for you!) (C, R, SH)
OPTIONAL - Fan Cel - Back by popular demand! A cel produced by someone not in the industry, must be fan made could be done by your self or any fan artist! (C, R, SH)
OPTIONAL - Sexy - Male, Female... Whatever! Whatever gets your motors revving! This I know is a highly subjective category we shall test it out and see how it goes! (C, R, SH)


ELIGIBILITY RULES

1.) You must be a registered member of Anime-Beta by the start of the submission process.
2.) You must physically own all artwork that you submit. You may not submit artwork which has been sold, or for which a sale is pending. Submitted artwork does not have to be posted in your online gallery.
3.) Submitted artwork may not include watermarks or any other type of 'tag' that could affiliate it with a gallery or owner.
4.) If you submit artwork for consideration in this contest, you must vote for all categories. The only exceptions are the optional categories (animated, hentai, settei). These categories are both optional to vote in and optional to submit artwork to. However, you submit artwork to an optional category, you must vote in that category.
5.) Even if you do not submit artwork, you may still vote in any or all of the categories.

SUBMISSION RULES

1.) Participants are eligible to enter the contest in 9 standard categories and 3 optional categories, for a total of 12 pieces of artwork submitted.
2.) While a participant may choose to enter 12 pieces of artwork, you are not required to submit twelve items. You may enter fewer items.
3.) In order to cut down on bandwidth usage, please limit your entries to less than 1 MB in size a good rule of thumb is if it doesn't upload to RS it will not upload for the contest!
4.) Artwork which was previously entered into the Anime-Beta Awards is eligible for re-entry, provided that the winning piece has changed owners. If you choose to submit a previous winning piece, you must e-mail the contest coordinator before submitting it. This way, the organizer knows the piece has changed owners and that it is a qualified entry. If you do not e-mail the coordinator, your entry will be disqualified. Please check previous awards websites carefully.
5.) Sequence mates of previous winners will be allowed if there is a substantial difference between the two. Please inform the contest coordinator which piece you are submitting a sequence mate of. You may not submit a sequence mate if you also own the previous winning piece.
6.) Sequence mates in the same category are not permitted. Whoever submits the artwork first will be given a spot in that category. If you submit a sequence mate to an item that is already in a category, you will have the chance to re-submit another item in lieu of the repeated piece.
7.) If a category has only four entries, only #1 and #2 awards will be given. If a category has only three entries, only a #1 award will be given. Categories with fewer than three entries 24 hours before the beginning of voting will be eliminated. Contestants will have the chance to re-submit artwork to another category.
8.) Modification and/or enhancement of images is not permitted. The only exception is for oversized images requiring multiple scans. You may piece these scans together to make a complete image.
9.) When there are tie votes, awards will be given in the following ways:
two #1, no #2, one #3
one #1, two #2, no #3
one #1, one #2, two #3
two #1, two #3.

SCHEDULE:

October 1-31 - Submit Entries
November 1-8 - Viewing Period
November 9-30 - Voting Period
December 15 - Winners Announced!

How entries are submitted:

E-mail them to Jadeduo at gmail.com

And include with each entry the following:

1. Your Beta User ID
2. What Category you are submitting to.
3. Character Name
4. Anime

Keep in mind the most recent Anime TV Show I have watched is Puella Madoka Magica, so I can basically figure out SM/DBZ and some other old school animes however I am not familiar at all with the newer shows. So make this easy on me please label everything as asked! Everyone that has ever run these things knows they are a time suck so the faster I can get done with admin tasks the smoother this will go.

JD

For those who don't want to go to page 9 to vote here you go!

There were 27 entrants this year! So kudos to everyone who took the time to get entries down! And everyone else that did not have time, I'm sure we would appreciate it if you would vote!!!!

ENTRANTS! Please make sure you vote in EVERY Regular CATEGORY!! No need to vote in any of OPTIONAL CATEGORIES unless you've submitted a piece to those categories! Also no one is forced of course to vote in Hentai, Sexy, or Posterior if you think it will be offensive to you! ^_^

I have a box at the end of every survey where you can put your AB User ID, if you do not put it there, your vote will NOT be counted! ^_^ So make sure you do so!

Another thing, I will be tracking the voting so if you have any questions if you accidentally double voted or are worried you missed a category PM or e-mail me I will check for you! You guys have three weeks to vote! Have fun with it! I was too busy to get the RS site up this weekend but I will try and work it up this week. If you can't wait to vote and the image sizing bothers you, try voting from a smartphone or tablet Survey Monkey automatically normalizes the voting pages for mobile devices!

Thanks everyone in advance for participating! ^_^ -JD

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/55W559Z Accessory

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KDYFFH6 Action 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KD5KPSW Action 2 (VOTE HERE)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KYN8LN9 Background

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/K276KP3 Bliss

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KC3RK95 Blood on the Ground

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KJVHTQP Chibi or Superdeformed

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5GQ9GRC Feminity 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5GRLYXQ Feminity 2 (Vote HERE)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KJ5BQNB Tomboys

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KQF28R3 Funny

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KW8NGJY Furries

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KWRXKPL Group

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5B83T56 Hanken

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5Z26K25 Heroic 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KSL6D77 Heroic 2 (Vote HERE)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KSMSJTT Itadakimasu

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6CS2QZW Love

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KTKTZP7 Muscles

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5PCBKTW Bishonen 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KT3TKQY Bishonen 2 (Vote HERE)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KMF96RP Mech and Tech

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KX96JTK Monochrome

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5BJ8VPC Outfit 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KX5ZM8D Outfit 2 (Vote HERE)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KNSHN6Q Rage

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/56PVD8T Shocked 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KN53GGM Shocked 2 (Vote HERE)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KFX23PB Sorrow

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/K3829KY Tranquility

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/K3M2MS9 OP/ED/Eyecatch

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5BPQNQF Villainy 1
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KG8TBQB Villainy 2 (Vote HERE)

OPTIONAL CATEGORIES

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KG6J9WC Eyes on Me 1

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KBJV5FG A Novel Setup

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KBBVQHD Hentai/Yaoi/Yuri

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KHJ3TML Posteriors

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KHF8VWR Fan Cel

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KPLTVPB Sexy

[zerospace]

So before ya'll get to taking off and running with this again, I'd like to pose a question: is there any way you can find an alternative to Survey Monkey? I appreciate that you're using them to do the worst part of the contest running job (tallying votes), but the past couple of contests were so time consuming to cast votes that I didn't even bother.

Have you considered setting up a free WordPress site with a survey or poll plugin rather than use a smash-up of Rubberslug and Survey Monkey (let's face it, SM was not designed for running contests)? Just throwing an idea out there . Doing it this way could contain everything on one site and still make it easy for votes to be tallied and images to be uploaded.

[Jadeduo]

LOL unless you were hankering to doing this Zerospace, I am willing to bow out and just participate! I had a lot of fun, not running the Open House this time around!

My worry is about the authentication part, as I am not talented enough with code to make something that would be a way to curb those people that would go in and cast extra votes for themselves. This way I can verify every voter without it being too difficult for me. I also like that I can publish the results so that everyone can see and verify the winners!

As you know the contest is already a lot of work, so anything that could make my job easier sure I would do it, but it would have to have to options to verify that each betarian only votes once per category, and that they are actually a beta member. I am not accusing anyone, but there are some serious issues that have come up in past contests where voting got nasty, pointing fingers and all that jazz, and I want to avoid that as much as possible. It makes us look bad and I really don't want to deal with it! I would much rather be a cheerleader than referee!

To avoid that, the extra time I spend on creating two platforms and everyone who votes spends. I think it worth it to keep everything on the up and up, as well as have complete transparency in the end! So if I make a mistake someone can point it out, and I can be like! Whoops! My bad! Instead of $%&(@$%&($(&$(&^$%*@%*$&(%$(!

I can suggest that when you do go vote to make it go quicker, just copy your beta name and when you go to verify your vote you can just paste it in the box each time. It only took me 15-20 minutes to cast my votes both times in the last two contests doing it that way! Plus I always enjoy looking at all the lovelies and taking time to make the decision when I cast my vote! I also when voting on my laptop would open each page on a tab first and then run through them casting real quick and Xing out of each page once I'd voted!

Also Rubberslug will keep the site going as opposed to possibly putting it on a free platform with ads or a free platform that could conceivably disappear forever, because there are no ads... We want to keep the contest results up for the beta record as it were. I am open to suggestions however if you know of something that also has the kind of transparency and permanence that I am looking for!

Thanks,
JD

[zerospace]

I understand, JD, I do. It was just a suggestion. For reference, though, in the contests that my code was used to run and hosted on my web server, I can STILL provide the voting logs that show date, time, IP addresses, email address and beta usernames as well as what votes were cast. All my web data is currently backed up on a redundant, home-built network attached storage machine that's humming away on my desk here as I type. So, if the issue is transparency, almost anything that records the voting data should record everything you'd need to prove cheating (though quite frankly, you won't eliminate the most determined cheats even with Survey Monkey, as they can easily use web proxies & multiple browsers to mask their IP address/origins, but that's another issue for another day).

You seem pretty determined to keep using Survey Monkey, so I'll just continue to sit it out, then. No biggie. It's just too much of a pain in the rear for me to navigate 2 sites simultaneously and click a boatload of links to make my choices and then cast each vote. I don't really care either way. I was just making a suggestion to possibly help participation by making it a little easier on those who wanted to just vote without all the confusion .

[Jadeduo]

I am not determined persay, but I was respecting your wishes when you decided to retire the code, a while back! I get why you did that, I seriously I do, so I was looking for other alternatives, and I came up with this, if you want to help me through with using the code you can definitely do that, I would not be adverse! I always like learning a new thing. MY HTML knowledge however is VERY basic, I can use a code generator like dreamweaver, and if it is not working in testing I know enough to poke around the code to fix things but not enough to use fancy things like polls and such.

I can do like frames, tables, img tags etc.... You know just the basics!

It is 100% true, you can't stop all cheaters, however, I do hand verify every vote that comes through, if the person does not put in their beta ID the vote is deleted, because then I can't verify it fully. I also keep a spreadsheet to track all the votes as well. Because if you participate you have to vote in all categories, and so I have to track that anyway as well!

However, I think the last two contests have come back with very fair results and I haven't hit any snags although I did miscount one award in the first award run and someone pointed it out and I fixed it! So I do like the ability for other peeps to catch my mistakes as well! It's good to have backup!

LOL and no takers on anyone else doing this?

JD

[JustVan]

Are the categories set or are we able to make some suggestions?

If so I'd love to see a "swim suit contest" or "sexy" category. Not sexual/hentai, but just slinky dresses, fine tuxedos, swim suits, whatever. That fancy outfit from that special episode or OVA, etc.

I think a "chibi" or "super deformed" category could be fun. These are the types of cels that wouldn't usually win in another category, but could be fun in their own.

And because I'm especially a fan of it, I'd love to see a monochrome lighting category, where cels are all in one shade of color, or black and white. Or to broaden it, anything with really unique/interesting lighting.

[Jadeduo]

No the categories are not set! This is why I start up the conversation so early so we can make suggestions to new categories to keep things interesting... And to make any rule adjustments to the rules that we had run into in the last contest runs!

Although I think they went pretty smoothly myself! I might be biased!

Those are some great suggestions, what does everyone else think?

[theultimatebrucelee]

That's a great idea, I'll vote for a "sexy" category. Although it might end up being male character competing with a female for top place, how can you define which gender is more sexy? or to be specific, what would be the criteria in judging?

[JWR]

Over the last 2 contests using the survey monkey site worked ok for me. Anything that removes potential human errors can only make things run smoother.

[Jadeduo]

Thanks JWR, I appreciate that vote of confidence! ^_^ I like the removal of Human Error, as well it can happen, but then with the total transparency thing going with Survey Monkey if I make a mistake I have all of my lovely community to point it out so that I can fix it ^_^;;

So I was thinking about the suggestions of new categories, and I though we should probably cut some categories before we add new ones... So last year these were the counts on the last contest:

Accessories (6)
Action (12)
Background (7)
Bishonen (9)
Bliss (6)
Blood on the Ground (6)
Creepy (4)
Femininity (5)
Funny (5)
Furries (6)
Group (7)
Hanken (4)
Harmony (4)
Heroic (8)
Itadakimasu! (8)
Love (5)
Maniacal Laughter (3)
Mech and Tech (6)
Muscles (4) - This could be cut as well, but with the amount of DBZ collectors on this forum, we can do better with this category!
OP/ED/Eyecatch (7)
Outfit (6)
Rage (12)
Shocked (10)
Sorrow (6)
Tomboys (5)
Tranquility (7)
OPTIONAL: A Novel Setup (3)
OPTIONAL: Are They? Or, Aren't They? (3) These two can prolly go they were optional and did not attract any entries really...
OPTIONAL: Eyes On Me (8) - New last year did pretty well... ^_^
OPTIONAL: Posteriors (7) - New last year did pretty well... ^_^

Categories that were listed for last year that did not get enough entries:
Hentai
Worst

New Categories in the Running:
OPTIONAL: Sexy - Male, Female... Whatever revs your motors! - JustVan and theultimatebrucelee
Chibi or Superdeformed - Need a description must think in this... - JustVan, Jadeduo
Monochrome/Weird Coloring... Those scenes that require you to see the world through a different lense... - JustVan, Jadeduo

Cool deal everyone let me know what you all think!

JD

[JustVan]

That's a great idea, I'll vote for a "sexy" category. Although it might end up being male character competing with a female for top place, how can you define which gender is more sexy? or to be specific, what would be the criteria in judging?

Maybe you'd have to have Best Male and Best Female in that case, to be fair?

[Jadeduo]

We actually split the traditional Best Male and Best Female last year into four categories:

Female
Femininity
Tomboy

Male
Muscles
Bishonen

The thought behind this, was that the non-traditional ideas of beauty were not getting as much play as the hot and or sexy entries into the Male and Female Categories, so as a group through voting we split the categories, also sexy is definitely subjective to the person voting as well as the person entering. It would be interesting I think to mix the sexes... and see how it plays out as an experiment. Also because Sexy would be a borderline category I figure we could test it out in Optional, so those who could possibly be offended but still want to enter have the option of not voting in the category.

Also Bishonen are a definite thing that is VERY specific to Anime much like Chibis/Superdeformed characters, so we thought it was a category that definitely needed some representation in the Beta contest.

[cutiebunny]

I think certain categories, like Harmony, should probably be rotated into the list every couple of years. Certain types of cels are rarely used in the animation aspect, so there are likely fewer of them total and less of them likely owned by RS/Beta members in compared to other cels.

[Jadeduo]

CB, that seems like a great idea I felt like I was pulling teeth in the Harmony Category last year!

Hanken I think does not have the problem that Harmony does, there are so few out there. And the collectors that do score them highly treasure them so they rarely make it to market! I am game for that, what does everyone else think?

[MajinTangerine]

I'm excited for this! I vote to keep the muscle category! Lol! Being a dbz collector that is like the perfect one!

Also, I vote for the monochrome/weird coloring category!