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Neopia's Fill in the Blank News Source | 28th day of Running, Yr 26
The Neopian Times Week 56 > Articles > Beauty Contest Research Report

Beauty Contest Research Report

by 2mist

BEAUTY CONTEST - How is anybody supposed to win a beauty competition? Well, odds are better than the Neopian Lottery, and not everything is based on luck. This research report is not about how to win a competition, but how to give your beautiful Neopet a fighting chance.

Before you ENTER!
If this is your first beauty contest, ensure you read and understand all rules. You may want to read up on tips and hints in the "help and frequently asked questions", and even e-mail gregl@neopets.com about any questions or concerns you have, that is - after you have read the help and f.a.q. The Beauty Contest can be found on the Pet Central menu bar (the familiar picture with the stunning Kyrii) and/or under the heading "Current Competition". Or you can just click here!

Entering the Competition
The art of entering the competition, is you can enter just one Neopet, or all of your Neopets.

HOW TO ENTER
Click on the "ENTER CONTEST" found on the main Beauty Contest Page to upload your entry and enter the speech/description or you can just click here to go there. Beauty Contests take place every week, from Monday 1 PM NST to the next Monday 1 PM NST.

Picture

DOs
This is where it starts and ends. Your beauty contest picture must be attractive and catchy. My suggestion is to make your picture have the same dimensions (i.e. 150x150 instead of 260x187) so that it doesn't look distorted when people view it at 48x48 on the "Current Voting" tables. As the famous cliché, "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder", you don't want a picture that is simply a copy and paste. Drawings made on the computer can be just as good as those that are hand drawn. If you want to learn how to draw a certain Neopet, you can visit Neopet's How-to-draw guide. Colour is an option, but highly suggested. You may want to take an extra precaution when drawing your Neopet picture by putting your username somewhere on it. Although right-click is disabled in the beauty contest, most people may find another way of stealing graphics. If the picture you are entering was drawn by a friend, make sure to acknowledge that person. Another thing to note, your Neopet doesn't have to look exactly realistic. What I mean is, if you own a yellow Kacheek, but enter a picture of a faerie Kacheek, that is completely fine! BUT! If you have a blue Kau, and enter the picture of a pink Uni for your competition, well, obviously...

DON'Ts
Nobody likes a copycat. And plagiarising will get you out of the beauty contest and give you and your Neopet a bad name! :( That isn't good. Another form of plagiarism is copying a picture without the permission of the artist - and modifying it (i.e. changing the colour, adding a bow to one of the ears) is against the rules as well.

Description
It is almost guaranteed that a description will not win you the beauty contest alone, but it may help convince some people to vote (that is, after looking at your picture). You can make it short and sweet, and long and descriptive. Although it is not compulsory, you may not want to have: "Vote for me or else!". You never want to sound too desperate, threatening, or non-caring in your description, or people may not want to vote.

Voting
FIRST AND FOREMOST! Make sure you VOTE FOR YOUR OWN PET! (or if you don't want to, that's fine). Votes determine whether or not you win a competition. The first time I entered, I assumed the staff at Neopets chose the best pictures, but after I found out that the outcome of the beauty contest was determined by my fellow Neopians and their votes - that changed my entire outlook on the beauty contest. As I understand it, people who want to vote go to the "View Contestants and Vote" take a look at a thumbnail of your picture, and click on the picture to view your entire entry (called the Beauty Contest Lookup). As a Neopian, you have the right to cast one vote per species (i.e. one vote for a Kacheek, one vote for a Lenny, one vote for a Chia, etc.).

Advertising
I think advertising is essential in the beauty contest. Here are some ways you can grab those extra sweet votes:

Neomail
When Neomailing people about voting for your pet, remember to include or ask for:

1. The URL of your Neopet in the beauty contest (If you don't know what the link is, just substitute "NAME" with your pet's name: http://www.neopets.com/beauty/details.phtml?pet=NAME)

2. (OPTIONAL): Ask for the Vote Number, (The number seen after clicking the "Vote for so and so" button ... i.e. NAME currently has 17 votes. The vote number would be "17" (easier to keep track)

3. Don't forget to include a thank you at the very least.

Neofriends (or Neopians you know)
Neomail all of your Neofriends and/or people you know and ask them kindly if they could vote for your Neopet Do not forget to include the link for your Neopet in the beauty contest. That would save them the trouble of actually finding your pet.

Guild Members
Post a message on your guild message board asking your guild members to vote. DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE THE LINK to your Beauty Contest Lookup.

Chat Boards
I find chatboards very useful. You can gain a lot of votes this way. Using witty comments like: "6 hours to make, 6 minutes, to post, only 6 seconds to vote" can be quite useful. Again, don't forget to include the link for your beauty contest lookup. Also, look for messages of people who are offering free votes (free votes refers to not having to vote for someone else in order to get a vote).

Rules: Neopets has some restrictions when it comes to advertising on the chat boards, and here they are:

1. You are only allowed to post about your own pet in the Beauty Contest. This rule speaks for itself

2. You cannot say anything about other pets or your post will be deleted and your pet may be removed from the contest. So you can't say things like, "Don't vote for so and so's pet!" You wouldn't want to do anything like that or your own pet may be removed from the competition!

3. Voting with multiple accounts or offering to trade more than one vote is against the rules. Basically, this rule states that cheating is unfair. Using multiple accounts to vote for your Neopet is completely unfair to other players who are earning their votes honestly. So stuff like: "3 votes for 1! I guarantee it! Vote for my pet!" is strictly prohibited.

Links
Again, with the links. You can post links on your petpage, shop, guild, your userlookup, petlookup, notice boards, guild message boards, chat boards. Its endless. If you don't know HTML, it would be a good idea to take a peek on how to use an HTML code to create a link. The Neopets HTML Guide: Creating Links.

Awards
Why enter the beauty contest? Because you wanna win! The awards are almost ten times better than other competitions that Neopets offer.

OVERALL WINNERS

  • First Prize - 20,000 NP + one rare item
  • Second Prize - 10,000 NP + one rare item
  • Third Prize - 5,000 NP + one rare item

SPECIES WINNERS

  • First Prize - 10,000 NP
  • Second Prize - 5,000 NP
  • Third Prize - 2,500 NP

What would you do with 20,000 NP? That is a lot of NP if you do win the overall competition. Although, it would be a lot harder to win unless your picture was amazing! These prizes are given away each week. And a shiny gold, silver, or bronze trophy goes in their trophy cabinet.

I held a poll way back when, and asked Neopians why they would enter the beauty contest. Options were: (a) For the Money (b) For the trophy (c) For the rare item or (d) Other. The results were in. The majority was: (b) for the trophy. And in order according to the most votes were: (a) for the money and (c) for the rare item ... Nobody voted (d).

To sum it up
Enter the competition.
Upload your picture.
Make your speech.
Vote for your own pet.
Get other to vote by:
Advertise and promote your Neopet's beauty entry.
Linking to your Neopet's beauty entry.
Last but not least, good luck :)

In Conclusion
I will not guarantee that entering the contest and following every single one of my guidelines will win you the competition, whether it be overall or species, but I hope it has given your Neopet improved odds for the next contest. And if you enter, good luck! If you have any further questions or comments concerning this article, please feel free to Neomail me :)


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