For All Mah Awesomerific New Watchers :3

Ok, mah most loverly watchers! First order of business: a great big for all of yas!
Now that that's over with, I shall continue to the interesting stuff Lately, like I said before, I've been in an artistic slump. I was either too tired to draw, didn't know what to draw, or didn't know how to draw it. Plus, my DEAREST Manga Studio has been giving me issues...as usual. But I've been getting over the laziness, and I looked up some tutorials on here about shading, something I was really having trouble with. The very first time I tried em out, I was amazed with the results! Hopefully they'll turn out good enough to put up Just kidding. No matter how they turn out I'll put em up, even if it's just in Scraps.
Before I get to the most awesome part of this, I want to impart some wisdom (or as close as it could come to it from me ). There are lots of opinions as to what makes an artist, and the definition of art itself. Art is not a scientific process that takes all sorts of dissection and experiments to understand. It is not a matter of who's better, or more experienced, or of the materials one uses. As a wise man once said, "Art is what happens when you dream." That's all there is to it. As long as you can dream, you can make art, art that tells who you are, what you like, what you hate, what you're going through, what you hope to accomplish, and what you wish to leave behind.
All righty, lessons over. Now then, to the awesomeness! I've been trying to figure out answers to two of the problems I've been having lately: how to be more determined with my art and how to have more interaction with my art pals. Just a few minutes ago, the answer hit me: HOST A CONTEST!! Yes, I've been wanting to do one for quite some time now. Now that I've got 9 watchers, I figured this would be a great time to start.
Since this was spontaneous and all, I'm making this up as I go along. For variety, there will be three categories, and you can enter one deviation into each! The categories are:

Dork and Mindy
Zuamber
Caramelldansen

Dork and Mindy refers to Patrick Star and Mindy, from the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. I always thought they would be such a cute couple, but so far Nickelodeon has failed to give them a reunion. So, here's your chance to bring our unlikely twosome together again.

Some of you I know are already QUITE familiar with what a Zuamber is. It's a Zuko/me slash, which mostly has involved Zuko running for dear life from an obsessed fangirl. Now, I wanna see what goes through your head when you hear, "Zuamber." Do you imagine a romantic walk down the beach, or perhaps an energetic sparring session? I'm sure any entries into this will give me MAJOR squeeage and ROFLcopterage. If you need another picture of me for reference, I'll try to rustle up one that isn't... well, I'll find one anyway.

Do I really need to explain the internet meme that's EVERYWHERE these days? I don't have time to explain EVERYTHING, people! Just draw you, a friend, or your favorite character dancing the Caramell!

Your entry can be any artistic medium or a literature deviation. That way, if you wanted, you could enter art into one category, prose or poetry in the next, and art into the last, and so forth. To enter, send me a note entitled "Contest Entry" with a link to your deviation. The judges are and . I still have to round up another two or three, so if you're interested let me know! For now the deadline is October 15, but I'll gladly lengthen it for you.

PRIZES!: There will be one first place winner for each category. Each first place winner will get a feature and three requests.
There will be one second place winner for each category. Each second place winner will get a feature and two requests.
There will be one third place winner for each category. Each third place winner will get a feature and one request.
Best of all, everyone who enters automatically gets an honoralbe mention! Everyone will get one request also.

One more thing to address here, then y'all can get busy!! Just as this is a contest for my wonderful Deviantart family, so too must the entries be family-oriented. I'm talking rated G, no gore, suggestive content, or any of that stuff. Also, for the requests, I do not draw horror/macabre, ghouls and ghosts, demons, yaoi, yuri, or gore. Nothing against people who do, that's just my preference.

All right, I guess that's about it! If you have any questions, or if I left out some important contest detail, don't hesitate to comment me. And remember, this contest is all about having fun and expressing yourself, and EVERYONE is a winner! Now get out there and show me what you're made of!!!

FIN ^_^