Important Info:

What is this?

This is a celebration of Traveler, a community competition where everyone who chooses to participate will create works to display on the website. The previous competition on here was specifically celebrating the 10k milestone for Favourites, Followers, and Reviews on Traveler. A massive milestone. This one is celebrating the anniversary of the server (April 8th 2020 is when it opened to non-mods iirc), and will be a slight expansion on the previous year.

The one I hosted last year ended up being somewhat messy, so I’m doing a more comprehensive document this time to clarify absolutely everything,

Rules:

1. No Ai Allowed. Anything generative is off the table completely. If you have a program you believe would be purely assistive, not generative, contact Chaos and negotiate accordingly.
   
   This means: No Midjourney, Chatgpt, DallE, Adobe Firefly, Ideogram, Stable Diffusion, Getty AI, Flux, Leonardo AI, Canva (specifically genAI functionality), Imagen, Masterpiece X, Spline, Sloyd, 3DFY AI, Luma AI, Ponzu, NeROIC, Toolbaz, Squibler, Sudowrite, etc (Ai based software is only allowed if specified in the linked page here)

2. No Tracing. For those that don’t know, this refers to the practice of tracing images made by other artists. If you made the art in question, tracing your own work is acceptable. But other artists are completely off limits. This is meant to be your own creative expression.
   
   If you are talking about posing, I would recommend getting a skeleton that you can use as reference for whatever you are trying to draw, there are plenty of tools for this online, alternatively using reference to understand a skeleton is also fine. I would recommend drawing your own skeleton for the work in question to get a feel for it. If you are unsure, please contact Chaos with the reference you plan to use, and an explanation of how you plan to use it for clarification.

3. No smut. The server age is 16+. There are children present. This is non-negotiable. We keep finding teenagers in the server. Or people that were teenagers when they joined.

4. Follow the server rules. If you believe your entry may skirt some of them. Contact Chaos for clarification. Note, Traveler itself breaks some of the server rules. best get clarification if you’ve got something you really want to make. Note, whilst not stated in the server-rules channel, the server is explicitly pro-lgbtqia+. If you have a problem with that, then you can continue having a problem with it in private.
   
   Traveler is a political work and touching on political issues is completely within the rules, but be careful about what the take away is for those reading it. This competition is meant to be positive, not feeding into harmful ideologies.

5. You can submit for as many categories as you wish (You can submit a Story, Drabble, Pseudo and Art simultaneously).

6. Entries must be Traveler focused, and should fit within or compliment the Traveler universe.

7. Discussion around entries should remember that this is a celebration. Criticism is fine, but ragging on people for creating something is not on the table. If you have nothing nice to say, find a way to say it nicely, with respect to the person in question.

8. Submissions are to be anonymous until voting has concluded. Whilst many do not mind having their submission tied to them, the voting is anonymous intentionally, as it prevents people pulling votes purely due to their popularity within the server. It also helps alleviate pressure, and makes sure that everything is read with fresh eyes.
   
   It is also for this reason that I hope everyone restrains themselves a bit with guessing whose submission is whose. I would prefer these guesses happen right after voting concludes, and before the results are posted and everything goes public with identification. Whilst some users have a very specific writing or art style, I would prefer they also not get guessed until voting concludes.

Check this page before dming Chaos for clarification. It will be updated with each clarification made. Dm Chaos/Artistimo if you need clarification on any previous answers or new concerns.

Categories:

1. Stories: The stories category allows one entry of 3-10k words. This has been expanded since the last competition to enable people to be a bit more free.
   
   Entries should be textual, though the dressing up and performing of documents is allowed (If you wish to do an audio recording of a lost log, perhaps actually write out your story as yellowed, burnt pages that you take picture of as a more immersive found documents entry. Etc. Keep in mind that what you create should be your own original work.
   

2. Drabbles: The drabble category allows one entry of exactly 200 words, no more, no less. This will actually be enforced.
   
   I recommend taking a look at the #Traveler-Drabbles channel on the server for inspiration and a guide of what others do within the time limit. If you have limited time but still want to participate, this is one of the best ways to do so! Much like with Stories, the dressing up and performing of submissions are allowed. But the word count is strict. Exactly 200 words.
   

3. Pseudo (New category): An up to 1500 word short story focusing in on your own original pseudo legend set within Traveler.
   
   I recommend looking at the #pseudo-submissions channel (located in - Artificing within the server) for inspiration. As with the other textual categories, you may dress this up as a collection of documents, audio recordings, etc. As long as you adhere to the word limit.
   
   Examples within Traveler of Pseudos would be: Mamoru, Chinatsu, Haukea, Lavender, Mt. Pyre, The King, The Guide (Flygon from the desert), The Harbinger, Mint Chocolate Chip. It is a bit of a vibes based measuring system, but they tend to be a bit beyond the mortality curve.
   

4. Art: Any submission is fine as long as it can convincingly be labelled a single submission of some sort. Whether it is sketches, full size art, animation. etc. It is all admissible under this category.
   
   In the last competition we had animations, sketches, a full comic, and honestly I adore that we had so much variety in medium. I did not expect to see everyone pick their own directions quite so distinctly.
   
   I will reiterate. Absolutely no ai art submissions will ever be accepted. If you are caught trying to submit one, I will ban you from all future competitions I host. Even if you ‘submit it as a joke’.
   

If you have an idea for an additional category. Please do feel free to dm myself, or suggest it on the server. I am 100% down to add another category for the next competition. I am wary about adding more than one per comp.

How do you submit?

Submissions will be done through Discord DMs to Chaos | Artistimo specifically. Whilst Elf, Raptor, Jain, Val, Pixel and Ivan have assisted with the organisation of the competition, they do not have access to editing the website and uploading media to it.

Submission to Artistimo should be done in the following formats:

Art:

Art submissions are a bit complex and are coming first in the submission guides as a result.

For still image Art, the preferred file format is .png. If you need to use a different file format (for instance if your program of choice doesn’t output .pngs), dm Chaos ahead of time so that he knows what to expect.

For animated art, mpeg4’s (MP4) is the preferred file format, however other file formats are accepted, again, dm Chaos ahead of time if you’re using something else. That way he knows what to expect.

If any files are too big for discord dms, upload them into a google drive folder and supply a link to that so I can download them and reupload them myself to the website.

Additionally, remember to watermark your art, and put it through an ai poisoning program like Nightshade or Glaze.

If you are new to art and are looking for tutorials to get into the 3d art space, feel free to dm myself (Chaos), I know a lot of tutorials, and am very willing to offer advice and potential methods to achieve what you want to make.

When submitting to Chaos, the following information is needed (feel free to copy this into dms and just fill in your info):

Things with an * are necessary. Otherwise it is optional.

*Title of submission:

*Username: (Discord)

Additional alias: (Can include things like twitter links, ffn and ao3 links. etc. Basically self-promote here)

*File format:

*Amount of files:

Display notes: (Do you have a preferred text size, font, colour palette, background colour for the webpage. etc? A specific way you want it laid out?)

Author note: (Think like the Author’s notes you’ll find before or after chapters on ffn and ao3)

Stories, Drabbles and Pseudos:

For these, google docs is the preferred format. The formatting of Google Docs transfers into Squarespace cleanly without me having to manually re-add things like bolded text, italics and the like. In the previous competition this lead to issues with specific entries as we were using .pdfs for the majority of entries.

If you are doing a work that involves images of some sort (such as having a found document added in the form of an image), the art submission guideline applies, and you’ll need to specify layout in the Display Notes. I would recommend giving me a brief sketch of how you want it portrayed on the site itself.

*Title of submission:

*Username: (Discord)

Additional alias: (Can include things like twitter links, ffn and ao3 links. etc. Basically self-promote here)

*Google Doc Link:

*Additional File format:

*Amount of files:

Display notes: (Do you have a preferred text size, font, colour palette, background colour for the webpage. etc? A specific way you want it laid out?)

Author note: (Think like the Author’s notes you’ll find before or after chapters on ffn and ao3)

Have the Prizes changed?

The prizes for last year were helped by donations from Elf, Raptor, and an anonymous donor. This year it is just myself funding it and thus the prizes are what last years were originally.

Prizes:

Overall Prizes:

1st Place: $100 usd

2nd Place: $75 usd

3rd and 4th Place: $50 usd

5th to 8th Place: $25 usd