In his experience organising reader-submitted fan art at a daily tabloid in Singapore, senior infographics journalist Kelvin Chan usually expects 20 or so submissions over a two-week callout.
So when submissions reached a satisfactory 35 before the two-week deadline for Singaporean tabloid The New Paper’s Godzilla Fan Art Contest, Chan let out a sigh of relief.
Then, two days before the deadline, the paper’s inbox overflowed with submissions.
“In the first week, we had 20. And I jokingly told my colleagues that if we reached 35, we’d be lucky,” said Chan.
Total count after two weeks? 79.
An artist himself, Chan assisted with the collaboration between The New Paper and Warner Brothers to promote Gareth Edwards’ upcoming Godzilla reboot. To get submissions, Chan told some of his fellow artists in the community about it. However, not many submissions streamed in until the eleventh hour.
“I had never drawn Godzilla before. So the contest made me want to illustrate a piece with a theme, rather than just submitting concept art. Ultimately, it gives me the chance to have the director and the world know my work.” Contestant James Leong
But it wasn’t the quantity of submissions that surprised Chan and the judges in the paper’s art department, but rather, the quality of art submitted by a mixture of new and seasoned local talent.
“I mean, we expected some good submissions but we certainly didn’t expect the standards to be so high,” said Chan, who thinks the incentive of having the ultimate artwork that best depicts the modern-day kaiju selected by director Edwards himself, on top of cash prizes worth a total of $6,000, brought out some of the best from contestants who raised their standards.
“I’ve come across some of their work in the local art jamming community and there’s such a big improvement,” Chan added. “It’s not often the art community here gets to aim for such an illustrious prize.”
A variety of styles were submitted for the contest, which closed on April 29, from cartoons to parodies and serious modern-day renderings of the king of monsters depicted within a local context. From the terrifying to the cute, full-colour renderings to pencil sketches, professional and non-professional Singaporean artists had the chance to outdo each other on a national stage in the hope of making it to a global level.
“People in the scene who submitted their work were saying that they were not fussed about the money but just happy that the director of Godzilla looked at his work,” said Chan.
One of the artists, James Leong, a freelance art director and illustrator, who submitted two comic panels, one of which was inspired by “the irony of the modern world”, said that contests like these help him express himself through something new.
“I had never drawn Godzilla before. So the contest made me want to illustrate a piece with a theme, rather than just submitting concept art. Ultimately, it gives me the chance to have the director and the world know my work,” said Leong hopefully.
The 10 pieces will be displayed at Singapore’s Godzilla gala premiere on May 12 at Shaw Lido Theatres.
