Hey, guys! It’s Mandy Webkinz here with the first in a series of specials report on the Share Center! Recently on a Podkinz, Michael and I had a question from one of our listeners about our favorite part of the job. We both talked about how we loved interacting with our players – but at the same time, I said that the hardest part of my job was trying to narrow down the amazing submissions to a shortlist of finalists when we run Share Center contests. It’s just so hard selecting finalists when all of your submissions are so good! Of course the Share Center has a bit of both my favorite and hardest parts of my job, and it made me think that the Share Center would be a great subject for a special report. Above you can see me in the Share Center approving new submissions – while Sally grabs a bite to eat (of course!) in the Share Center kitchen.
There have been so many Share Center contests and wonderfully creative submissions, it would be impossible to cover them all. I decided to concentrate on those contests that led to the creation of some awesome new pets and items in Webkinz World.
Today, I wanted to take a look at our Pet Design contests. You can see all four fan-designed pets at the bottom of the article.
We have released four fan-designed pets over the years, but our very first pet design contest was the Design-a-Dog contest in 2014. We provided a colouring sheet template of a Webkinz dog and invited players to color the template to create their own adorable pup. We had over 6,000 entries in that contest and the winner was the sweet Tigerlily Pup.
The second pet design contest we ran was extra special because we invited players to design a pet to celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2015. We offered four pet templates this time – a bear, a cat, a dragon and a horse. And the best part – everyone who logged in on our 10th anniversary received a FREE Decade Dragon!
For our third pet design contest in 2016, we invited players to create a Halloween pet. This time we offered six templates that fit a halloween theme: a cat, a snake, a bat, an owl, a rat/mouse or a toad/frog. Again we had some amazing entries, but the final winner was the designer of the stunning Gargowl.
The last pet design contest we held was in 2017, and this time we opened it up to any kind of pet players would like to submit. We had so many interesting creative entries – some of them were cool made-up creatures, some were real animals that we had not yet seen in Webkinz World. In the end, we went with a real animal – the adorable Axolotl!
We love Share Center contests because we get to see how talented and creative our players are. Next time we’ll take a look at some more of the wonderful fan-designed items we have added to Webkinz World!
This is a wonderful idea for a report! Thank you Mandy!
Can any host answer on why I can’t even get a “submission under review” notice or the room added to the share center?
Yeah, they used to email us, but now they don’t. I don’t know what’s going on. Stuff still gets uploaded, but you have to look for it for yourself.
Hi CocoaBunny! I have noticed that there is a problem with your submissions and the images seem to be broken. You might want to try reducing the file size or the resolution of your images and try resubmitting. You could also try saving it as a jpg rather than a png and that might help. Also, if you submitted over a weekend, you probably won’t get your submission reviewed until Monday. Hope that helps!
Thanks! I’m resizing it with paint and saving it as a jpg, fingers crossed that it works.
Hmmm… still getting a broken image. Do you know if the resolution is 72 dpi? I would suggest saving it fairly small – about 300 x 250 pixels and making sure the resolution is 72 dpi.
These pets are all so creative. I love them all! It would be nice if you mentioned the names of the 4 players who designed these pets, they deserve some notice.
LOL now I see the names. And they’re even bolded, good grief! I still don’t have the Gargowl & hope to get one soon.
1Emerald1, beware, the Gargowl is a shape-shifter. It has been known to show up as an eStore Owlet. LOL
Oh my gosh, did you guys know that the Halloween Pet Contest is the contest that made me get a WKN account? O_O Thank you so much Many for your review! It brings me back to so many embarrassing and amazing moments of my life. I remember the dragon one back in 2015, but I didn’t have an account, and I was stuck in a hotel for a month. =P
Wow! I had no idea an Axilotl was a real creature!
i hope this mean there will be a new pet design contest soon!!
oo! If there is going to be another pet design contest I have several pet ideas that are just itching to be in game! All of them are on the Share Center at the moment so maybe one day they could be in a contest! :D
YES!!!!!!!!
Great report Mandy, love the pets, congrats to all the winners!! I do not have any kind of an art talent, but I love looking at the drawings and creations of others!!
This is so cool! But I am sad and lost interet in contest since I found out that peeps living in NY (and other places cannot enter contests. It doesn’t make sense, my Mom said if there was cash rewards then maybe but since there are basically only viritual prizes then it isn’t logical.
Hmm.. the design contests say 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017… when’s our 2018 design a pet contest? ;P I really like the Gargowl and Tigerlily Pup, though! Most of the pets that won weren’t the one I would have picked, except the Gargowl, but they all still look pretty cute! I’m sure choosing the top designs is extremely difficult and takes a lot of time. I don’t know if I’d want to be a judge or not, heh! But these contests are always fun and I look forward to another one.. someday soon.. maybe? ;P