Contests

Taking part in contests is a brilliant way to integrate yourself into the emote community and test your skills of imagination and pixelling against other emoticonists. Contests allow you to work on ideas and effects along a set theme and learn things from other entries.

Don't be put off if you are unsuccessful in contests or feel you have 'no chance' at winning. The taking part will really help you improve and help you to get noticed by older members of the community.



As contests can be run by everyone and anyone is sometimes hard to track them down. However, certain groups and members of the community help out by posting lists and information to point you in the right direction.

At any given time you can check out:

Emotication's Current Contest List
The topic bar in the #WeEmote chatroom



Hosting a contest is a fun and rewarding way to get involved with the community. It takes a decent amount of time and effort, but is also a great way to get noticed by your fellow emoticonists. However, do remember these things:

Prize lists are appealing, even if it is simply a few points or a large selection of features

Try and pick an original theme, yet not something too obscure and hard to pixel

Get your contest noticed. Many emoticonists offer to promote contests IF they know about them. Go out and politely ask (not tell) if they will help spread the word

Get it featured at relevant groups and in relevant articles.

Have fun!

You can also check out this page for a more detailed selection of hints for running contests on dA





EmoticonOpus is an emoticon contest group. Every 2-3 weeks it launches a mini contest run by a different member of the community on a different theme. If you are new to the community and are interested in contests, its a brilliant group to get involved in - both as an entrant and a host! Hosting an opus is a fun way to run a contest in a controlled environment and know your contests will be seen my regulars in the community. Its also a great place to start taking part in contests and the regular succession of themes can help break that artist's block.