SCS

When I was a child, I often felt as if someone were watching me. This feeling intensified in relation to my perceived threat level of my environment: when I watched a scary movie and then turned the lights off to go to bed, I felt as if I were surrounded by unblinking eyes.

Occasionally this feeling manifested itself in dreams, and typically associated unwanted watching with gravitational pull. Such as the dream wherein I saw a disembodied cyclops eye staring at me from within the bushes by the side of the road, which upon being identified halted my movement, drew me in gravitationally and instantaneously teleported me to a dimly lit, empty and silent yet prepared banquet hall with the somber implication that I was on the menu. Or the dream in which I was futilely fleeing some ambiguous threat, until an invisible force knocked me flat on my face and pinned me to the ground as a sea of disembodied eyeballs surrounded me from every imaginable angle, freezing time and staring eternally.

As an adult, I no longer feel as if I'm being watched. Rather, I tend to experience a shifting of definition and perception around the concept of being alone. Liminal spaces feel imbued with some manner of unseen aether causing a paradoxical sensation of presence within the absence. As I walk empty and abandoned corridors, desolate alleyways, humming forests and sweeping beaches I feel as if the crushing weight of endless emotion and intention is knocking at the door, forever just around the corner and barely out of sight. The sensation of people have been here, or will be here entangles and challenges our convenient narratives of linear time built on the wobbling foundations of our experiences and perceived reality.

Sometimes I feel as if the gust of primordial wind outside of time would unstick my frame of reference, dissolving any comprehended notion of causality. Almost as if I am looking back on myself thinking ahead and living yesterday and tomorrow's moment at all points about the now.

This place is evil
Is there an answer?
This world is vile
We are the answer
Oh!

How long until we die?
Die from the inside out
How much is enough for us to see the light?
How much blood must be spilled?

515,241

 Welcome to the MLP Forums June 2024 Visual Art contest 

Welcome to the June 2024 Visual Art Contest! Remember to stay hydrated while enjoying fun in the sun this summer.

The theme for this month is:

Summer Leisure!

Requirements

• Create artwork of ponies (and/or other canon creatures or OCs) engaging in outdoor summertime activities
  • This can depict a wide variety of outdoor activities, as long as it captures the spirit of having fun in the sun in some way. This includes but is not limited to outdoor sports, swimming, hiking, picnics and outdoor lounging in the sun: whether solo or with a group.
  • Some example ideas: playing baseball, going for a swim at the beach, taking a hike in the woods during a bright sunny day, having a picnic with friends on a sunny hilltop.
• Both canon and original characters are allowed, as well as any MLP generation
• All members of MLPF are eligible
• No AI art will be accepted, however it can be used for initial inspiration
• Animations no longer than 10 seconds are allowed

Deadline

Submissions will close on June 24th, 2024.

Judging

Public voting will be open during June 25th - June 30th, 2024. Afterwards, voting will be finalized within staff and results will be posted as soon as we are able to share them!

Winners

Winners will be granted the Canterlot Artist Rank and Badge. All entries will be eligible to receive an Art Achievement Bronze Badge. Future participation will count toward Silver and Gold Art Badges.

Submit Here (select Art Contest Submissions > 2024 Submissions > June 2024 Art Contest) or you can use the top navigation menu to add a submission.

If there are any additional questions, please feel free to ask!  

I build a dynamic levitated megastructure from attotechnological psychotronic metamaterials, serving as living art piece, nature preserve and perpetual free energy machine. The structure reacts to the emotions of its visitors, engineering unique experiences tailored for inspiration and education, while nurturing hypergeometric flora unbound from spatial and temporal axes. The metaphysical dance between heart and quantum reconfigurations perpetually generates energy powering the megastructure and siphoning out as nutrients across a tree to the city across divergent timelines.

514,909

Nitobit

The results are in! March 2024's theme was Winter Wrap Up. The community voted for their favorite submissions, which you can see below!

1st Place - @Rafa Stary

2nd Place - @Wizard

Honorable Mentions

@Brony Number 42

@Nitobit

@Luna the Great of all the Russias

@Lawyer Slip

@ComanderZhabikKlavik

Thank you everyone so much for all of your wonderful submissions, and thank you to all who participated in community voting!

We are in the process of granting badges to winners, so please stay tuned for that. You can also check out our new April 2024 Art Contest!

Voting has closed! Thank you all so much for the great participation. Stay tuned for the results thread, which we will share as soon as possible!

Hey all, just a reminder that today is the last day to vote! Make sure to get your vote in before the poll closes tonight if you haven't already.

Where earth and spirit unite
An opposition to the visible
A call of the purified souls
Emerges beyond, breaks free

Deliverance - an acroamatic halo
Deprivation - in particular obedience
Eclipsed - shackled and torn apart
Emptiness - devoid of heart and soul

514,808

I build a small non-Euclidean hyperstructure with interior larger than exterior, presenting as a liminal space intersecting alternate dimensions.

514,806

Facade

514,804

The voting thread is up and open from 3/27-4/1! https://mlpforums.com/topic/201998-march-2024-art-contest-voting/

 Voting for March 2024 Art Contest! 

Thank you so much to all who participated in the March 2024 Art Contest! If you didn't get the chance to participate don't worry, we will be hosting a new art contest in the near future!

Here are the submissions we received. Please vote for your favorite using the poll above!

Submission 1

Submission 2

Submission 3

Submission 4

Submission 5

 Submission 6

 Submission 7

Voting for the March 2024 Art Contest will be open from 3/27/24 - 4/1/24! 

On 2024-03-25 at 9:45 AM, Lawyer Slip said:

I can verify that it is there. 

On 2024-03-25 at 9:13 AM, Brony Number 42 said:

Can you verify that you got mine?

Yeah I see both of your submissions in there!

And thanks so much all for participating -- we're at the end of our submission window here so I'm going to lock this thread. Stay tuned, I'll post the voting thread tomorrow (3/27)!

11 hours ago, ZiggWheelsManning said:

@Luna the Great of all the Russias

That's also what I'm thinking.  

11 hours ago, Luna the Great of all the Russias said:

Question. At exactly what time will submissions be closed?

3/26/24 11:59 PM EDT, but I'm not worried about it as long as it's reasonably submitted around end of day 3/26 at latest.

3 hours ago, Lawyer Slip said:

Ok, I have to ask. Since we were offline for two whole days, does the due date if the art get pushed back, or no?

This is a good callout, thanks! I pushed the deadline (and voting period) back by 2 days.

 Welcome to the MLP Forums March 2024 Visual Art contest 

Welcome to the first Visual Art Contest of 2024! We took a brief intermission to make space for MCM, but we're excited to jump back into monthly art contests.

The theme for this month is:

Winter Wrap Up!

Requirements

• Create artwork of ponies (and/or other canon creatures or OCs) engaging in activities welcoming Spring
  • This can depict Winter Wrap Up activities as seen in MLP G4, but by no means has to be limited to this: this was just the inspiration for the general theme
  • You can depict your own interpretation of "Winter Wrap Up" activities, Spring cleaning, welcoming Spring or anything that you feel captures the spirit of Spring
  • Some example ideas: waking up animals that hibernate, cleaning off snow, welcoming back birds that flew South for the winter
• Both canon and original characters are allowed, as well as any MLP generation
• All members of MLPF are eligible
• No AI art will be accepted, however it can be used for initial inspiration
• Animations no longer than 10 seconds are allowed

Deadline

Submissions will close on March 26th, 2024.

Judging

Public voting will be open during March 27th - April 1st, 2024. Afterwards, voting will be finalized within staff and results will be posted as soon as we are able to share them!

Winners

Winners will be granted the Canterlot Artist Rank and Badge. All entries will be eligible to receive an Art Achievement Bronze Badge. Future participation will count toward Silver and Gold Art Badges.

Submit Here (select Art Contest Submissions > 2024 Submissions > March 2024 Art Contest) or you can use the top navigation menu to add a submission.

If there are any additional questions, please feel free to ask!  

Adrift

8 hours ago, ComanderZhabikKlavik said:

What do I need to improve in my artwork to increase my chances of winning the next contest?

In full disclosure, I didn't vote for any submissions and overall did not play any role in deciding the winners. I don't feel like it would be fair for me to do so, since it's my job to help operate the event and allow the community to decide.

As a result, I can't offer any advice here since I want it to be fully in the hands of the community to decide each art contest's winner. Furthermore, there are no grading criteria or any other attempts at objective measurement: it's all up to each community member's subjective viewpoint, who chooses to participate in the poll.

In general, I would say for everyone to just continue participating if you find enjoyment in the process of doing so. Likely, the more someone participates the higher their chance of winning at some point.

This is a truly precious banner, and I am thankful beyond measure to still be a part of this community and to play a small role in an event as impactful as this, and with such a long history over the years. I will always cherish this.

I wish Jeric was still with us, and I've often found myself reading her posts and contributions to this event from years past. I regret many things, including not doing more for this particular event or any event in the past. Not being here when Jeric was still here. But I would like to believe that in a way, Jeric and all community members we have lost, in whatever way we have lost them, live on through the spirits of those here today and those we have yet to meet who will carry the legacy on.