I am sure 99% of you already know all this, but in the wake of the Makuta contest, I thought it would be a good idea to post these LEGO Magazine contest tips again for any newer BZPers.

-- If you are entering a building contest, please submit either a photo or an image printed out on photo paper (which you can find at any Wal-Mart, Target, office supply store, etc.). Photos printed out on regular printer paper won't be accepted, because they will not scan well for reproduction in the magazine. It states very clearly in the rules that entries need to be photos or on photo paper, and a lot of nice entries end up getting tossed every contest because people submit them on plain printer paper.

-- Pay attention to the quality of your photos. If the photo is blurry, we won't be able to make out what the model is. If the photo is a giant shot of you with your model looking very small in your hand, readers won't be able to make out what the model is.

-- If you are entering a contest where it states that the winning entries will be displayed on the web site, you are much better off just sending a picture of the model and not one with you in it. The reason is that we are not allowed to show pictures of kids on our site without first getting parental permission. We will NOT disqualify anyone from any contest for not following this suggestion, but it is one of those things that just makes the process more complicated for everyone involved.

-- If you submit a photo, please do not fold the photo up. We get a lot of that, and again, the photo will then not reproduce correctly in the magazine. If we can't display your winning model in a way that will make it look good in the magazine, then you won't make first cut.

-- If you are entering a drawing contest, it is a good idea not do your drawing on lined paper. While your drawing will still be considered even if you do, it's going to look a lot better when scanned if it is done on plain white paper instead.

-- While we appreciate that you want your entry to arrive safely and securely, sealing the envelope with massive amounts of tape just makes our job harder. Remember that we may have two people opening 10,000 entries in the course of a few weeks. If we have to wrestle with yours to get it open, it slows the whole process down.

-- If we ask in a contest for you to build a model, we want to see your creativity at work. A lot of people who entered the Makuta contest just built Mutran and took a picture of him and sent it in as their entry. We want to see what you can build on your own, not how well you can follow the building instructions in a set.

-- On a side note, thinking outside the box when doing contest entries is always a good thing. In our recent City Police contest, winners included a giant zeppelin and a vehicle with a giant police dog as part of it. Remember that if an idea seems like a no-brainer to you, it probably is also one to the 10,000 other people entering too. If you hand in something a ton of other people have also built, yours is going to have to be that much better to stand out from their entries. There are certainly entries that win because, even though the subject matter is standard, the actual build is really impressive -- but the best entries are the ones where the building is good AND the idea is different.

Greg