The Autumn 2006 Banner Contest ** Starring Kairin **
 

Welcome to the new Autumn banner contest. You've all seen the great banners we have at the top of our forum. Some of you remember the last banner contest. Others have wondered where those cool banners come from. In case you didn't know, they were made by people on this forum. Now is your chance to make a banner that will grace our forum for at least the next season.

Banners may contain anime artwork from any source including your own art. They must be anime related and they must be appropriate for our forum. The theme for this Autumn banner contest is our mascot, Kairin. :D Unfortunately Kairin artwork is not prevalent. In order to encourage entries I will be accepting anything anime related that is inspirational of the Autumn season such as fall leaves, harvested fields and wine. Feel free to use your imagination, but I will invalidate anything that does not feel autumnal to me, unless it contains an image of Kairin. Kairin is always good! Hopefully we'll see some original artwork of our beautiful and classy mascot. If you want to work with any of the official images created by Kiva128, you will find some of his drawings in the Kairin Fanart Thread. I'll mention that while Kiva128 has granted permission for use of the images that he has released in that thread, other artists have chosen to keep their rights and you should ask their permission. Naturally all our resident artists are encouraged to draw their own renditions of our beautiful mascot. If anyone wants to post Kairin artwork for others to photoshop into banners, that would be a generous gesture earning much good will.

The rest of the rules:

• All entries must have Kairin or an Autumn theme.
• The edges of all banners must blend into the top bar. Please see below for details.
• All entries must be in GIF, PNG or JPG format. Remember, we want the banner to be able to load quickly for the sake of 56Kers so no animations will be accepted and filesize should be kept to 30K or less.
• Each member may only enter 3 banners maximum. If you go over this number you need to specify which banners to use or else your last 3 entries will be used.
• Members will only have until 06:00:00 Wed July 27 2006 in GMT to create banners. Check Time Zone Converter for information on what time this is near you. (In EST this is 2am Thursday morning... or really late Wednesday night.)
• This thread is to be used for banner entries only. Nominations in this thread will be ignored. However it is the place to tell each other which banners you like, I just won't count it as a nomination.
• After this thread closes, a new thread will be created in which everyone will nominate their favorite banners. Nominations will run for exactly 6 more days, until August 2nd, 2006 at which time the nomination thread will be closed.
• At this time the 10 most popular banners will be put up on a poll for the entire forum to vote for since more people respond to polls that don't require them to post. Each contestant will only be listed once regardless of how many banners he entered.
• The poll will close on August 6th after exactly 4 days of voting. Polls close automatically so please check the poll for information concerning when it will close in your timezone.
• The three most popular banners will be chosen to rotate at the top of our forum.
• Of these three, One is the winner and the other two are runner ups. The winner is the contestant whose entry got the greatest number of votes. As recognition of the accomplishment this winner will recieve a $35 dollar gift certificate provided by Catgirls. ;)

Disclaimers:

• I may disqualify any banner deemed to be offensive or inappropriate.
• No moderators (of any rank) are allowed to win the grand prize. If by some stroke of brilliant artistry one of us does win, the prize will go to the first runner up.
• All submitted banners become property of AnimeSuki and may be used now or in future years without asking your permission.

If you want to use the AnimeSuki font, there it is. This is optional.

Important: The right and left edges of the banner must blend into the top bar. That means the very edge of the template below must not be covered by any image or else it will look like it has been cut off. If a mistake is made on edge blending we will all try to point it out so that it can be fixed. Banners whose edges are messed up will be ineligable.

Here is the template:
http://s01.imagehost.org/0119/650x60...i-Template.gif
Make sure you keep the sides clear of image so that it blends properly at the right and left.

Phew, it's not limited to just our new mascot...

My YKK run continues! :heh:

1. http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/2352/animesukiaruruu8ec.jpg

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/4...aruruu28uk.jpg

Utawarerumono 1.01 Final version

2. http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/3...banner2nw2.jpg

Kiva128 Kairin 1.0.0 Final version

3. http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/164...banner3sr9.jpg

Higurashi 1.0.0 Final version

I feel an "oh shit" moment coming on.

...Perhaps maybe, an mandatory Kairin banner, in that out of the 10 most popular banners, that should an Kairin banner not make the list, #10 is bumped off the nomination list, and next highest nomination count Kairin banner, ...#15 for example, gets bumped to #10.

Then broken down, say, if that Kairin banner #10 doesn't make the top three, the Kairin banner either takes place of #3, or Kairin banner becomes fourth banner in rotation.




...not that Kairin is taking anything less than first place of course. ;) :p

Kairin or no Kairin, that's one excellent banner, Green²! I'd vote for it. :)
I love the font you used btw. Looks very nice.

Sorry about the lack of Kairin art everyone. I'm just a perfectionist by nature so I take too long on things that shouldn't take so long. I have some ideas on how to get some new Kairin art out at a decent speed. However, getting it out before the deadline so people can actually use it is another story. :heh:
On the bright side, there's a few chibi pictures around you guys could use. Everyone loves chibi, right? Right? :uhoh:

I'm not sure if I'm entering the contest yet. I want to finish the wallpaper I'm working on pretty badly since I really like it. I might do a Kairin banner at the last minute again, I'm not sure yet.

Anyways, best of luck to the contestants!

And judging from the past, I expect you'll get to the final vote. I, as always, look forward to seeing your YKK stylings.


It is not mandatory that a banner with Kairin place in the top three. It is not even mandatory that a Kairin banner be nominated. I do however suspect that having Kairin in the entry will provide an advantage when it comes time for nominations and the final vote. There is no mandatory status for Kairin.

I will only say that if a Kairin banner doesn't win, it is guaranteed that the best Kairin banner will be presented on our forum in addition to the three victors.

Wait until you see the other entries. That's a darn fine banner. Just as I'd expect from our friend Green². Of course I am expecting a lot of other fine entries as well. This is just the beginning! ;) Heck, I'm even hoping for other banners from Green² that exceed this one. Past experience tells me that it is quite likely! :D

I'm hoping that you will draw a Kairin banner to present for this contest. As Kairin's number 1 fan, I suspect your entry will be quite exceptional. I'm hoping others will draw their own Karin banners also. There can't be such a thing as too much Kairin.

I'll certainly give it a try. However, I never was good at making banners. I find the working space too small. And fall just so happens to be my least favourite season so we'll see what happens. :heh:

I had a great idea for a banner actually, but unfortunately Kairin's long ears thwarted that plan. Oh well, I'll think of something...I hope :uhoh:

EDIT: I wonder how long it's going to be before someone posts the mandatory Haruhi banner. You know it's coming. :D

I thought I had almost finished my first banner, but after seeing Green's, I need to try harder. :D

I really did think of something Haruhi related, but I decide its going to be all Kairin.

I'm doing a banner, but its going to be black and white, hand sketched, like everything else I've ever done. Not sure if I should continue any further though, it doesn't seem to fit the bluish template.

If you don't think you can make your art work fit the template, you could always post a large version of the sketch and join forces with someone else to produce a version that works with the blue... we have a range of talent in this forum... some like you are good at sketching, others are good at manipulating existing art -- the banner contests allow both to contribute their skills.

Incidentally: Green², the banner is fantastic... my only comments would be I'm not keen on the font... and the left (and right too now I think about it) side jumps from purple to blue too suddenly. A different font and a softer edge (i.e. blended over ~100px rather than ~5px) would make it practically perfect in every way! :D

I need to make some changes. This isn't the one I'm entering.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...1stbanner2.gif
I know, lame, but this is my first time doing something like this.

Hey that's not bad for a first try. One thing I would advise improving on is maybe getting rid of the gradient effect on the font. Or if you don't want to do that, then perhaps make the font a bit bigger. Also Kaede looks too small compared to everything else so maybe enlarging her as well would be better.

That's just what I think though. :)

I agree with you actually, so thanks. :)

The better version.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...anner1copy.gif

Small update: I've posted the contest schedule in the Forum Calendar. There are several advantages of this.You can tell the forum to email you a reminder when it's time to nominate banners, and again when the poll opens. Also, you can check the calendar to see when the deadline is in your timezone. (Assuming that you set your timezone in your User CP.)

Here's my 1st try, actually just posting here to see what's the response to a black and white banner lol

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/5...banner24qi.jpg

The entire banner is hand sketched, except for the template and font. It is compiled and edited using MS Paint. I have no photoshop nor photoshop skills lol. Monotype Corsiva is probably too overused, I would get another font, or sketch one, if I were to continue with this. The quality of the picture isn't really good too, I can't get too far without photoshop or some other vector programs.

The sketches I used:
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/6753/leaf3pe.jpghttp://img322.imageshack.us/img322/6...rin21ok.th.jpghttp://img391.imageshack.us/img391/5732/tree9qu.th.jpg

Ah. Finaly. I can get to work again. ^-^

So, one entry for Kairin and one for Autumn.. hmm. Maybe two Kairin entries if Kiva finaly make that swimsuit version of Kairin for me. :o

Well unless you were intent on showing off her bust or...bikini line, I don't see why a swimsuit picture would be better than just any of Kairin picture. You'd only see her head anyways right? :heh:

And yes she's wearing a bikini not those high school swimsuits you love oh-so-much, Jojo. :D It'll be done when it's done.

It's nice, but if I might make a recommendation... I think that the charcoal color of the sketch doesn't fit well with the blue background so you'll need to colorize the images in a more suitable shade. I guess you can't do that with MS Paint, but if you tell me what exact color you'd like, I or someone else (if I don't get to it quickly enough) would be glad to help. Like this:

Hue: 84, Saturation: 138
http://s01.imagehost.org/0667/kairin...lor1_png.t.jpg

Hue: 40, Saturation 212
http://s01.imagehost.org/0667/kairin...or1b_png.t.jpg

Hue: 28, Saturation: 214
http://s01.imagehost.org/0667/leaf3pe-color1.png

Hue: 69, Saturation: 50
http://s01.imagehost.org/0667/tree9qu-color1_png.t.jpg

I bet those colors would make it a lot prettier.

Also, for anyone thinking of drawing Kairin, please don't be afraid to change her clothing or hair style. The way I drew her isn't the only way. For example, if those chun li things in her hair (what are those called anyways? :heh:) are too hard, just don't put them in. If the dress isn't working, give her a T-shirt. In other words, have fun experimenting instead of being locked into thinking there's only 1 way to draw Kairin.

That's a cool banner/sketch. Perhaps a bit of colour would help it (as NoSanninWa already said). Maybe it's just me, but the leaves may need tidied up. They look kinda sketchy.

Still good work though. :)

I didn't even realise Monotype Corsiva was used so much. I just used what came naturally. :)

Now that you mention it, that's the same font I used on my wallpaper. What are the odds? :eek:
Didn't know it was such a common font.