Heya there, folks! I have a very special announcement to make! Here at the ShanniiWrites Forums, we’re hosting a competition to have the artwork of our users - you guys! - displayed on the Forums themselves!
If you’ve used other Discourse Forums then you may have noticed that the sections have special artwork. We’ll be setting this up as well! But we’ll be doing it a little differently to most 
The ShanniiWrites Forums actually have a mascot, same as the ShanniiWrites main website! She’s called the Author, you may have seen her around!
Here she is, one of my best character designs
So here’s the gist of the competition
There are 13 sections on the Forums, and we’d like a little drawing for each of them with our lovely Author mascot! Don’t worry! I don’t expect everyone to do 13 drawings!
But if each person could submit at least a drawing or two we can hopefully get a drawing for each Section and really make the Forums ours. So, I’m going to list each Section, give an example of what the drawing could potentially be, then lay the rules out for how the competition will work!
Sections
Staff
The section only staff can see! This has drafts for posts and announcements only staff can access and edit. My example given has the Author in something akin to a pilot’s cap, though please feel free to go nuts with the idea of a Staff-only zone!
Welcome to the Forums
Welcome to the Forums! Fairly self-explanatory, I feel. This is the landing pad for people new to the Forums to introduce themselves and be warmly welcomed in return! My example was, again, very simple but there are no limits to creative you can get!
Announcements
Again, fairly self-explanatory! The Announcements Section is where this post will be! It’s also where all the important announcements for cool upcoming events and the like are found, so I went for the simple but effective megaphone as my example
Writing Chat
Our Forums namesake, the Writing Chat! All of our talk about stories, book, writing skills and techniques, the whole basis behind the ShanniiWrites brand can be found here! For my example I had the Author pouring over what seems to be a blank page and covered in ink, clearly hard at work.
General Chat
The Section we all spend most of our time on! The General Chat Section, where most threads and discussions happen, you’re probably pretty familiar with this Section already. I could not think of anything to put for my example, I apologise for the super basic piece above
RPs and SGs
The home of our lovely RP community and all of our amazing Forum games! I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with this Section even if you don’t frequent it! I decided to have fun with my example, having the Author dressed as Link from the Legend of Zelda for her very own roleplaying session!
Patrons' Lounge
Another Section only a handful of people can see. Our Patrons’ Lounge! This is an exclusive area where our Patrons have their own posts and discussions and even their own share, promotion and request threads. I had fun with this one too, having the Author enamoured with the idea of that sweet cash money she gets from Patreon!
Restricted Section
This is the section of the Forums that isn’t bound by the PG-13 rules that the rest of the Forums follow! Graphic stories, NSFW art and extreme discussions of all kinds are allowed here, and while there are rules here too, they’re a lot looser - as shown by the Author letting loose a little in my example!
Restricted Section access is available with a pledge of 3$ US or higher on Patreon!
Share
This is the place for you to share all of your stuff! Writing, music, art, anything you would like! The sky’s the limit, and it’s all a wonderful gift. The Author’s gift is probably her writing, going by her namesake
Request Services
This is a sister section of sorts to the Share section, where instead of sharing your own art, you can request these services from other people! Reviews, critique, commissions. Whatever you can think of! This is where you can request it
The Author, given her namesake, would probably be pretty good at giving out story reviews, so in my example piece I had her stating that she’s accepting stories for review!
Lounge
The Lounge is a section of the Forums available only to those with a trust level of 3 or higher. It’s one of many perks to show our appreciation of the people active enough to reach that point!
We like to think that area is quite luxurious, hence why in my example the Author is lounging on a very lush-looking chair!
Site Feedback
Another fairly self-explanatory one, this is where to go if you’d like to give your feedback for the ShanniiWrites Forums! While we do love criticisms and ways to improve, the Author thrives on praise, so in my example I had her winning a contest of some sort and getting the highest score possible: a duck!
Uncategorised
A description for the Uncategorised section? Unclear.
Confused Author is confused. It’s weird!
The Rules
Now that we have the Sections out of the way, we can move onto the rules of the actual competition! The basic premise is that we’d like as many varied art styles taking prominence on the front page of the Forums as possible. So we want tons of artists to take part in this so we can get a huge pool of fun pieces!
Choose as many sections as you would like, and do a fun drawing for it! It can be traditional, or digital. Either way, I’ll give you the best size for digital (though I can resize them if necessary). 550x350 pixels is the ideal!
Post your pieces here on this thread, along with what section your piece is for and we will keep this competition running for a month from now to make sure we get as many entries as possible! Any section we don’t get an entry for, I’ll use a digital version of my example given.
The only rule is that the drawing must contain our site mascot, the Author! This will be much like a fanart competition in a lot of ways!
The colours and design of the Author are quite particular as they’re a part of the ShannniiWrites brand, so I will post a couple of pictures below to help with capturing her properly!
Character Sheet
This is the Author, the main aspects of her design. The style doesn’t have to be the same so long as these elements are present!
Colour Palette
These are the official ShanniiWrites colours! The colours used for the website and the Forums, a part of the brand and the image!
Feel free to use this image as reference, or even pull the colours directly using the eyedropper tool!
And finally, be creative! So long as you have the Author present in some way, and so long as you follow the colour pallette, we encourage you to go nuts to your heart’s content! We want creative, interesting designs that really show off the range of styles and talent on our Forums!
Have fun, and happy drawing folks 
@Announcements
@Artists ← Join this for future competitions and artist events!
@BlueInferno since you asked specifically
I’ll try to join if I have enough time 
