[REMINDER] Monthly Megapixel: Holiday Party

3:00 PM on 12.15.2011   |   Kristina Pino

December already? Brrrr. I sure hope everyone is keeping warm! December doesn't just mark the change in weather from pleasant to freezing, though. It also marks the start of another Megapixel contest, filled with all sorts of holiday fun and cheer! Well, unless you're Yotsuba, who doesn't seem amused.

This month's theme is Holiday Party. This theme was actually partially suggested by Counterpunch, who wanted it to be a "Robot Holiday Party!" In favor of not excluding some folks from the contest, I've made it a little more general but those of you who like an extra challenge are absolutely welcomed to go with your fellow community member's idea! Who knows, I may even throw in an extra prize category just for that if a few people go with robots!

As for last month's winners: holy cow guys, we had such a hard time voting. It really almost came down to a four-way tie! That being said, this month's "grand prize" winner is Wilda! Right behind was Counterpunch, and then Kira Yamato44 and Rivelets (still tied). Wilda gets to pick a prize from the selection in the original post, Counterpunch is getting second choice, and...well, I suppose I can dig something up for Kira and Rivelets! All four of you, shoot me an e-mail to Kristina (at) Tomopop (dot) com! And for the record, I loved each entry this month enough that I wish I had a prize for all of you. Don't you worry, though... December is going to be a great month for contests! Just you see...

Now, you'll all want to hit through the jump to check out what December's prizes are going to be, read 'da rulez' and most importantly, check out images I've pulled out of everyone's entries from last month! Your deadline for this month's contest is going to be December 30, just over three two weeks from today!

[header via Counterpunch!]

The rules are simple! You don't need to have narrative text in your story, as Scarecroodle and others have proven, in order for it to be good or acceptable. We've had folks make their entries look like comic strips as well, which is also encouraged, creative, acceptable, rad, you name it. There isn't really a minimum or maximum amount of images, although I think one of our readers figured out what the max amount of BBCode image lines are allowed in a c-blog post (it's.. a lot).

Your images must be at most 550 620 pixels wide (updated to fit the new page size!) in order to fit in the page properly, otherwise something's going to get cut off. There isn't a limit to how many images you post, since you're hosting them anyhow. In order to get some images on your blog post, just put them up on Flickr, Photobucket or any of those free image hosting services and link to them using BBCode tags (the line with the [IMG]<text>[/IMG] tags).

If you don't have a Tomopop log-in account, you won't be able to create a blog entry. If you're new to these contests, this is your first step! It's quick and easy, and once you're through, you need only click on the "create new blog" button at the top of the page, and title it with "Monthly Megapixel: <your story title here>" to be entered in the contest.

Lastly, those of you who don't live in the U.S. or Canada are not excluded from this contest. The only thing we ask is that you cover the shipping if you are to be prized on something. This way, we could open the contest to everyone! I promise it won't cost you an arm and a leg, too.

I know it could get tough to do these contests during the holiday season, but remember it doesn't have to be a photographic epic - you could submit entries with just one or two beautiful and descriptive images and it's just as strong an entry as those that use many to tell a story. It's all about being creative and hitting the mark with the contest theme, by any photographic means possible!

If any of you are having issues with the editor and getting your post up, just send an e-mail to me, or Brian (at) Tomopop (dot) com, or even our tips@ mail so somebody could get to it. Sometimes a post won't show up on your end and cause some confusion, but will still be visible to everyone else; things could be a little buggy here and there. Just don't panic! I will accept all entries that were completed on time as long as we could see your post, even if we had to recover it after the due date.

As for prizes, the lovely Ika Musume, Kotobukiya ver. (reviewed) [sponsor: Kotobukiya], POP Nico Robin Strong World ver. (reviewed) [sponsor: ToysLogic], Shining Wind Blanc Neige Swimsuit Ver. (reviewed) [sponsor: Kotobukiya] and Figuarts ZERO Tony Tony chopper (reviewed) [sponsor: Bluefin Distribution] are up for grabs to December's grand prize winner. Good luck, everyone!

This post will be updated with links to everyone's entries as they come in, since it was requested last month. Keep checking back if you want to see everyone's stories all in one place!