Caricature, comics contests on

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine International Cartoon, Comics and Animation, Inc. (PICCA) has announced several contests are now open to entries from both students and professionals.

The Coching Awards is on comic creation open to PICCA members only where contestants will be asked to do at least four pages of comics with the theme Edukasyon, Magandang Pundasyon. The artists can interpret it either in genres humor, drama, action fantasy or mixed.

Another contest is Yonzon Awards or the caricathon (caricature marathon) during the PICCA Festival at SM City North in Oct. 22 to 25 where contestants will be required to do on-the-spot caricatures of famous figures. This is open to both professionals and students.

Two animation contests are also open for entries. The first is for professionals who will ask to do an animation short that can best interpret the theme Wang Wang.

The other animation contest is The Animation Jam, an inter-school competition where schools with PICCA members will be asked to produce an animation short in 24 hours. The contest will be held in different sites simultaneously: The College of St. Benilde, Cosmopolitan Institute of Information Technology, iAcademy, and Mapua University. The theme will be announced on contest day.

Interested parties can go to www.piccafest.com for details, rules on and entry forms for all the contests. Procedures on how to be a PICCA member, who will be accorded certain privileges, will also be on the site.

Cash prizes, trophies, books and art materials from Derwent, Colleen, Artline and Maped, all amounting to more than P500,000 await the winners. Awarding will be during the PICCA Festival, an annual event that features not only contests but exhibits, talks, books launches, foreign delegates, trade and showcase, and animation showings. Finalists of the drawing tiffs will be put on exhibit at SM The Block, while clips of animation finalists will be shown at SM The Annex.

Another interesting contest is Pintados, a comics body painting contest that will be open to both students (competition) and professionals (exhibition). Live models will be painted on by comics artists.

PICCA Fest will also hold a competition and show for cosplay or costume play where entries with local content will be given special prizes.