Café Nocturne is celebrating 10 years of fun! To help us celebrate, we're inviting everyone to join our art contest. Submissions to the contest will be turned into a commemorative art book that can be purchased by fans of Café Nocturne.
Reference pictures and information will be provided to help artists draw, paint, or otherwise create their submissions. All characters CANNOT be dressed like any copyrighted characters, use scenes from any copyrighted shows, or have any copyrighted characters anywhere in the background. You can't dress up Hideto as Inu Yasha, have Ayanami Rei hanging out with the staff, or show them riding in a Gundam. You CAN dress Hideto as an acient Japanese spirit, have a random friend dressed as a mech pilot, or have any of the staff riding in a mecha of your original design. DO NOT use any of your own ideas that you wish to keep copyrighted to yourself or that you wish to use later on for monetary purposes. See Copyright Disclaimer below.
Art must be of one or more of the 2016 Café Nocturne staff. It can be butlers, busboys, or lolitas, or a combination of any. Pictures with only one person will be judged the same as pictures with multiple people, so don't feel you need to draw everyone to have a better chance of winning. A well done picture of just one staff member can win a higher rank than a mediocre picture of every staff member from 2016.
You may include yourself or friends as patrons if you wish to draw the cafe staff in active serving. The staff can be in full staff uniform or in casual wear. They can be inside your imagined view of the cafe environs, inside the con hotel, or anywhere in the world you wish to imagine them to be. Have the staff vacationiing and viewing the sights from the top of Tokyo Tower in Japan, imagine them going back in time and the boys appearing as ancient samurai fighting to protect the lolitas as upperclass ladies, imagine them all as cute magical boys and girls with magical transformations and cute outfits, have them goofing around in High Park or shopping in Chinatown for cafe groceries, or show them entertaining convention attendees at one of their live cafe shows at Anime North. Your only limit is your imagination!
Artwork that is degrading or that does not feature any 2016 Cafe Nocturne staff will not be accepted. Yaoi themes are welcome but nothing explicit (NO genitalia may show in ANY unclothed way. Not even the famous "glowing cone of light" or pixelated genitalia, as well as no scenes of blatant intercourse or other sexual acts). Any submissions that cross over the explicit line WILL NOT be selected for the art book, though if enough people wish to submit "naughty art" of the characters, a separate art item may be planned with all those who submit. This art contest and its attendent prizes, however, are ONLY for NON-EXPLICIT artwork. You may include the "petal and moon" logo and year in your entry, but it is not required. You can submit two versions, one with the year and one without.
Please click here for information to help you draw any of the staff you wish to draw.
Submission Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT on April 27th, 2016
SubmissionAll art entries must be formatted as listed below. If you wish to submit in another format, please contact Hideto Koudanshi (hideto@cafenocturne.com) prior to the deadline to see if it will be accepted.
Minimum resolution: 600 dpi
Colour mode: CMYK
Acceptable file formats: .tif .jpg .eps .ai .psd
Send an email with your submission as an attachment to hideto@cafenocturne.com.
Put in the subject line: Café Nocturne Art Book Contest Entry
Please include your preferred artist name, real (full legal) name, and email with your entry.
Do not send files larger than 10MB to this address. If your entry is larger than 10MB, please provide an external download link, and include it to the contest email address.
Prizes✿ First prize: A free weekend membership to Anime North 2017 and a free ticket to a regular Café Nocturne show
✿ Second prize: Two free tickets to the 2017 Café Nocturne After Dark show
✿ Third prize: Two free tickets to a 2017 Café Nocturne regular show of your time choice Disclaimer
Café Nocturne and Anime North are not liable for any loss or damage to submissions. Entering this contest grants Café Nocturne unlimited rights to reproduce submitted work for advertisement, merchandising, and publications purposes (including the Café Nocturne web page). No compensation for works submitted to this contest beyond contest prizes is implied or explicitly stated in any way and may not be claimed by entrants for any reason, in perpetuity. By entering the contest, artists grant Cafe Nocturne the right to reproduce their art for promotional use without any further compensation. This includes cropping, removing background elements or other minor alterations.
Copyright Liability ClauseEntrants must either own the copyright or have obtained rights for the usage of copyrighted material for the content of their submission prior to contest submission. The proof of clearance for the use of copyrighted material shall be the sole responsibility of the entrant and does not need to be submitted with contest submission. All entrants agree to assume full responsibility and civil and/or criminal liability for the entrant's contest submission. All entrants agree to indemnify and hold Café Nocturne and Anime North harmless from civil and/or criminal liability or legal fees and expenses incurred as a result of their contest submission for the this contest.