The Technodrome Forums - TMNT CUSTOM CONTEST MARK VI: Team Battle

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It's time for another TMNT custom contest--this time around I'm going to try something a little different. As the title suggests, you'll be facing off against other TMNT customizers as part of a randomly assigned team instead of all by your lonesome, which should add a fun "Wild Card' effect to the proceedings. You and your partner(s) will sink, or swim, together in the voting thread.
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Ye Long List O' Rules:

A. Read the rules. Yeah, they're fairly lengthy, but it's all here for a reason and intended to be as comprehensive as possible, not because I'm trying to write a novella. Many of the guidelines/comments below are a direct result of questions/situations/experiences that have arisen in past contests that I've organized and/or participated in.

B. Any registered member of the Technodrome Forums is eligible to participate. You may not submit someone else's work for them. If you know someone who would like to participate, but they are not a member of the Forums, then they must first join our community if they wish to do so. There are no sign-ups, just make a custom that conforms to the guidelines set forth below and submit it.

C. All submissions must be "new" pieces and your own work. Customs you've made weeks, months, or years ago will not be accepted. That said, I will allow the submission of anything you're currently working on that was UNFINISHED on the date I posted these contest rules. And no, altering/updating an existing custom does not count as a new custom.

D. All entries must be TMNT-centric in theme/nature. Any character or thing from any incarnation of the TMNT comic books, cartoons, movies, video games, etc. is fair game. You can also redesign an existing character to suit your own tastes/imagination, including changing its' gender or combining it with another character to create an amalgam. Your entry can be any scale/size and you can use whatever parts/materials you wish to make it with--the custom can be a repaint, modification, part-swap, partial new sculpt, casting, complete scratch build, etc., whatever floats your boat. If you're feeling particularly industrious, a single entry can consist of multiple figures/things, but remember that you're still restricted to the same image size limitations regardless of how many items are part of your entry. Don't feel you have to customize an action figure; you could do a vehicle, play set/diorama, accessory pack, 1:1 scale costume/weapon replica, Lego/Megablok set, plushy, tabletop gaming piece, etc.--just about any kind of product you could conceivably find in the toy aisles at a store is fine with me--be creative and let your imagination run wild!

E. Entry images should be no larger than 600 pixels in width x 600 pixels in height and in JPG format. You can use one large photo, or combine several smaller pictures together into that one image, but you may not exceed those dimensions. You can place text/watermarks on your image if you like. Your entry should be "PG-13" in nature--I reserve the right to edit any entry for content if I deem it necessary. Do not place custom figures/items that you've made in the past in your photos--if you need figures as riders in a vehicle, or bodies for a fight scene, use commerically available, unaltered figures, not old customs.

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F. You can post work-in-progress or finished photos of your entries in this contest thread for the purposes of discussion/advice or just to show them off, but that DOES NOT constitute a submission. Alternatively, you can keep your entry a secret between you and me till the voting thread goes up, whichever you prefer. If you make multiple customs, please don't formally or informally poll other forum members as to which they think is the best and/or which you should submit, because, intentional or not, that amounts to pre-voting.

G. Each participant may submit up to TWO entries. If you submit two entries, you must designate one as your PRIMARY submission and one as your ALTERNATE (if you only submit one, it's your Primary by default). Your Primary entry is guaranteed to be in the voting thread, provided it meets all of the criteria for a legal entry, but the Alternate is not. The purpose of the Alternate entries is to ensure that I can form equal-numbered teams (i.e., if 7, 11, or 13 people participate with single entries, there's no way that I could divide those digits into equally numbered teams without omitting someone, but, if some of those people submitted two entries, then I could easily rebalance the equation). Any necessary Alternate cuts will be randomly determined. That said, I will include as many of the Alternates in the voting thread as possible, up to all of them, if the numbers allow for it (i.e., if I received 19 entries total, with 12 of them being Primaries and 7 of them Alternates, I would use all 12 of the Primary entries and 6 of the Alternates, as 18 is easily divisible into teams of two or three).

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H. Teams will be RANDOMLY ASSIGNED at the conclusion of the entry period, before I post the voting thread. Do not e-mail/PM me requesting that you be partnered, or not partnered, with any particular individual, because I will not entertain any such considerations. The total number of people on each team will be entirely dependent on how many entries I receive total (i.e., if I don't get a lot of entries, it'll almost certainly be two-member teams, but if I do get lots of entries, three or four member teams are possibilities)--and it should go without saying that, if you make two entries, you cannot be on a team with yourself under any circumstances. If you're wondering why I won't let teams be formed beforehand in some voluntary manner, it's because there are always people who can't, or won't, make good on their commitments--with the end result being one or more incomplete teams, which then naturally leads to all sorts of drama and arguments. Randomly forming the teams after the fact should prevent that kind of trouble.

I. Deadline is Monday January 17, 2011 (Midnight, my time, Eastern Standard Time U.S.A.). No deadline extensions will be granted for anyone, for any reason, no matter how clever or genuine your excuses. Your submission is either on time or it isn't in the contest. If you don't quite manage to finish what you're working on, you can still submit what you did get accomplished, but understand in doing so that the unfinished state of your entry may work to the detriment of you and whomever gets assigned as your team partner(s) in the voting thread. Submissions should be either e-mailed or PM'd to me (or both if you want to be doubly sure I get it), preferably with something relevant in the Subject line of the message so it doesn't get accidentally deleted (i.e., "TMNT custom contest submission" or something similar). I will respond to all submissions with a confirmation message--but remember to be patient in waiting for a reply, as I'm generally only online once or twice a week. Once you submit an entry and I accept it, that's it. I will not substitute it for an updated version or a different one--so, MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU'RE SATISFIED WITH YOUR ENTRY BEFORE YOU SEND IT TO ME. That said, if you submit two entries, I will swap which one of those two that you want as your Primary entry, if you wish, provided you let me know BEFORE deadline.

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J. A voting thread will be posted soon after the conclusion of the contest entry period and will run for one week. Any and all Technodrome Forum members, including contest participants, are eligible to vote in said poll. This time, for variety and because some people have requested it, I'm going to try out multiple voting in the poll--you'll be allowed to vote for more than just one entry if you can't decide between two or more of them (i.e., if there were entries A-F, you could cast votes for A, C, and D, instead of just one of them). In the event of a tie, I will perform a tie-breaker decision via random chance (usually by rolling a six-sided die).

K. Due to the team nature of this contest, and the inherent prize distribution/division problems that entails, I'm not offering or asking for prizes this time around, so this event is just for fun/bragging rights.

L. Any participant caught cheating during the entry period and/or during voting will be disqualified and expelled from the contest [which will also adversely affect your presumably innocent teammate(s), so don't do it for their sakes, if not your own]. Examples of cheating include, but are not limited to: (a) Entering something someone else made and claiming it as your own work; (b) Entering an old, completed work and attempting to pass it off as something new; (c) Individuals having, and voting with, multiple forum accounts; (d) Actively soliciting people outside the forums to join solely for the purpose of voting for your team. In addition to being disqualified from the contest, cheaters may also be brought to the attention of the Technodrome Forums administrators/moderators.