It's that time of year again, when we pick a selection of our most popular 'Shop Contest subjects of the year and has our creative readers mash them up into a fine paste, all in the name of memories. What can we make with these five things?
Before you answer that, some ground rules for our end-of-year spectacular. Damn, I should have called it a spectacular. Oh well, next year. Anyway, ground rules — I really, really want to see these things mashed together. I know last year our former weekend editor, Owen Good, cut everyone some slack and let them do whatever they wanted. He gave everyone ten subjects to choose from, and let people just riff on any single one if they wanted.
Bah, humbug. Is that a thing still? Well whatever's replaced that.
You've got five sources to choose from, each of them spectacular. I want to see at least two of them mashed together in some fashion. Alternatively you can go back through our 'Shop Contest archives and pick another subject to mash up with one of these five — but one of these five must be included, or I will cry.
Gabe's Gaze from 1/19/14 — Overall Winner Zhesty
Cup Noodles from 2/16/14 — Overall Winner halfbeast
Hide The Megalodon from 4/06/14 — Overall Winner Der-Kleine
Mario At MacDonald's from 7/13/14 — Overall Winner GiantBoyDetective
The Worst Final Fantasy VII Announcement from 12/07/14 — Overall Winners Hundredgunner and The Masters of Unlocking
This is a pretty amazing selection, ripe with potential, at least that's what the images swimming in my head seem to be indicating. We'll find out for sure next week, when the entries will be so powerful THE YEAR WILL END AND A NEW ONE WILL BEGIN. Drama!
How To Upload Images — Instructions
1. Create your 'Shop and save it to your desktop. Images must be at least 636 pixels wide. If they aren't, you will be shot.
2. Go to the bottom of this post
3. This brings up a comment window. Click
4. This brings up Click "Choose file" if you're uploading your 'shop from your desktop
5. Alternatively, you can upload the 'Shop to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. Then paste the image's URL into the field that says "Image URL." Note: this must be the URL of the image itself, not the page where it is displayed. That means the URL ends in .jpg, .gif, .png, whatever.
6. Add editorial commentary and hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, upload the image to imgur and paste the image URL as a comment. I promise I will look at it.
7. Large-size images may not upload properly, though we have seen some big-ass animated .gifs upwards of 5 MB. If you're still having trouble uploading the image, try to keep its longest dimension (horizontal or vertical) under 1000 pixels, or the whole thing under 2 MB.
To contact the author of this post, write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @bunnyspatial.