Delta H 2025 Art Contest

Theme:

Fan artwork of this year’s theme “Celestial Dreams: A Journey Through the Stars”. Celebrate the cosmos with art inspired by the vast universe of space-themed anime like Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, or Sailor Moon. This theme could incorporate elements of constellations, galaxies, and cosmic wonders. Artists can explore ethereal star patterns, shimmering color palettes, and dreamy futuristic designs. Lets get some epic art to celebrate our 17th Anniversary! Using one or more of the Delta H Con mascots or their chibis. Click Here for images of the DHC Mascots. Other characters can be drawn from in the vein of the theme. The design needs to show influence from anime, boardgames, TCG Card Games, D&D, or more traditional games and include Delta H Con or DHC and the year. We are leaving it up to the artist to come up with the design. Designs may include characters and/or landscapes. Please contact us if you have any questions about the theme. Though the convention does cross over into other elements of fandom, the artwork should focus on anime or games. Other elements may be incorporated into your design.

Judging Criteria

All submissions will be judged based on the following:

• Originality
• Overall Composition
• Use of theme and Delta H Con
• Adherence to Contest Guidelines (including quality, age appropriate and media format)

Judging will be conducted by Delta H Con committee (100%). Entries will be shown to the community via Facebook but unlike previous years likes or feedback will not be taken into consideration.

Guidelines

Please observe the following guidelines when creating your artwork. The DHC® staff will be reviewing all submissions based on these guidelines. The DHC® staff reserves the right to reject any submission, and may make revisions or send the artwork back for changes as it deems necessary.

Appropriateness to Audience and Theme: Does the artwork depict DHC® in a positive manner? Does it fit the defined theme? Is it anime or game-related in some way? Please avoid any inappropriate use or representation of violence, profanity, drugs, or sex in the artwork. Artwork must be G to PG-13 rated.

Ability to be Reproduced across Multiple Mediums: DHC® artwork will be used for various promotional purposes, including t-shirts, posters, flyers, program books. Please submit artwork that is scalable with minimal loss of quality (vectorized or lossless compression) and print ready (CMYK color, bleed spaces, etc). Please refer to the Technical and Design Requirements section for more detailed information.

Art Quality: Please try to submit your best work. The DHC® staff will reject any submission if it feels that the art does not meet its quality standards.

Originality: Please observe international copyright laws when creating your work. Do not use any copyrighted characters or work that has been created previously for other clients or by others. If you use any fonts in your design, please ensure that they are of your own design or are in the public domain.

We reserve the right to use any art submissions for our own promotional and media purposes until the end of Delta H Con 2025. After the end of the convention, we will contact the artist to ask for permission for any further use of the artwork.

Artists will be credited in our program book and promotional materials if the artwork is used for promotional purposes. Submissions for the T-Shirt contest and for the Print Art Contest must be made by May 25th, 2025 at 11:59PM.

T-Shirt Contest

Technical and Design Requirements (written up by our T-Shirt Printer):

Step One.

• Create your design using a vector art program like Adobe Illustrator (PREFERRED).
OR Create your design using a raster program like Adobe Photoshop.
• Hand drawing the sketch on paper then coloring in Photoshop or Illustrator is perfectly allowed.
• We are looking for artwork with layers to allow us to edit what is necessary.
• If you are designing with a raster program, make sure your canvas size is 12″ x 15″, and 300 dpi (pixels per inch).
• Use a minimum line width of 5 pixels.
• If your design contains gradients, you must convert them to halftones. Make them 1 to 30 LPI (lines per inch).
• Each dot that makes up your halftone must be one solid color.
• If you are designing with a vector program, make sure the canvas is at least 5″ x 5″.
• Use a minimum line width of 1 point.
• If your design contains gradients, your gradients must have a minimum 15% dot in all colors. We’ll create the halftones.
• Your fonts should be expanded or outlined in your final version.
• Save all final vector files as an eps. Colors: Use a maximum of 4 colors. This includes black and white. (If we print on dark shirts, we’ll add an underbase. A base is separate from white, and NOT counted in the artist’s maximum 4 colors.)

Note: if you plan to present your design on a black t-shirt, you can use the t-shirt’s color as your black line; therefore it doesn’t count as one of your max 4 colors. Colors should be Pantone Solid Coated. RGB.

T-shirt Color: Although Black t-shirts are King, you may choose a t-shirt color that best suits your design from the following: Ash, Black, Deep Forest Green, Deep Red, Deep Royal, Gold, Light Blue, Light Steel, Maroon, Navy, Orange, Purple, White, or Yellow.

Step Two:

Please save a copy of your design as a GIF, JPG or PNG. Submit your high resolution artwork and the image file. Please make sure your high resolution artwork has all layers in tact. Do Not flatten your image when in the form of .ai, .psd, .pdf or .eps.

Prize for T-Shirt Art Contest

The winning Artist receives an Artist Alley table with two Artist Alley badges + T-Shirt ($200 value).

Print Art Contest

Technical and Design Requirements:

• For the Print Art Contest, the entry may have as many colors as you’d like and no restriction on the background.
• Print Art Entries must be digital; traditional art submissions (i.e hand-drawn art and sketchbooks) will not be accepted. To Clarify: Hand drawing the sketch on paper then coloring in Photoshop or Illustrator is perfectly allowed.
• Print Art Entries relate to our family of characters.
• The 2025 attendee badge template will be Vertical. Please put this into consideration when drawing for the Print Art contest.
• There will not be a limit to the number of entries you may submit to all of the contests. Limit one 1st place winner (we won’t allow one person to win two Artist Alley tables and a pre-reg badge).
• If the winner of either contest has already purchased an Artist Alley table then they will get a refund of their table cost.
• It is highly preferred that all submissions have layers if at all possible. Do not flatten your image. Submitted art needs to be in TIF or PSD/Photoshop format [preferred]. We will also accept JPG/PNG files. If submitting a JPG/PNG file, let us know if you have a EPS/PSD/PDF (Photoshop/Illustrator) file available so that we can ask for it if your entry is selected.
• Please make sure the picture is high-resolution at 300DPI. Please be at minimum 1365 x 1024 pixels if at all possible for Print Art entries. Bigger is better. The preferred canvas size for Print entries is 8.5″ x 11″. Upon submitting your entry, the artists agrees on the following: • We reserve the right to decide for each entry if it should be in the Print Art Contest or in the T-Shirt contest. Meaning that if you submit your art to the Print Art Contest, you could win the T-Shirt contest and vice-versa.
• Artists will be credited in our program book and promotional materials if the artwork is used for promotional purposes. Submissions for the T-Shirt contest and the Print Art must be made by May 25th, 2025 at 11:59PM.

Prizes for Print Art Contest
• 1st Place: Art used on Program Book Cover. Winning artist will be awarded 1 table in Artist Alley with two Artist badges (good for all 3 days of the convention) for Delta H Con 2025 ($180 Value) [WINNER MAY REQUEST SUBSTITUTE PRIZE OF EQUAL VALUE].
• 2nd Place: Art used on 3-Day Badge. Wins a 3-Day Badge + T-Shirt ($70 Value).
• 3rd Place: Art used on GOLD VIP Pass. Wins a 3-Day badge ($50 Value).
• All awards received for the 2025 art contest apply only to Delta H Con 2025.
• 1st-3rd place winners may give their prizes to friends if requested.
• All other entrants will receive a 3-Day badge ($50 Value) to Delta H Con 2025.

Art Contest Submissions HERE

You are not required to pre-register for Delta H Con in order to submit an entry.
If you have any questions then fill out the form on our contact page.