Newgrounds October Art Challenge: Villaingrounds

What is this Art Challenge?

This is an upcoming October art challenge for Halloween. The main theme is villains from online content or projects frontpaged on Newgrounds, whether they’re movies, games, or comics. The inspiration of this theme is based on Disney’s Halloween villains. The challenge will start on October 1st. You are free to decide whether to participate fully, partially, or not.

The goal of the art challenge

The challenge is to come up with 31 (or more) villains from web content frontpaged on the Newgrounds portal (Movies, Games, Comics). The challenge’s purpose is to give awareness to the Newgrounds platform and the content available there where they are not popular enough on the Internet. This is also another opportunities for artists on Newgrounds to have illustrations for potential to be frontpaged and possibly gain new followers("fans"). Artists can also submit their illustrations to their online social media accounts or art portfolios to gain more viewership traction online. You can also include villains from indie games curated by Newgrounds on Steam or based on trailers or promo art frontpaged on Newgrounds.

Main guidelines

Although the indie content within Newgrounds is vast, it is highly suggested to focus on content that has been frontpaged. Daily picks or mainstream shows, games, and webcomics created by Newgrounds users (ex. Smiling Friends, Mao Mao Heroes of Pure Heart, The Amazing Digital Circus, Gorgon Shield, I Was Born to work Retail, etc.) are an exception and can be implemented at Oct 1st (choose 1 villain) or 31st (6 or 9 fanart template). The content frontpaged on Newgrounds must be original content and not based on fan animations unless serialized (Decline in Video Games, Minecraft Noob Adventures, SMBZ). Villains from indie series that are only available on YouTube but no Newgrounds plug in goes against the theme of this art challenge and is not recommended to include in this challenge (Helluva Boss, Murder Drones, Bigtop Burger, Long Gone Gulch, etc.) unless they are available AND either frontpaged or daily picked on Newgrounds before October.

You can illustrate in any style you want! You can draw your choice of villain in full body with or without background, portrait or mug-shot, color, grayscale, black and white, whichever style you feel is easy and adaptable within your schedule! You can even illustrate them in traditional ink in the spirit of "Inktober" as well, two challenges in one month! Just please don't resort to relying on AI, it ruins the challenge and effort of hand drawing if you never have hands-on practice. Do not repost someone else's illustration as your own either, you can share but you must give credit to the original artist.

If you are unable to fulfill the 31 days art challenge, you can also have the option to do 5 days (non-aligned) of 6 panels characters template with an additional 1 template, 3 days of 9 panels template with an additional 4 panels challenge template, or a mix of both (2 days for 6 panels template and 9 panel templates respectively. If you want to just post one for a single day, you can post an illustration of 31 villains in one piece either as a group portrait or a fanart challenge template (speaking as someone who have spent almost a month doing a similar illustration idea, this is not recommended). It's okay for having a favorite indie project and wanting to give awareness to it, but posting just one Newgrounds villain illustration for the whole month may seem that you are playing favoritism, and this challenge is to come up with villains from different indie content on Newgrounds. If you wish to post these on your social medias (X, Bluesky, Meta social medias), you can use the hashtag #villaingrounds or #villainsgrounds to announce the art challenge trend.

Below is a list of villain suggestions for Villaingrounds Art Challenge. The first 7 are games curated by Newgrounds, 7 indie series, 7 webcomics, and rest are additional ideas. If you have a favorite indie project or series you want to draw, you can choose those over any of the suggestions here. If you need more suggestions, I will post a doc link of different villains I could find that are on Newgrounds or promoted by Newgrounds. Remember, you don't have to draw these villains specifically, you just need to come up with at least 31 Newgrounds content (3-5 animations, games, and webcomcis respectively) you like that have their own antagonists.