The Dos and Don'ts of the Art Gallery

Dos:

Do be yourself. You’re usually best at what you enjoy doing, so, for example, if you prefer drawing digital art, then try drawing something digital to enter; on the other hand, if you prefer drawing by hand, perhaps you’d like to try your luck at entering a traditional piece of art. The Art Gallery accepts and displays a broad range of art created with different mediums so play around and have fun doing what you love!

Do enter for specific occasions. The Art Gallery showcases art on each pet day, holidays and other special events like Discovery of Meridell and Fyora Day to name a few. A great way to find out what pet days or special events are coming up is to have a look at the Calendar found under the Pet Central tab on Neopets. This Calendar covers the whole year so you can plan your entries ahead, months at a time, if you really want to. But last minute entries are good too!

Do try to be creative and unique. It’s always a good idea to try and come up with an interesting concept for your entry, something a little different to the other entries that might be entered alongside yours. You want to make sure your entry stands out to the TNT staff member selecting and accepting the art. Say if you are entering a picture for Acara Day, perhaps instead of simply drawing a blue Acara with a flower, you could try drawing Roberta, the blue Acara from the Scrollery (it’s in Brightvale) with a flower instead. See what I did there? But if you don’t want to draw famous neopets that’s fine, this is just an example. Perhaps you could draw two Acaras instead of one? One holding the flower out to the other one? Like I said, be creative, be unique!

Do include a background. I have found that art with backgrounds feature more often in the Art Gallery than art without backgrounds do. I try to put a pretty background on each and every one of my entries, and while this isn’t compulsory, I find it helps make your picture stand out. Backgrounds are a fun way of turning a subject into a scene and usually complement your subject matter really well anyways, so why not try it out? Simple backgrounds can be really effective too; a simple circle or striped background can be just as nice as a detailed landscape!

Do use lots of colour. I love to look at colourful art and think that TNT do too; don’t get me wrong, black and white or tinted pictures can be really nice too, but I think colour is a great way to catch the eye and should work in your favor when entering the AG. As discussed above, you really want your entry to stand out to the TNT staff member selecting and accepting the art to be displayed.

Do title your entry with a catchy phrase. Ok, so it doesn’t have to be a long phrase, or even a phrase for that matter, but do give your entry an interesting title, though in some cases a simple title might be appropriate (perhaps for an abstract piece). Lots of artists use “Happy pet-species day!” (eg. Happy Nimmo Day!) or variants of this phrase for their titles, which is fine, but sometimes an adjective goes a long way in helping your entry stand out. Try using ‘Have a descriptive-word pet-species day!’ (eg. Have a Splashing Nimmo Day!) instead and see how it goes!

Do resize your picture to fit the specifications for the AG. This one is fairly self-explanatory, but if you don’t do this, your entry will not get in, at all, whatsoever, no matter how wonderful it is. So make sure you follow the AG guidelines for files sizes, widths and heights etc. before submitting your picture.

Don’ts:

Don’t steal someone else’s art. EVER. Never, ever, ever steal art. This is very bad and quite frowned upon within the artist community on Neopets (and everywhere else for that matter!). Firstly, it is against the rules to use others' art without permission and secondly, TNT won’t accept art if it isn’t your own for the Art Gallery even if you have permission to use someone else’s art- which you shouldn’t unless it’s for displaying on your pet lookup or page as fan art. So this one is pretty straightforward, just don’t do it.

Don’t draw/ enter anything inappropriate. Obviously TNT are not going to accept something inappropriate or rude to display in the Art Gallery.

Don’t forget to use your common sense when entering the AG. Don’t enter a picture of species A for species D’s pet day (eg. Don’t enter a picture of a Nimmo for Uni Day!).

Don’t enter the same picture three times a day seven days a week. You can enter the AG up to three times a day; however, if you enter the same picture three times a day seven days a week, your entry might actually start to annoy the TNT staff member in charge of selecting and accepting art for the Art Gallery, and so it might not get chosen. Just don’t risk it. Feel free to enter your picture every couple of weeks or so, but don’t overload them with it.

Don’t enter teeny tiny pictures. Don’t make your picture so small that you have to squint to recognize it as a neopet. Refer to the AG guidelines and browse the Art Gallery if you’re unsure of what file size/width/height your picture should roughly be.

Don’t get discouraged if your picture doesn’t get in! This is probably the most important piece of advice I can give you. You’ve entered a picture that you’re proud of, you’re certain it will get in... but then it doesn’t and you’re left broken hearted. WRONG! Your picture doesn’t get in, you check out all of the entries that did and you think to yourself, “Wow! There were so many awesome entries in the AG this week/day, it must have been really hard for TNT to only choose this many. Better luck next time.” You then smile and start to draw again. I honestly don’t know how many pictures are entered in the AG for each pet day, but my guess would be quite a lot, and unfortunately only 12-24 pictures get chosen to hang in the Art Gallery for each pet day/special occasion, so as I always say, you can't win ‘em all!

And lastly, don’t spend that 10k all at once! Once you’ve gotten into the Art Gallery you’ll be awarded with 10k and a random item (usually a nice paint brush, petpet paint brush, petpet or codestone). So spend it wisely... or spend it all at once, I really don’t mind! You’ve earned it!