Secret Santa Art Exchange 2012 (RESULTS UP)

[Dashe]

It's that time of year again, kids. That time where Mommy and Daddy clamor to find their disorganized financial paperwork and fill out a bunch of confusing forms so they can...

Oh, wait, that's not till April.

Yes, Secret Santa 2012 is underway!

Here's the scoop if you haven't been around for one of these before. Secret Santa is an annual holiday-themed event we hold in December where we gift Mega Man Legends art to each other. You don't have to celebrate Christmas or be any good at art to participate. In fact, for this event we strongly, and do I mean strongly, encourage you to work outside your comfort zone and try something you haven't tried before, or something you know you're not good at. So if you're not good at art to begin with then you are already at an advantage!

Your piece can be any medium you'd like, but it needs to be visual. This is because we post the entries on the site's homepage on Christmas to celebrate all of the new Legends art we've accrued. Yay!

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So starting now, anyone interested in signing up can do so here for a week. That gives you until 11:59 PM (PST) on the 12th of December. You sign up by posting a request in this thread for a piece of art in five words or less (we've found that the more open-ended your request, the better the art tends to turn out).

The following restrictions apply to requests: No OCs, no self-inserts, and no crossovers. Crossovers also include real world brands (though Christmas and December holiday themes are fine) Requests based on things from Legends 3 are fine. We want to stick with elements that everyone here is already familiar with and keep things as Legends-centric as we can.

On the night of the 12th I'll run the requests through a Secret Santa randomizer and then I'll PM you your assignment. Then you have until midnight PST on December 21st to PM your completed Secret Santa assignment back to me. Get it? Got it? Good. After everything's in, preview thumbnails will start appearing on the main page with the grand unveiling occurring on the 25th.

Everyone who hands in their assigned submission is awarded a new badge. However, as of 2009, we've added an optional bonus challenge--if you also manage to fulfill this challenge in completing your assignment, then you win a premium version of the badge. Usually it's something sparkly or blinky or shiny.

This year's premium badge challenge: Complete your assignment using a non-digital, visual medium that cannot be scanned.
(You can definitely acquire it using a digital camera to get it on this site, though.)

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2012's Secret Santa Art Exhange Participants/Requests:
HF - Stuff blowing up
Dashe - A Bright Bats Christmas
Dragge - Trigger's Snowy Return
Chaotic Chao - Reaverbots Enjoying Christmas
fAB - I knew this wouldn't work!
ravenf6 - Hot Pot night on Flutter
Handlebar - Two Servbots spinning a dreidel
emeltee - I'll tell you a story
megatuga - It's a secret, Megaman Trigger
sketchman3 - Tron/Juno romantic sled date.
Blyka - How The Master Stole Christmas

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Here's the schedule for people who know the drill and don't feel like reading:

Dec. 5-12: Sign-ups
Dec. 21: Submission deadline
Dec. 25: Public unveiling of the finished work on legends-station.com

Let's ring in some holiday cheer!


*In the unlikely event that your submission winds up unfulfilled, don't fret--every so often the premium requirement is to fulfill whatever unfulfilled requests have accrued since the last time we had the "fulfill an unfulfilled request from an old Secret Santa as well as your own assignment" challenge.

The Finished Assignments:
To HF from MegaTuga
To Dashe from Raven
To Dragge from fAB
To Chao from Emeltee
To fAB from Sketchman
To Raven from Chao
To Handlebar from HF
To Emeltee from Blyka
To MegaTuga from Dashe
To Sketchman from Handlebar
To Blyka from Dragge

[HF]

Once again it's that time of the year.
I'm interested in signing up, though I have a few questions I want to share as well:

1) Regarding real world brands: Does that include actual product placements (e.g. this drink found in the pre-release version)?

2) For the Premium Badge: Do media that cannot be reasonably scanned by a common-size (around A4) scanner count?
For example, you need to scan in several parts of the full image multiple times, which you would need to reassemble and edit for color balance digitally anyway. Whereas just taking a photo of it would be much more efficient.

3) As an extension of question 2: For clarity, what about making an exception for digital cameras (for the obvious reason of being the only reasonable analog plug)?


Anyway, my request: Stuff blowing up

[Dashe]

1) Yes. If someone really, really, REALLY wanted that specific drink included in their picture, they could always just sneak it into their assignment. A drink's pretty innocuous as a background element.

2) Yes, that counts, as long as it's sufficiently large-scale. Doubling the size of a standard A4 drawing isn't much of a challenge. I'd say the smallest dimensions for a flat piece should be about 18x24" (46x61cm).

3) Using a digital camera is necessary in most cases, since we're ultimately trying to put it online. So yes, you are more than welcome to take a picture of your art with a digital camera. The bolder you make your art the clearer it'll transfer to digital.

[HF]

Sounds good to me. Thanks for the quick reply, Dashe.

So assuming you're participating, what's your request?

[Dashe]

Oh, right. I forgot about that, thanks for the reminder!

A Bright Bats Christmas

[Dragge]

Yea I haven't been around all that much lately. As for my request Trigger's Snowy Return

[Chaotic Chao]

Well, considering the end of the semester is coming up, I'll probably have time to enter this again so I can get another badge!

...I mean, so I can spread Christmas joy! Yeah...

Though I still hate the no crossover rule (with PASSION), here's my request: Reaverbots Enjoying Christmas

That should be interesting, right?

[fAB]

I do so regret not having the time to earn myself a snowflake last year... :03:

Gonna find the time this year. I'm especially into the potential of the special badge requirement.

Request: Mario Party equivalent, DASH BASH

[Dashe]

Would "DASH BASH virtual board game" work? You're edging into crossover territory.

[Mikéy]

I swear, the more I think about it, the more I think fAB meant a reference to this. I guess Mario Party's just a bit more well-known.

I'm still not sure if I'll enter yet. If I do, it'll probably be somewhere near the deadline. I just had to throw that out there.

[fAB]

I'm not asking for "Legends Characters in Mario Party" or "Bonnes Vs Bowser Party" or anything that requires anyone to draw actual Mario imagery. *shrugs* I considered the crossover implications and decided I was safe. If you disagree then I guess your alternative could work, though I don't think it captures quite the same essence.



Edit: Was not aware of the existence of "Crash Bash".

[Dashe]

You do know that anybody who reads through this thread would get the essence, though, right?

While most of us know you don't really mean that stuff, we've got a few crossover junkies hanging around who'd just see the "Mario Party" part and completely miss the point you actually want to make.

[MegaTuga]

Oh! I've been waiting for this day to come!
...
More or less. Sadly though That Premium badge seems even more unreachable now... maybe I will have an idea later.

Ah right my request... let's see...

How about: "Guitar Hero: Rock and Roll"
Or does that fall under the crossover part with being associated with another game?

[Dashe]

That's definitely a crossover. The point of this whole event is to make new Legends art. This isn't "The Games that Aren't Mega Man Legends Station," after all. :-\

[ravenf6]

Finished up the school quarter, just in time for this.

Let me see, now....

Hot Pot night on Flutter