What is an OC Tournament, you ask?
An "Original Character" Tournament is an excuse for artists to draw and develop their characters through comics (usually involving combat and fighting another artist's character). Sometimes it’s just for fun, for others it’s for prizes, and for others it's a serious form of practice.

How it works
With individual characters pitted against each other in a series of eliminations, each artist is given 3-4 weeks to draw a comic or animation of their character “defeating” their assigned opponent in that round. A panel of 3 or 5 Judges decide the victor based not only on visual artistic display, but on creativity, character development, originality, and storytelling ability. After that round, each remaining artist is assigned a new opponent and the process begins again until the winner is finally decided.

---

RULES And GUIDELINES TO FOLLOW:
1. Follow the FurAffinity Terms Of Service. Contest entries and posts may not contain any content that breaks FurAffinity's Terms Of Service. This should be obvious.

2. In addition, all contest entries must be: Comics, .gif animations, Flash animations, and any other form of Visual Sequential Arts.Written stories (see below for other option), poetry, non-sequential (non-comic, non-animated) pieces, etc WILL NOT be accepted.

3. Respect the Judges and their decisions. Judges serve only as evaluators. All Judge's decision are final unless stated otherwise; artists may appeal to a Judge(s) to settle issues, critique, and discrepancies.

4. Respect your fellow artists and audience. No flaming, spamming, harassment, personal attacks, or any treatment of the like will be tolerated during the tournament. While we encourage healthy, honest critique, I ask that critics keep their critique constructive and clean.

5. The Host and Judges do not tolerate "God-modding", definition, of any sort.

6. All submissions for a Round must be posted on your page and linked to the Host page by 11:59:59 PM (Central Standard Time) of that Round's Deadline date. We may accept late entries with valid excuses (grounding, school/college, work, death, etc.), and give out extensions for exceptional situations. Otherwise, the match is forfeit. The opponent automatically moves into the next Round.

7. Only accept original characters (anthro, human, beast, etc). Naruto, Bleach, Inuyasha, etc fan character are not eligible for this contest. This is an OCT, not an Fan CT. Your character's appearance CAN be "inspired" by another but your character's make-up and world must be from your brain and not the work on someone else (Ex. You can wear a the attire of a shinigami from Tite Kubo's "Bleach", but cannot have a "zanpakto" or "bankai"). If your character has an "uncommon" ability such as transformation or magic have the origins of that ability be original or as close as you can to make it your own; this goes for weapons as well. Example, keyblades, lightsabers, zanpuktos, etc; one can have one, just make it "your own". And NO NUDITY.

8. We do not accept any more contestants after the Slots Deadline. Slots are Opened now; but who you fight against will not be the person who reserves after you; fights will be randomized for the first round.

9. We reserve the right to add, remove, or amend any and all rules. Judges also reserve the right to refuse entry for Contestants or disqualify/ban Artists ( ONLY with valid justification).

10. THIS IS A NON-Fetish tournament...keep it in your head, gallery, mind. Please be respectful to the other artist as they do not think or may have the same interest as you.

** If you have any questions, please forward a Note to the Host. If it pertains to the Judges, still Note the Host who will forward it to the Judges.

---

FAQ:

I'm not an artist but I still want to enter; How?
**PLEASE NOTE: All entries must be your own work; one can not enter in a commission drawn entry by another artist!!! Such action is deemed immediate forfeit. -However, You can partner with a artist, who is not already entered into the tournament, by this fashion: The Non-Artist must write out the storyline for the entry, posting the storyline as a separate part of the entry, while your Artist partner handles the drawing portions. To recap, you and the artist must submit 1) Storyline, by non-artist partner and 2) Comic/Flash/Gif by Artist. **This is solely for Partner competitors; as a DUO you are still only allowed one character and must follow the rest of the tournament rule. The artist's name will appear in the rooster, but for all announcement purposes both the writer's and artist's will appear.

How do I enter my character and Do they have to "be" a certain "thing"
No, you can be a human, anthro, some beast you thought up...get creative. There will not a form entry [a set background indicating you're entering the OCT], in which you would have to download a print and paste your character in and submit; you simply need to draw a full body character reference (front, back, (optional: side)) and include this information:
-NAME(LAST, FIRST)
-AGE(00)
-SEX(M/F)
-Height & weight (please be reasonable)
-SPECIES(YOU CAN MAKE IT UP, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE FROM THE SAME PLANET/WORLD AS EVERYONE ELSE. (Ex. GATORIAN--PLANET OF THE GATOR RACE)
-Abilities/Skills(You are allowed one weapon, but choose carefully; just because you may choose a firearm doesn't mean you have infinite ammo)
-Personality/Small Fact(keep it short...please no biographies)
**PLEASE NOTE: JUST BECAUSE THIS TOURNAMENT IS BEING HELD ON FA, THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOUR CHARACTER HAS TO BE ANTHRO OR ANIMAL RELATED. YOUR CHARACTER CAN BE A WALKING TOASTER OR A BEING MADE OF GLASS. GET CREATIVE AND HAVE FUN WITH IT.

Can I use my persona or fursona?
Yes, though the tournament is designed for you to develop a new character and build on them via storyline and community.

What can I and what can I not submit for the contest?
All artists may submit forms of sequential art such as comics, strips, .gif and Flash animations. To keep the contest balanced, contestants may not submit one-shot portrait entries or written works. Pieces may be in black and white or in color, and in any style the artist pleases, as long as we can clearly tell what's going on - we don't want to see random doodles in your math notebook, blotches everywhere, or anything that looks like very little effort was put into it. Please take the tournament with respect to other competitors.

Deadlines and Date?
There will be about a month between deadlines (along with extensions, if needed), so that should be an ample amount of time to get more quality into your quantity.

What do you base your judgments and eliminations on?
The Affinity Fighters League panel of Judges decides victories based on factors such as the artist's creativity, depth, originality, storytelling ability, effort, etc. They will not base judgments upon how "badass" an attack was, how gorey it was, how "sexy" your character is, or how clever or witty you are. Regardless of how "well drawn" or "realistic" one's work looks, if the opponent's work was more intense, made us connect to the characters and feel sympathy, and was deeper and more original, the Judges are more likely to vote for the latter.

How do I fight battles?
Fights and comics in affiliation with Affinity Fighters League are not required to end in death. Characters may run away, set up traps, etc., though chances are that characters who run away from every single battle won't get very far. Anyways, there just has to be a "defeat" of some sort - be it retreat, fainting, cannibalism/consumption, permanent injury-related paralysis, or death, and your character does not necessarily have to win the actual battle, if there's even a battle at all. Just be creative with your fight scenes.

What if my character dies in my comic entry and I win the round?
Hopefully, cases such as this will be rare; but should it happen, to save ourselves from any plot inconsistencies, there are a number of ways to work around it in your next round entry. Perhaps you can include a scene where an another competitor's character or another character of your own (with requests for permission done ahead of time, of course) intervenes and kills or defeats your opponent for your character, or maybe your character was just knocked unconscious, or saved(again, requires permission).

What decides who's my opponent?
"Wrote the names of the competitors on note paper, folded them as to where I could not identify the names, placed them in a random lying hat in my room, and started picking one by one pairing opponents in intervals of two". - my method...

What if my opponent is dropped from the OCT?
Never fear, you are okay. If your opponent is dropped from the roster you are still expected to submit and entry for the round, however you will indefinitely advance to the next round. You entry must still remain in one of the graphical mediums stated above but you will fight against yourself (ying yang). For more information please comment below.

Do all battles have to take place in the key locations on the map(working on a map)
No, battles may take place anywhere on the map, even if it isn't marked; though we don't want anyone suddenly appearing at the center of the map. It is "better" if competitors started on the edge of the map and travel toward the center.

How do I go about making a "quality" entry?
In terms of art, we encourage all participating artists to stick with the style that makes them unique - if you're good with comedy, go for it. If you're good with violence, we're not stopping you (as long as it doesn't break the T.O.S.) If you're better with speed-painted comics than lineart comics, then do whatever makes you feel comfortable. We want you to bring you to the table. Every artist is unique, and we want to see variety in this contest.

What about plot; hinted creativity?
As for a plot, story, and characterization, while it's not required, we encourage artists to take the time to go in-depth with interpretations of not only theirs, but also their opponent's characters, their background, and other aspects of the map/story. It might be in your best interest, too - OCT entries with more storyline do much better than entries that completely consist of shallow action without reason or background. It's all up to the artist - but remember, there are no limits to how long or detailed your entry can be, as long as you turn it in on time.

Could you provide to us some examples of other OCTs/entries to follow?
Of course! There are plenty of great examples of O.C. Tournaments running on DeviantART(my favorite: Laws of Talos and Samurai Dueler's League), along with just-as-great examples of entries, and we'll name a few. You might even be interested in joining them!