UPDATE:

The first voting stage is to select a winner from each of the five voting categories.  Those winners move onto the final five stage.
Group A 
Group B 
Group C 
Group D 
Group E

Hey everyone,

Welcome to the 2008 Photoshop Contest!  This is open to all Goozex members and gives you the opportunity to get free trade credits plus other prizes.

Here are the details:

Click here for Official Photoshop Contest Rules 

The Don'ts:

• Don't be pornographic, sexual, or vulgar with your submission
• Don't be offensive to any person(s), group, race, religion or ethnicity
  
• Don't use other copyrighted material and claim it as your own: Something like cutting and pasting Mario's head onto the Goozex body is not advised. 
  

The Contest Schedule

• May 3 - 24 - Members submit their graphic submissions
• May 27 - June 2 - All approved submissions are divided into 5 voting groups based on the entry date - The winner of each voting group will move onto Final Five Vote
• June 6 - 13 - Final Five Vote week -- the finalists from each voting group will be up for voting to determine the Final Five winner(*)
• June 14 - Final winner announced!(**)

       (*) in case of any ties, all winning ties will advance to the Final Five Vote

       (**) in case of a tie, the voting session will be extended as long as one additional vote is casted to determine the top winner -- any member caught setting up multiple accounts to vote will be disqualified and all bonuses removed.

 Category and Prizes

Each approved entry into this category receives 5 free trade credits and A/V Badge. Goozex reserves the right to approve/disapprove each entry (see Official Rules for details)

    Requirements:

•         Goozex monster outfit
• Photoshop the Goozex monster in different outfits/themes
• Ex. Master Chief Goozex, Jedi Goozex, Mario Goozex, Metal Gear Solid Goozex, Hulk Goozex, etc (no copyrighted material allowed)
• Ex. Xbox360, PS3, Wii, PC, etc themed Goozex
• Ex. Nationality Goozex like Canadian Goozex, Japanese Goozex, etc
• Other creative ideas to dress up or change the monster!
• Create an eCard
• 475x320 size
• See examples on the eCard Page
• Receive an eCards badge if your submission is approved
• Graphic - "How it Works"
• Create something fun that gives the message about how Goozex works
• See example here on the Help Page
• Create Banner Ads!
• Static, flash, or animated .gif
• IAB standards
• 728x90
• 160x600
• 120x600
• 300x250
• Great banner ads may get used on Google Adwords for the whole Internet to see! 

Grand Prize

All Final Five finalists will receive 500 Goozex points and a 1 year EGM or PC Magazine subscription.  The final winner of the Final Five will also receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card.   

FAQ

• Can I submit more than one entry?
  
• Yes! We invite you to submit as many as you like -- this is a great way to get free trade credits and support the Goozex community
• Can I be in the Final Five more than once?
• Yes. This may happen if you are in multiple voting groups and you are voted the best in that category
• Will Goozex use my work for their own purposes?
• Maybe.  We love using what our members create because it is your site at the end of the day and it's like hanging up your pictures in the house.  For example, most of our eCards are member generated and Blackcoyote's avatar is from the previous Goozex photoshop contest.
• Does Goozex make money off my entry?
• No.  We do not sell or profit from your entry at all.
• What exactly is the approval process for the entries?
• We are looking to reward those entries that really put a little effort into the submission. Mainly we will be looking to make sure you don't use copyrighted material like the Batman symbol or Master Chief's helmet head from a cut and paste job.  Please see the Official Rules.
•  Don't worry if you don't have the photoshop skills, as long as you put in a decent effort into creating something you will be approved.  We really want to make this fun for everyone. 
  
• Give it a shot and see what happens!
• Do you have examples of good non-copyrighted Goozex characters?
• Yes! Here are a few from our previous contest that were really creative, and had a great theme going:
• Jedi Goozex
• Cleveland Goozex
• Gooz Rider
• BatGoozex
• Has this been done before?
• Yes, please see our previous popular Photoshop contest thread here: http://www.goozex.com/community/forums/t/1652.aspx
• Can I submit previous entries?
• No.  We want to keep this fresh with new creative submissions.
• Can signature entries be included?
  
• No. We're really looking for what is outlined above, but we always love new signature creations.  If you'd like to contribute in making signatures go to our Signature Thread

Good luck and enjoy this soon to be popular thread!

The G-Team 

Goozex pics:

One example we do for Christmas:

EDIT: The schedule of contest has been updated to allow for a few days between the voting rounds. Please see the new schedule above.

Awesome. Just clarification sake, following is stated:

 

• Can I submit more than one entry?
  
• Yes! We invite you to submit as many as you like -- this is a great way to get free trade credits and support the Goozex community

 

Does that mean one submission per category or multiple submissions into one category?

You can have as many submissions as you like into any or all categories.

For example: 2 in  mascots, 2 ecards, 1 "how it works" and 3 banners

or you can you have 5 ecards...

whatever combo works for you and however many entries you'd like.

I've got big ideas, but unfortunately lack any skill to follow through with them.  I think the last contest set the bar pretty high!  I look forward to seeing the entries.

Submit and see what happens!!

not good by any means, just made me laugh and thought i'd get the ball rolling

I-Weapon-X:

not good by any means, just made me laugh and thought i'd get the ball rolling

That is hilarious!

cheeznrice:

I-Weapon-X:

not good by any means, just made me laugh and thought i'd get the ball rolling

That is hilarious!

I'm Not really great at Photshop but heres my second entry

I hope I did this right. Wanted to watch Iron Man movie, but no time since finals is coming up. T__T

I present, Iron Gooz :P

--- Edit ---
Switched to a different image hosting site.
http://imagehustler.com/files/402/Iron%20Gooz.png

Had some extra time, so I made another one. Since there was an Indiana Jones thread, I made one of Indiana Gooz. He's a bit rusty with the whip.

http://imagehustler.com/files/402/Indiana%20Gooz.png

Sounds like fun! I have very little Photoshop experience, but hopefully I can turn out something that won't be too embarrassing. In my defense, when I took a Photoshop class in college, the teacher was fired part way through the class for being a terrible teacher. She was replaced by someone who had never used Photoshop before .

Did one more before I went to bed. This is addicting (thinking of Goozex monsters as a character). Gootos, the God of Trading, he doesn't look very menancing. Cheers and good night. ^__^

--- Edit ---

Not sure why I didn't think of this earlier, but here he is with Wii remotes and Wii strap. I think this one would fit the theme better. ^__^

http://imagehustler.com/files/402/Gootos%20v2.png

Original version if anyone want to see what changed (swords and chain)
http://imagehustler.com/files/402/Gootos.png

--- Edit ---
Oops....realized I hit reply instead of edit. Sorry for the double post :(
--- /Edit ---

This is quite fun. I edited the little font stuff above his head. ^__^

http://imagehustler.com/files/402/Goozda.png

Cheers ^__^ 

Blackcoyote:

You can have as many submissions as you like into any or all categories.

For example: 2 in  mascots, 2 ecards, 1 "how it works" and 3 banners

So in this example the person would get 40 trade credits? Or is it 5 credits per approved entry per person?