The winners of the contest were announced September 1st, 2009. You can find them at this DeviantArt journal entry.
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Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to Wintersweet’s AutoShoujo Random Title Generator, pick a title, imagine a series/story based on that title, and to create a picture depicting the FRONT AND BACK COVER for either a DVD, manga, or book of the story you imagined. This should be your artwork, concept, and characters, not fan art or using anyone else’s work.
The front cover should have the title you used on it, and the back cover should have a short blurb describing the story in such a way as to make people want to read or watch it. Look at the backs of manga, books, and DVDs to see how that’s done.
Successful entries will be ones that show evidence in the art and back-cover blurb that the creator(s) has given thought to the story and characters. Technical skill is less important than making us want to read or watch this story!
Prizes:
1st prize: $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com, or dickblick.com, or cash via Paypal.
2nd prize: $20 gift certificate to Amazon.com, or dickblick.com, or cash via Paypal.
3rd prize: $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com, or dickblick.com, or cash via Paypal.
Deadline: Sunday, August 16th.
Rules:
1. You may submit up to three entries, as long as they use different titles.
2. Collaborations welcome! However, if a collaboration wins first through third place, the prize will be divided among the people who collaborated: i.e., if Jane Li and Sabrina Schmidt collaborate on an entry and win the $30 first prize, Jane will get $15 and Sabrina will get $15.
3. The cover you make does not have to be the first in a series; for example, you could come up with a cover for volume 3 of a manga series if you wanted.
4. You can put the front and back cover in one picture, or make them two pictures and upload them separately.
5. Upload your picture to somewhere like DeviantArt, Photobucket, Flickr, Livejournal, etc. and EMAIL me, Telophase, the LINK to it at telophase14 (at) gmail (dot) com with AUTOSHOUJO ENTRY in the subject line. DO NOT send the image itself to me, just a link. (The subject line is to help me find them in my inbox; you won’t be disqualified if you get it wrong. :D) Email is the best way to send it – if you send it via a note or comment on DeviantArt or LJ, I might miss it. If you have not received a “Got it, thanks!” reply within three days of sending it, email and ask if I’ve gotten it.
6. All entries will be listed on http://www.magatsu.net/autoshoujo-cover-contest. If you wish to have yours removed after the contest is over, please contact Telophase at telophase14 (at) gmail (dot) com.
7. If you have any questions, please ask!
8. The entries will be judged by a panel of three judges – Telophase, Wintersweet, and someone to be chosen shortly.
FAQ (To be added to as questions come up)
Q. Can elements in the picture be traced?
A. Yes, provided that (a) they are from photos you took, or (b) you own the rights to the photo or picture (for example, if you bought it on istockphoto.com), or (c) the photo or picture is in the public domain. Public domain does NOT mean any picture found on Google Images – if you are not sure if a picture is in the public domain, send me a link to the site you found it on and I’ll see if I can tell. Or try morguefile.com, sxc.hu, or imageafter.com for free stock photos. You might want to link to the pictures you used in the description of the pic to prove that you didn’t trace the whole picture, so we can judge how much creativity you used in the overall composition.
Q. If I get inspired by the generator, can I create a whole story from it?
A. Absolutely! Obviously, it’s not part of the contest, but if you get inspired by the generator and write/draw a story based on a title from it, it’s all yours! You can do whatever you want with it! I know that Wintersweet would be thrilled to know that her generator inspired creativity in someone.
Q What’s the official policy, if any is needed, on the unlikely event of competing entries with the same title?
A. Since it’s impossible for any given contestant to know if somebody else managed to get the same title in the generator (although it’s unlikely), they will be treated exactly like any other entry.
If one person submits two entries with the same title, I will assume that the second submission is meant to replace the first and remove the first one from the competition, as per Rule 1. I would rather people exercise their creative muscles and try a different title.
Q. Can there be a special No-Prize for the best series that is emphatically NOT described in any coherent way by its title? (Sugar Star Princess Battle will be about, um, race jockeys. Grimy London robot urchin race jockeys!)
A. Oh, why the hell not?! (For the uninitiated, a No-Prize is exactly what it says: no prize. Just a bit of recognition. :D)
Q. Does it have to be shoujo?
A. Nope! It can be whatever genre works for the title and the story!
I found that the 1.74 patch (and probably other patches) may not be compatible with earlier patches. Therefore, the expansion cannot update properly – causing an error message. Thus, uninstall the game entirely (back up your savegames first) and reinstall from the CDs, but DON’T patch with anything but the latest patch (1.74 final at the time of this writing) Then install the expansion. When the installer checks, you will have the appropriate version of the game and the installation should begin.
Also, under Windows Vista, a message box came up as soon as I tried to run the game, which stated that the game has known issues under Vista. However, I just put the game in XP SP2 compatibility mode, ran as admin, and turned off visual themes (all under the compatibility tab in the executable’s properties window). Then I told the warning window to stop displaying and just run the game anyway. Under these settings, I haven’t had any problems with the game whatsoever!
Good luck, all!
P.S. If my tips help you get the game going, name your capital city after me – just once :P
God, what makes NO sense is that Firaxis doesn’t offer the 1.74 patch on their web site.
I’ve tried both Vista x64 and x86 and have been attempting to use the XP SP-2 compatability mode option for the last several weeks. Failure after failure. It just kept telling me that “there was a problem” and that it had to close. I’ve been close to throwing up my hands and reverting back to XP.
I’m not sure if changing the compatability mode to NT (INSTEAD of XP SP-2!!!)/turning off visual themes or the 1.74 patch fixed the issue, but I need to offer sincere thanks to Satoris for his suggestions.
My first empire will be the mighty kingdom of Satoris. :)
Somebody help me, for the love of Fish!
I’ve been trying to install civ 4 on piece of sh.. vista by doing this folder on desktop thing but data 2 from disc one is unreadable….what do I do?
ejzipfel@yahoo.com
Apologies for not getting Alkiefish’s comment approved earlier, but I was in the middle of moving and it slipped through the cracks.