In Celebration of a year of DA, 3000 pageviews, and 4 years of knowing I've decided to host a special art contest! Woo!!

Here's the specifics. Everyone knows about the one winged angel (aka Sephiroth). What you may not know is the one winged angel is a symbol from jewish mythology called a Merkabah Angel. These angels came to help the earth. And were corrupted when they fell in love with mortals.

Not all of them were bad per say, only that they lost their devine being. Satan is supposively one of them too, so you see where that falls in. I'm not trying to preach to anyone but the epic storyline here has been the basis for many video games, movies, and books.

So that's what the contest is going to be about! Read into the mythos if you like it'll give you the most inspiration.

Here are the rules for the contest.

--Contest begins now! Spread the word! The more people who enter the contest the greater the prize will be. You can submit any time and there are no bonuses for submitting first. The contest will end on October 1st. Judging will begin then and there will be no more accepted submissions after that point.

--Submissions must come in the form of a JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP. Videos and Flash animations will not be accepted. Send a note with a link to your Deviation page with a link to download original file. Email submissions will be ignored. All submissions must follow all Deviant Art submission rules. Which...pretty much means no porn...but in any case if for any reason your submission gets banned during the contest, you will be disqualified with our regrets.

--The contest must contain the theme of the Merkabah angel. However, you are free to express that theme in any way you want. One winged angels, demons, furries, whatever strikes your fancy. Draw from the inspiration of the story. Each piece will be judged on the following

--Originality. For the sake of argument, only original characters will be accepted. This is because I don't want there to be any legal problems from the prize, since the prize will have significant monetary value. I'd love to see Merkabah Opitimus Prime...but it will not be judged in the contest.

--Technique. You can choose any medium or form. Sculpture, photography, digital art, even chalk board if that's your expertise. Again, freedom from inspiration brings the best art. Study your body textures and muscle tones because we expect the competition to get hot!

--Vision. This is more related to the impact of the piece. You could also say this is the "content" of the picture. Colored backgrounds are nice, firey volcanoes are better. Representation of the character and picture's story are also important. Let your picture tell a story!

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That's all the rules! Now on to prizes!

As I've said the prizes will go up in value based on how many people actually jump into this. If I end up getting 300 submissions to judge from I'll gauruntee you that the prize will be equally as exciting and worthwhile. It'll also be tailored to whoever wins. It could be as small as a new felt pad for your intuos mouse. Or upwards of dinner gift cards. It all depends on your fancy. However regardless of how many people join the grand prize will have at least a $30-40 American Dollar value.

Runner ups will receive a free commission from me (Yes I know I'm not the best artist but it's free!) The commission details will be different for each runner up as they wish their commission to be handled.

I am of course your host and one of the judges for the contest. And my hot and sexy friend will be a judge as well.
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The following section is to show off current submissions. As this list gets larger it will be condensed.