Celebrating Diversity: New Horizons Character Designing Event

[Jeremy]

New Horizons Character Designing Event
June 23, 2021 - June 30, 2021​

Welcome to our Celebrating Diversity event of 2021! As possibly one of the most diverse gaming forums on the internet, The Bell Tree is proud to be represented by so many different types of people. This is an important month for celebrating diversity across the world. As you may already know, June is celebrated as LGBT Pride Month in commemoration of the Stonewall riots, Juneteenth (June 19th) is celebrated as the end of slavery in the United States, and June 21st is celebrated as National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. We use these dates to understand each other's differences, remember the struggles that people have endured, and help promote inclusivity across the entire world. If nothing else, we can start with our own community by celebrating our differences together!

Task

Design and dress your Animal Crossing: New Horizons character in a way that celebrates diversity and promotes inclusivity. How you do that is up to your own interpretation, but make sure it's respectful and represents diversity as explained by this definition:

Diversity means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs or other ideologies.

Submit a screenshot of your character in this thread with an explanation about how it fits the event's topic of celebrating diversity (see the How to Submit section below). The submissions will be voted for by the community (by using reactions) and the top most-liked ones will be displayed in The Bell Tree banner for a period of time, helping us decorate the forum. That's right, we're finally bringing this back after it was well received during TBT Fair 2020!

Rules

• Screenshots must be from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and show your own character.
• Clothing, items, and patterns are allowed. Only things that your character is wearing or holding will be considered a part of your entry.
• You can pose with other characters or players, but the screenshot should be focused on one of them (yours). Be sure to specify which character yours is if it isn't clear. We can only count votes for one character per post/user.
• Using game reactions is allowed, but parts of certain reactions may not be included in the TBT banner if they can't be easily cut out.
• Include a 2 - 3 sentence explanation about your character's design and how it celebrates diversity.
• Once your entry has been submitted it cannot be edited.
• Please put effort into your submission. If we think your entry lacks effort or has been submitted as a joke it will be disqualified.
• Keep content suitable for a PG-13 audience. If it would breach our Rules & Guidelines then it's not suitable here.
• Entries that fail to meet the requirements will not be accepted.
• This should go without saying, but as this event is meant to celebrate diversity we expect everyone to be respectful. Any entry that intends to mock, belittle, or insult anyone's race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion will be immediately disqualified.

How to Submit

• Design your character and go to a well-lit area where the background colors don't match your character's outfit or body too closely. This will help us cut it out for the banner.
• Take a screenshot of your character facing forward and as zoomed in as much as possible.
• Submit the screenshot to this thread as large as possible (don't shrink the image before uploading it).
• Include a 2 - 3 sentence explanation about how your character's design fits the theme of celebrating diversity.
• Submit your entry by Wednesday June 30th at 10:00 PM EDT and please do not edit it after it has been submitted.
• Feel free to include other screenshots if you want, but we need at least one good one we can use to cut your character from if the community chooses your entry. Examples of how this works are shown below:

How to Vote

This event is entirely community-decided. The ten most-liked entries will be added to The Bell Tree's banner scene based on the schedule explained in the Selection Schedule below. Three characters will be displayed for three days at a time. (Update: sometimes four characters at a time.)

To vote, simply leave a reaction on the post of any entry. You can use either the Like or Love reaction, they will be added together. Entries that are approved will be marked by the staff with the green bell bag accepted reaction, but don't wait for this to appear. Feel free to Like/Love any entries at any time!

Rewards

• All accepted participants will receive 125 bells.
• The ten most-liked character entries will be added to The Bell Tree's banner scene based on the schedule explained below.

Selection Schedule

Characters will start showing up in the banner even before the event ends! Here's how our selection process will work based on the top liked entries.

When Entries Are Selected	Which Entries Are Selected	When They're Added to TBT's Banner
Friday Jun 25th at 10:00 PM EDT	Top 3 from Wednesday - Friday 6:00 PM	Friday Night - Monday Night
Monday Jun 28th at 4:00 PM EDT	Top 3 from Friday 6:00 PM - Monday 12:00 PM	Monday Night - Thursday Night
Wednesday Jun 30th at 10:00 PM EDT	Top 2 from Monday 12:00 PM - Wednesday 10:00 PM	Thursday Night - Sunday Night
Thursday Jul 1st at 10:00 PM EDT	Top 2 from all entries not selected, any time	Thursday Night - Sunday Night

Need help coming up with ideas? Click here to view last year's Celebrating Diversity art contest or here to view its winners.

Good luck and we look forward to see your creative character designs!

 

[Xara]

View attachment 381605​

XJISNSK I WASN’T EXPECTING TO SEE MY ISLAND REP THERE I- . lmao no but fr, this sounds fun!! i’ll definitely be entering and look forward to seeing everyone else’s entries as well!

 

[Jhine7]

Looking forward to all the creative designs Good luck everyone!

 

[Roxxy]

Looks like a fab event!! I can’t wait to see all the amazing entries ( think I will skip this one, my outfit design ability is worse than my drawing )

 

[Megaroni]

Would wheelchairs count towards the outfit or will it be edited out?

 

[King koopa]

This sounds super hard but I'll try, don't expect to win

 

[Nefarious]

Oh this is cool! Can't wait to see how everyone dresses and who the lucky 9 will be.

 

[Dunquixote]

Looks like a fab event!! I can’t wait to see all the amazing entries ( think I will skip this one, my outfit design ability is worse than my drawing )

Ahem! Roxxy… What did I say about putting yourself down? I love your drawings and I am sure I would love whatever outfit you put together . No pressure though. Your decision.

Sounds fun! I usually don’t do so good at dreamy dressers and such but I will still give this a shot. Can’t wait to see everyone else’s outfits.

 

[Foreverfox]

Would wheelchairs count towards the outfit or will it be edited out?

To piggyback on this, does it have to be *our* character, or can it be a 2nd player character? My specific example: I have a 2nd player for my almost 2 year old that I play. He uses a wheelchair in real life, so I'd be interested in entering his character, if allowed. I can 100% attest to the fact that I am the only one who plays his character. It does not belong to or get played by anyone else.

 

[_Donut_]

Celebrating European members!

I picked geographical diversity among our tbt members as my theme. I tried to dress my character with clothing that represents different countries in Europe (where I'm also from). He is wearing a beret for France, a carnival mask for Venice, Italy, an English school uniform, Irish green pants and Dutch wooden shoes. As I had to work with the clothing I own, these are the only ones I could find but obviously the message is for the entire continent!

Spoiler: Higher resolution

 

[Megaroni]

Ahem! Roxxy… What did I say about putting yourself down? I love your drawings and I am sure I would love whatever outfit you put together . No pressure though. Your decision.

Sounds fun! I usually don’t do so good at dreamy dressers and such but I will still give this a shot. Can’t wait to see everyone else’s outfits.

Also oh no I was under the impression that we could use other people's designs codes. Another question for the mods: do we have to make our own design codes?

 

[Aurita]

hi sorry I have a maybe dumb question, but how do you define "dressing diverse"? like are you expected to wear traditional cultural items to show cultural diversity? for example, I'm Korean and if I want to show my heritage, do I need to dress my character up in a hanbok to show that? I know it's up to personal interpretation on what is diverse, but could you maybe give an example of what is acceptable/unacceptable?

 

[Roxxy]

View attachment 381608

Celebrating European members!

I picked geographical diversity among our tbt members as my theme. I tried to dress my character with clothing that represents different countries in Europe (where I'm also from). He is wearing a beret for France, a carnival mask for Venice, Italy, an English school uniform, Irish green pants and Dutch wooden shoes. As I had to work with the clothing I own, these are the only ones I could find but obviously the message is for the entire continent!

Spoiler: Higher resolution

View attachment 381609

That was quick Well done

 

[_Donut_]

Ok, have to ask about an English school uniform?

It was the only top I could find that made me think about the UK I also had the red English military uniform but that looked so weird colour wise.. Pls forgive me

 

[King koopa]

hi sorry I have a maybe dumb question, but how do you define "dressing diverse"? like are you expected to wear traditional cultural items to show cultural diversity? for example, I'm Korean and if I want to show my heritage, do I need to dress my character up in a hanbok to show that? I know it's up to personal interpretation on what is diverse, but could you maybe give an example of what is acceptable/unacceptable?

I think it means to use clothing to dress like something diverse. You can use donut's post as an example. I don't know if you can use qr codes but keep that in mind if you can

 

[Roxxy]

It was the only top I could find that made me think about the UK I also had the red English military uniform but that looked so weird colour wise.. Pls forgive me

Hate to tell you the UK have left the EU (a kilt would have looked fab though )

 

[TillyGoesMeow]

View attachment 381608

Celebrating European members!

I picked geographical diversity among our tbt members as my theme. I tried to dress my character with clothing that represents different countries in Europe (where I'm also from). He is wearing a beret for France, a carnival mask for Venice, Italy, an English school uniform, Irish green pants and Dutch wooden shoes. As I had to work with the clothing I own, these are the only ones I could find but obviously the message is for the entire continent!

Spoiler: Higher resolution

View attachment 381609

Ahhhh this is so cute. I love.

 

[_Donut_]

Hate to tell you the UK have left the EU (a kilt would have looked fab though )

Ssh we'll make the post about the continent then

 

[Jeremy]

Would wheelchairs count towards the outfit or will it be edited out?

That would be fine even though it's technically furniture. We'll say all 1x1 seating is fine to include as long as it's readable (for example, not blocked by grass or other things on the ground).

To piggyback on this, does it have to be *our* character, or can it be a 2nd player character? My specific example: I have a 2nd player for my almost 2 year old that I play. He uses a wheelchair in real life, so I'd be interested in entering his character, if allowed. I can 100% attest to the fact that I am the only one who plays his character. It does not belong to or get played by anyone else.

That's fine! We mean more that it can't be something you find online or have a friend make for you.

Also oh no I was under the impression that we could use other people's designs codes. Another question for the mods: do we have to make our own design codes?

You can incorporate patterns/designs made by other people into your overall character design (for example, from QR codes found on the internet). We are intending this event to be more about the overall character creation. We'll let the user votes decide what's actually picked for the banner, especially because it's difficult for us to tell who made what patterns.

hi sorry I have a maybe dumb question, but how do you define "dressing diverse"? like are you expected to wear traditional cultural items to show cultural diversity? for example, I'm Korean and if I want to show my heritage, do I need to dress my character up in a hanbok to show that? I know it's up to personal interpretation on what is diverse, but could you maybe give an example of what is acceptable/unacceptable?

I think that might be a good way to show it as long as you can explain it and it makes sense. The way you explained it makes sense to me!

For those who might find this event to be difficult, another way of looking at it might be by making your own clothing pattern in support of a specific cause. It doesn't necessarily have to be a cultural outfit, it can be something we might see people wear in real life to show their support.

 

[Sasey]

So I decided for the diversity event to dress in all rainbow for LGBTQIA Pride! I started with a Rainbow Balloon Hat and paired it with a Pride Tank! I also added in the blue, pink, and white sneakers to represent for our Trans siblings. So often our trans siblings are forgotten about, so I wanted to give a special shout out! As a member of the LGBTQIA community I am proud to celebrate diversity with my TBT friends! 🏳‍️

*zoomed in as much as it would let me.