<sub>The time has come to announce the winners of our latest contest! Well done to each and every one of you who entered - you all did an exceptional job. A HUGE thank you goes to *daughterofthestars because without her, there would have been no contest, and even worse - no club at all! So thank you Kate - I really appreciate all your hard work. I hope you guys will continue to enter our future contests too, and thank you for keeping this club alive with your participation. Thank you all so much!

Now without further ado, here are the contest winners!</sub>

Digital Winners

1st Place Anado by


Runner-Up Titan by





Traditional Winners

1st Place Soledad by


Runner-Up Mithrenniel by





Judges' Choice

Winner Buckshot by

RULES - PLEASE READ BEFORE VOTING!

Edit: Took away the "Entrants must vote in order to be eligible to win" rule. We need more votes, folks - keep 'em coming!


<sub>You must choose one winner and one runner-up from each category (digital and traditional).

You MUST note the club with your votes. Please entitle the note as “Contest Votes”. Send us the entry numbers of your choices. If you leave your votes in this journal, they will be hidden, and will not be counted until you send a note! Your note should read like this:

Digital:
Winner: #xx
Runner-Up: #xx

Traditional:
Winner: #xx
Runner-Up: #xx

Voting will be open until May 10th 2008
Winners will be announced May 11th 2008

You MUST vote for both traditional AND digital entries.

You CANNOT vote for yourself.

Please view ALL the entries – try not to vote on artistic ability alone, or just because they're your friends. Take the time to read what the artist has written about the character. You have a whole week to vote, so there is no excuse for not reading the artists’ comments!

Entrants must not advertise their entry in any way. If you are caught pandering/asking for votes, whether on your journal, in the deviation, by note, or any other way, you will be disqualified from the contest. We will not allow more popular deviants to rig the vote.

Whoever has the most votes at the end of the contest wins! Any questions, just ask. Now, on with the voting!</sub>

Traditional Entries (in order they were recieved)

1. with Soledad
2. with Falcon
3. with Stormbringer
4. with Zuver
5. with Mist
6. with Guy
7. with Fae
8. with Mithrenniel
9. with Buckshot
10. with Ace
11. with Rosa Roja
12. with Nakeen & Amiya










Digital Entries (in order they were received)

1. with Kachina
2. with Rouge
3. with Feugo
4. with Drifter
5. with Shine
6. with Hawk
7. with Luna
8. with Amitola
9. with Canska
10. with Samara
11. with Adonado
12. with Castana
13. with Beatte
14. with Titan
15. with Ermanno
16. with Arrow
17. with Malaya
18. with Rusty
19. with Cisco
20. with Nayeli
21. with Sky
22. with Thalia
23. with Optic
24. with Willow
25. with Birch
26. with Tiburon
27. with Sterling
28. with Hunter

Listed in the order received.

OK, so the contest is now officially CLOSED! Any last-minute entries will be accepted, but this is your very last chance to get them in. Details on how to vote will be up later today, and will be open for 1 week only (you will get to vote in both the digital and traditional categories, as with previous contests). There will also be a Judges' Choice again, so all together, there will be 7 prizes! If you don't see your entry listed below, please re-send it in a note or if you are still waiting for approval, let us know. Thanks to all that have entered!

The contest ends at midnight EST on April 30th. If you have tried to enter a picture, but have not been approved, you won't be counted until your entry matches the contest rules and requirements. Have the entries changed and let me know so I can approve them before April 30th.

Thank you!

with Kachina
with Rouge
with Soledad
with Falcon
with Stormbringer
with Zuver
with Feugo
with Drifter
with Shine
with Hawk
with Luna
with Amitola
with Mist
with Canska
with Samara
with Guy
with Adonado
with Castana
with Beatte
with Fae
with Mithrenniel
with Titan
with Ermanno
with Arrow
with Malaya
with Rusty
with Cisco
with Nayeli
with Buckshot
with Sky
with Thalia
with Optic
with Ace
with Willow
with Birch
with Tiburon
with Rosa Roja
with Nakeen and Amiya
with Sterling
with Hunter

After scowering u-tube and a site linked to by a very helpful member, I believe I have enough screenshots to aid those who do not own a copy of the movie or don't have the time to sit down and watch it.

The winning contest theme!
"Watch the movie, pick out a member of the herd pictured in the movie (one without a name), and draw it, giving it a history, name, and personality. Can be the foals he grew up with, or a herd member from any point in the movie. "

Yay!
How the entries will be judged, quoted from a comment I myself made: "Winners are found using votes from the judges only, based on creativity and how well the idea was presented."
Sorry, no public voting, but I assure you that our contest judges will judge fairly!

RULES
So very important, aren't they!

1. The-Spirit-of-Spirit club offers NO protection against other member choosing the same herd member you do! There are over 600 members of this club, and I'm sure if you count up the herd members in the screenshots there aren't quite that many. Some overlap of characters is to be expected. You can avoid choosing the same character as everyone else by going for the lesser-known background characters (rather than the indian ponies, Spirit's playmates, and the flirty mare in the night scene).

2. Your choice does not have to be approved unless you want to make a stallion. In the horse world, herds are made up of one stallion, a whole bunch of mares and foals, and maybe a gelding or two. Stallions are kicked out of the herd at two or three years old, so that the lead stallion will not have to fight them later. I know Spirit does his 'like my father before me' bit, but it is possible that the lead stallion died and that Spirit took control at three or four years old, and was able to protect the herd from other stallions. The only characters you do not need 'stallion approval' on are Spirit's playmates.

3. Only one entry per person. I have already mentioned that there are more club members than herd members, so you only need to claim one horse.

4. Drawings/painting must be in color, depict the character and any of it's identifying marks clearly, and you must provide a link back to the screenshot(s) that depicts the character you have chosen. You are allowed to add minor markings or color changes (adding stripes and dark legs to make a horse a dun, adding a face or leg mark to a nondescript background character, etc.) If a character has a mark in the movie (like a star), that mark must be included in the character design. I will look at each and every entry to check for consistancy. If the entry differs too much from the herd member chosen, I will either suggest another herd member that matches better or ask the entrant to change the design. You must also know what color your horse is, whether it is bay, brown, chestnut, etc. If you have no idea what color the horse you've chosen is, note me at *daughterofthestars with a link to the screenshot and a description of the horse you've chosen, and I'll give you a list of colors that horse could be (for instance, a reddish horse could be a red roan, chestnut, or red dun) and links to real-life examples of those colors.

5. Characters for this contest must have names. If you do not have a name for the character, the entry will not be accepted. Do not bother entering (even if the picture is up) until a name is written clearly in the description.

The Prizes
The three winners will get artwork drawn by our club prizegivers. They will recieve subscriptions only if subs are donated as prizes. The three winners will also be featured in the shoutboard for two months, until the winners in the next contest replace them.

The Choices
If a picture looks interesting, click on it. Further rules and regulations are included in the description of each picture. Many of the descriptions also include a link to a bigger or clearer picture of the horses. You cannot claim or name the brown twin foals for this contest.

Before Spirit was Born



When Spirit was a Foal



When Spirit was Full-grown



Horses that are not members of Spirit's herd



After Spirit returned home with Rain



Thank you all for being so patient! Entries will be accepted from now until April 30th!

NOTICE: You do NOT have to tell me you plan on entering the contest. This is not first-come-first-serve, you do not have to declare a horse yours in order to enter, and I will NOT be keeping track of those who hope to enter. I only keep track of completed and finished entries.

EDIT: Also, if you already had a nameless character from the movie in mind and it does not appear in the screenshots, that is fine. Draw it anyways, and when you upload your entry describe where in the movie it appears. I will just double check it against the movie and make sure it's there and it matches. You are not limited the the screenshots I have provided.

I am sooo sorry, guys. I just want to make this contest as easy as possible, even for those that don't own the movie, but my own dvd has disappeared! D: I can't find it anywhere! I watched it with some girls I babysat last Sunday night, and now it's gone. I really wanted to watch it on my computer so that I could take screenshots of the nameless characters I want you to choose from.

So be patient! I want to get this going so bad, but without proper screenshots, it's impossible! I will keep looking for the movie all this week and see if I can find it. If it takes me longer than that, I'll extend the contest due date.

Could they have taken it home with them accidently? I wouldn't think so... *wanders off, mumbling to herself*