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Beauty Contest

Ah, the Beauty Contest, a chance to compete with other Neopians in the realm of art. Yes, ART! The beauty contest is actually an art contest: users can submit pictures of their Neopets to be voted on by various Neopians. A common misconception is that the beauty contest is a contest for human contestants or that grooming items are involved but, alas, no!

Timing

The Beauty Contest restarts every Friday at noon.

Prizes

Currently the only prize for winning the Beauty Contest is a trophy that appears on your pet's lookup. You will win a trophy for getting first, second, or third place, either overall or within a species.

On November 12, 2014, an avatar was added as a prize for placing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in either the species or overall contest.

Beauty Contest

Beauty Contest / Guide

Place 1st, 2nd or 3rd overall or in species in a round of the Beauty Contest.

Released: November 12, 2014

For the first few years of the Contest, winners would also receive Neopoint and item prizes. After a rule change to allow people to enter on side accounts, non-trophy prizes were discontinued.

If your pet receives a gold trophy, either overall or in species, they will be "gold-banned" for the next month, which means they cannot be entered into the Beauty Contest at all. (Prior to August 2018, this was four months.) You will still be able to enter any other pets you own, unless they are also gold-banned.

Old Trophies

On September 11th, 2013, TNT released the current trophy images you see at the top of this guide. Prior to then, the Beauty Contest trophies looked like this, labeled Best Dressed.



Thanks to arttimo for providing this screenshot!

Step Number One: Choose your contestant!

Once you decide you want to enter the Beauty Contest, you have to decide which pet you want to enter.

An important thing to remember is that different species have different levels of competition due to their popularity. The petpage /~Colress tracks the number of entries by species and week, so you can see how the popularity changes over time.

Neopets that tend to have highest competition:

  • Aisha
  • Cybunny
  • Draik
  • Kacheek
  • Kougra
  • Kyrii
  • Lupe
  • Poogle
  • Xweetok

Neopets that tend to have lowest competition:

  • Elephante
  • Flotsam
  • Jetsam
  • Kiko
  • Koi
  • Ogrin
  • Tonu
  • Tuskaninny
  • Vandagyre

All other species not listed in the lists above are moderately competitive, somewhere in between.

Step Number Two: Draw your Neopet!

The thing with this second step is that it really helps if you have artistic ability. Although the BC does allow participants to submit edited Neopet images (known as C&Ps, for Copy and Pastes), this practice is generally frowned upon by those who actually draw their entries. The same applies to tracings of official Neopets images.

Although Neopets does allow you to use their copyrighted images, you are NOT allowed to use copyrighted images that aren't owned by Neopets. This also means that you cannot use images from past BC winners or images from the Art Gallery.


Some examples of C&P's, which are allowed but tend not to do well

Basically, the Jetsam on the left was tortured with a makeover in Paint, the Lutari in the center was subjected to lame Photoshop skills, and the Tyrannian Lupe on the right just had Battledome items pasted all over his face. You will likely not win with something like that.

Things that attract the most votes:

  • Color
  • Shading
  • Detail
  • Creativity
  • Humor/Emotion
  • Animation (and we mean more than just glitters here)

Keep in mind that most voters will only see your entry for a few seconds before deciding to move on to the next one, so try to make a good impression!

A good rule of thumb: Try to actually put effort into your picture. Do more than give it a glittery animation or a pixelized mustache. Actually coming up with an original idea and a drawing does help your chances a bunch.

Digital Art vs Traditional Art

Artwork that has been drawn the old-fashioned way on a piece of paper is referred to as traditional artwork. Anything that is either created or edited in an art program on a computer is referred to as digital artwork.

Voters can be a bit divided as to which type they prefer; some will only vote for one type or the other. When choosing your preferred art style, try to play to your artistic advantages. One type is not by any means better than another, it is all about personal choice.

If you draw your pet in the traditional method, you will need to scan or take a photograph of your piece in order to have a digital version that you can submit.

If you opt for the digital method, there are a number of different programs you can use. Packages like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Corel and others can allow you to create amazing pieces of art, but the software can be rather pricey. If you are working on a budget, there are some free image editing programs like GIMP available, as well as some different online programs.

Some artists prefer to do the linework or just sketch out the basics by hand and then edit and colour their piece in an image editing suite. How you go about it is entirely up to you.

Step Number Three: Submit your contestant!

Once you are finished, you can enter your entry here.

The contest occurs weekly, with the old one ending and a new one beginning every Friday at noon (12 pm) NST. So don't be alarmed if your pet doesn't immediately show up, chances are that it was entered in the next week's contest.


Don't forget to follow the art contest and BC rules!

Size Limits

Beauty Contest entries cannot exceed 75 KB, which is quite small by modern standards. (This is actually an increase from the original limit of 17 KB!) Luckily, there are a few ways to make them smaller.

  • One way to solve this problem is to use the "Save for Web" or "Export" option found on most art programs. You'll be presented with a few options to reduce the file size of your image to meet the 75 KB max.
  • Alternatively, you can also simply make a smaller image or resize your original. A 200x200 pixel image will be smaller in size than a 500x500 pixel image.

Even with these pic-shrinking techniques, though, it's best to also leave a full version of the picture on the pet's petpage.

Step Number Four: Advertise!

It has been said many times that the BC has become less of an art contest and more of a popularity contest. So if you ever want to have the slightest hope of winning, you need to advertise. Post links on your store, lookups, perhaps even your guild!

When you venture the boards, have you ever noticed forum labeled Art? This is the place for you to find voters, and entries to vote for.

Simply create a thread with a title that promotes your pet, and then on the first post provide a link (in your siggy) to your entry!

Generic Example:

Creative board titles/topics do draw more attention though.

Links can be created by: https://www.neopets.com/beauty/details.phtml?pet=YOURPETNAME

Good BC Board/General Advertising Etiquette:

  • It is against the rules to advertise someone else's entry. Unfortunately this means you cannot recruit your friends to advertise for you - you're on your own!
  • Do NOT participate in vote trades (where a BCer will offer to vote for another BCer in return for another vote), this is considered cheating AND may cause the BCer to be disqualified and/or frozen.
  • Although the BC forum does tend to be slow, it's usually a good idea to have no more than three boards on the front page, otherwise you may be considered as a spammer.
  • Also avoid posting the same short message (ex. "Vote for me Buzz! (link)") on every single thread in the BC forum without even bothering to read the first post. Many consider this to be n00bish behavior and it can also get you reported for spamming.
  • In the past, you were not allowed to advertise your Beauty Contest entry in your neosig on any boards except the BC forum. Starting on March 6, 2020, you are allowed to include your entry in your signature in any board as long as any posts made with that signature are substantial to discussion.
  • Do not Neomail total strangers to vote for your Neopet. It's very much like junk mail, and no one enjoys it.

So that's it! With the right amount of advertising and a spiffy picture, you are sure to snatch that winner's trophy! Even if you do fail to snipe that last vote, there's always next week! It is okay to enter the same picture more than once, just keep trying!

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This article was written by: DragonBeak