The woman, Cat, is the 25-year-old girlfriend of Mythic's Mike "Daarken" Lim, who has along with Dreamworks' Leif Jeffers organized an art auction supported by contributed works. Cat, who also works for Mythic, has already undergone a bilateral mastectomy and 16 weeks of chemotherapy, which are difficult treatments, to say nothing of their expense.

Lim and Jeffers recruited submissions from folks at Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Rockstar, ArenaNet, Big Fish Games, Red 5 Studios, Offset, Zynga, Massive Black, Disney Interactive and BioWare (and, of course, Lim's own Mythic.) Contributors also come from Hollywood's Pixar, Disney, Blur, Blue Sky Studios and, of course, Jeffers' own Dreamworks Animation. With a roster of more than 200 contributors finalized yesterday, they've already received 14 works (one, by Jeff Miracola, a freelance artist who has worked for EA, is above.)

Lim and Jeffers are looking to host the auction in February, either in San Francisco or New York depending on the availability of a good space. Meantime, they're considering releasing an art book, plus other smaller items that people may have for contributions smaller than buying original artwork. There are plans to coordinate live bidding with online bidding, Lim said.

The theme of the submissions is called "Beautiful Grim," a concept they've left up to the artists' interpretation. "So far, people have been sticking to their own industry," Lim told me when I asked if any works so far have been video game-inspired, or themed. "There should be a wide variety of entries, it will be interesting seeing all the different styles and genres of art."

For a full list of participating artists and much more information, see the link below.

Beautiful Grim [site]

Zen Garden is one of those social games that's all about trading things for more things and buying virtual currency in order to buy more things to trade. The things you're buying range from flora and fauna for your garden to fancy objects and terrain tools you can stick in your virtual garden to create a 2D space of zen. The rate of exchange is currently 99 cents to 1000 Zennies and a lot of the good stuff — like a cascading fountain — goes for under 500 Zennies.

Starting last month and continuing through May 21, 2010 next year, Zen Garden will donate 10% of all Zennie purchases with a minimum donation of $25,000 to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. By the end of 2009, Hive7 hopes to collect $10,000 in donation funds — at the moment, they've already got $5,000.

Give it a go if you're a Facebook app addict or if, like me, you've got a soft spot for raising breast cancer awareness.

Mad Catz(R) Pledges Support [via maxconsole]

Anime Tour for The Cure, a joint effort between Anime FF & Anime Vegas to provide a non profit Anime Convention to help raise money for a Breast Cancer Foundation, is giving away some next-gen consoles at their event early next year.

To help stoke the anime competition, the Tour for the Cure is giving away two Playstation 3s and six Wiis.

But if you want to enter you better get on it, you only have until Dec. 20 to submit your fan art to the site.

From now until December 20th, submit your fan art entry to theOtaku.com's fan art site (you have to register first to do this) with the tag "awareness" and include *something* in the piece related to breast cancer awareness. We're keeping the latter requirement loose; you can use the color pink prolifically, you can feature the breast cancer awareness ribbon, or you can go all-out on the subject. Characters depicted must be original creations, nothing from licensed anime (e.g. Naruto, DragonBall, etc.). Be creative!

After December 20th, we will select all or a portion of the submissions and prepare them for exhibition at AnimeFF. On site, attendees will vote on their favorite works. There will be EIGHT winners, based on votes. You do not have to attend the convention to enter this contest, only to vote.

Sadly, this contest is only open to people based in the United States, due to technical/legal issues.

First and second place win a PS3, third through Eighth land a Wii each and the prizes are already in their hot little hands.

While you don't need to attend the event to enter, keep in mind that 100 percent of ticket sales go toward breast cancer research. Brian Crecente

Major Anime Art Competition [The Otaku, no relation]