We have entries! The contest is over, and here we present the four contestants for the cover, in the sequence of submission! Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

by Blotch	by Khaosdog
by Wei-Lun Wu	by Blue_Panther

Now, it's up to the jury to decide! But of course, all art will have a place in the con book, as announced.

In previous years, the T-Shirt contest used to determine the theme for the official Eurofurence T-Shirt. A large number of runners-up from the contest were printed in the con book. The con book cover, on the other paw, was assigned to selected artists.

This year, we want to reverse roles. We open up the con book for direct contributions, while the T-Shirt artwork is commissioned. This way, we will have more variance, more color, more possibilities, more styles in the con book.

And yes, "contributions" includes the cover! To select the con book cover from the submissions, a new contest will be held. All artists looking for a challenge are invited to take part! The winning artwork will be reproduced in a high quality offset printing process (just like a glossy magazine cover). First place will be the front cover, second place the back cover. Every visitor of the convention will receive a copy, 600 copies will be printed in total. A great opportunity to showcase your art!

We know that a full-sized illustration suitable for a cover takes time and effort, and we want to honor as many artists as possible for their work. Therefore, we have decided to expand the con book by at least four additional, interior, full color pages to show all the top entries in full glory, not just the first winner!

Naturally, all featured artists will receive proper credits, and retain the full rights to their works.

Of course, there is more than just the cover to the con book. We also need black and white or greyscale illustrations in various formats to bring life to the book's pages! Interior illustrations do not need to follow the stricter requirements for the cover but enjoy artistic freedom. In previous years, runners-up from the T-Shirt contest graced the interior pages of the con book, bound by the formal requirements and with a lot of repetitive text - now, you can run wild with ideas! You have a humorous illustration, a cute one, an artistic one? Landscape format, quarter page, greyscale? Try your luck; everything is possible!

Please note that the selection of interior illustrations depends on several factors: the quality of the piece, the idea, the suitability for a certain position in the book, and last not least the con book layout itself with its fixed page count and predefined sections. We will try to include as many quality submissions as possible, as we did with the T-Shirt imagery in previous years, but we cannot guarantee a place in the book.

There are three requirements for all submitted artwork (cover contest and interior illustration):

• it must be suitable for general European audiences ("PG Rated" by American standards);
• it must meet the technical specifications laid out below;
• it must reflect this year's theme, "The Unlucky 13", which you're free to interpret just as you like. Black cats and Vegas casinos? Gambling and dice and destiny? Your choice.

To give you an idea what kind of illustration we are looking for, here is a selection of con book artwork submissions from previous years:

In the past, the winners of the T-Shirt contest were determined by popular vote. This method, unfortunately, always includes the possibility of shifting the balance in favor of popular artists, or ballot stuffing by friends of an artist. To avoid conflicts of this sort, we have decided to start an experiment: Instead of going for the traditional popularity vote, the winners will be chosen by a jury of experts:

• Ronald "Cairyn" Klemp - Cairyn is the chief editor of the Eurofurence Con Book. He is the one who will decide whether submissions meet the technical requirements.
  
  
• Jeff "Brer Foxxe" Eddy - Brer is the head of Sofawolf Press, the publishing company specialized in furry art and fiction.
  
  
• Timothy "Amadhi" Albee - Tim is a talented artist and independent filmmaker. He is best known for his one-man production of Kaze, Ghost Warrior.
  
  
• Henning "Jaryic" Stalke - Jaryic is an artist, musician, and software developer. He is the creative mind of Black Paw Productions, a company specialized in furry merchandise and event services.
  
  
• Dark Natasha - Natasha is an extraordinary artist mastering all kinds of different media including acrylics, inks, colored pencils, water color and sculpting.
  
  

Taking part is easy, all you have to do is send us your finished submission by email. By sending us your submission, you agree to the contest rules; see further below for details. We will then put up a low resolution version of your submission up on this webpage. If you want to send us your work in progress or sketches ahead of time that's fine too. We'll gladly give you our comments. It's not a requirement, though.

In order to be usable as a con book cover, your work has to meet some simple technical criteria, which we'll explain here:

1) Book size and margins

The con book is standard ISO A4 size (210mm x 297mm). The artwork must fill the entire page; it will be printed "full bleed" (to the edge of the page). In the printing process, the edges will be cropped - up to 1 cm of your cover art may be cut off on each side!

2) Cover size

From these prerequisites, the ideal size of the cover artwork is 230mm x 317mm (cover size plus margins) or 5400 x 7500 pixels at 600 dpi. You do not need to adhere to these mm/pixel measurements to the last digit; we will resize your art as necessary. You need to use the aspect ratio of 1:1.38 though, since the con book format is not negotiable.

Remember the margins! Do not put any important picture elements into the 1 cm zone (236 pixels at 600 dpi) near the border, or they might get cut off!

Also, try not to use a frame element in your cover image since those easily conflict with the layout format, and make the printing process more difficult.

3) Caption Area

In order to be usable as cover art, your picture must leave some room for the title caption. There must be some "free" area in your picture that can be covered up by the title text without destroying the artwork, e.g. some area that contains no important details, or just background, preferably at the top. Think how your submission would look on the cover of a magazine, with the magazine's title overlaid on it.

However, please do not include the caption itself in the artwork! We will add the caption ourselves to meet the general book layout specifications. If you want to make a suggestion for the caption, that is fine, but please always make two versions ... one with, and one without caption, or add it as a separate layer in your graphic program. We will consider it a suggestion and not part of the submission.

4) Digital Format

We need a copy of your submission in electronic form. We accept all common digital formats, but we prefer either JPG, compressed TIFF or Photoshop format. No RAW, HDRI or proprietary formats please. 24 bit color depth is required, so no GIF either.

As stated above, the preferred resolution is 5400 x 7500 pixels at 600 dpi. The minimum resolution is 2700 x 3750 pixels at 300 dpi. The required color depth is 24 bit RGB (8 bit per color). Do not bother with CMYK, we will do all conversion necessary for the printing process ourselves.

If you want to send in your submission in JPG format, please use the highest possible quality setting, even if it results in a very large file. If the art contains high contrasts (e.g. visible line art) do not use JPG but a lossless compression (TIFF).

5) Interior illustrations

If you want to submit interior illustrations, you will not need to consider space for margins or caption, obviously. Interior illustrations are not printed "full bleed", and not captioned; nor do they need any "Eurofurence" text as part of the illustration.

Due to the page margin whitespace and the page header and footer graphics present on every page, the available area for interior illustrations is considerably smaller than for the cover illustrations. The maximum area is 165 x 240mm or 3900 x 5650 pixels at 600 dpi (equalling an aspect ratio of 1:1.45). This measurement is valid for full-page illustrations only; horizontal or vertical half-page illos, quarter-page illos, or horizontal one-third height illos are also perfectly fine.

Again, do not bother adapting your image to the last digit of the measurements; we will resize your art as necessary. The measurements should give you only a hint of what ratios and sizes are preferred.

If you submit pure black and white images, or greyscale images with high contrasts (line art), please do not use JPG format, and scan the art at no less than 600 dpi.

If you submit greyscale images like pencil drawings, you may use a scan resolution between 300 and 600 dpi and use any of the formats under 4).

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate, and write an email to conbook@eurofurence.org

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, 4th of August, 2007.

By taking part in this contest, you agree to these rules:

• You grant Eurofurence e.V. an irrevocable, non-exclusive right to use and reproduce your artwork. Of course you retain all rights to the original, and are free to do with it whatever you like.
• Eurofurence e.V. reserves the right to reject submissions for any reason.
• Submissions made after the deadline might still be printed in the con book if there's space left, but will not take part in the contest.
• Eurofurence e.V. reserves the right to make modifications to the submitted artwork, including (but not limited to) adding text, cropping, resizing, and color correction and conversion.
• Only submissions meeting minimal artistic standards will be published in the con book. The jury decides.