Starts: Now
Ends: June 30, 2013*
Prize: Fully licensed downloadable (from filterforge.com web site) version of Filter Forge Professional  [link] with a regular retail price of $399

Judging:  Poll with thumbnails at the conclusion of the contest with winner chosen by Filter Forge members; voting will run at least a week.*

*If there are less than 5 individuals entering the contest I may extend the dates by 7 days at my discretion to allow additional entrants.

Conditions: I may use one or more of the designs in my work without compensation or conditions by the submitter. Your entry constitutes your acceptance. The design(s) I use may or may not be the winner. I will credit the artist(s) for their design help if I use their work. Totally at my discretion I may pay the designer whose work I use a bonus for their design work and may have additional design work opportunities if and when I am able to publish the story and actually earn some money.  

Your work must be your original work and not copied from anyone else; I don't want copyright issues.

Contest Entry: Submit your work as a deviation and Note me. You may submit multiple entries as separate deviations.


I have a personal project I'd like to see as an animation or book at some point based on a 'poem' I wrote ( put quotes because it may actually suck as a poem)...

Hope's Journey

Do we sail in a world of dark,
in wooden boat on inky sea,
with feeble lanterns on the prow?

Are there those whose brighter lives,
place them on tiny sunny isles,
or brilliant continents within,
the ebon shroud?

Do some less fortunate,
swim instead with candles held
high overhead,
struggling to maintain,
their dim and flickering flame?

Or do we live in a world of light,
each with iron kettle out of sight,
filled with coals whose smokey fire
we stoke with fear and sadness?

And are there those who refuse to feed,
the blaze and so are freed,
from sooty haze to then enjoy
the brilliant sky?


One of the characters in this story is the wooden ship.

You can look at this image here



done for me by Cacodaemonia one of the very talented artists here on DA [link]

Currently the ship head is a seahorse but as I thought more about the story I'd like to see a more masculine less cute head. The story is about hope and the young girl represents a young mother's hope, the child a child's hope and for balance the ship will represent a man's hope. I tried a few animals on my own but my own character design skills are pretty rough. I tried various animals but I think I need something dog or horse-like to avoid it being too 'cold' but you can experiment. The expression or feel I am looking for is determination or defiance showing how hope goes forward despite obstacles.

The figurehead with 'neck' (so I could visualize it attached to the prow) must be shown in at least 3/4 view but you could add other views, draw the ship if so inclined or even a 3D model, add color if you like but clean pencil sketch is also ok. Please include some sort of old fashioned lantern which is the light of hope.

The main condition I will ask of the voters will be that the figurehead fits in the poem, that it is masculine and represents hope as I have defined it above; that it has a suitable expression rather than anger and that the creature be 'warm' in the sense that it is not all powerful or dispassionate but rather hopeful, defiant, strong, in the way that hope helps us move forward despite obstacles.

There you have it. A tall order but there are some awesome artists here on DA.

If you want to respond I'd appreciate it if you did it in the forum post thread where I first announced the contest.
[link]