RBW 2010: Space cowboys. 5th-7th November 2010. Canary Wharf, London UK

Want to be in our conbook?

This year's theme is Space Cowboys, so we're hoping to see some absolutely amazing art from you guys. Feel free to use our characters, too! You can find their reference pages on their crew page over here.

We need from you lovely people as many exemplary pieces of original anthropomorphic art and writing as you can muster! Our conbook is full A4 (and full colour!) as last year, and will be given to every attendee - the perfect place to showcase your work!

Don't forget: your submissions must be relevant to our theme.

This looks like a long, scary list, but it's pretty straightforward. It's all it takes to get us content that will look fantastic when printed, so please read carefully!

For artists

  • Please do not send us sketches - they may look great in person, but they do not print well at all.
  • Colour is king! Our conbook will be printed in full, delicious CMYK colour throughout. Whilst we'll still accept black and white and greyscale images, think cosmic!
  • The shortest edge of the image should be at least 900 pixels. If you are scanning hand-drawn art, then make sure to scan it at 300DPI. This is so that your image is in a high enough resolution to print - we simply can't use images that aren't big enough.
  • Our page size, A4, becomes 2481x3507 at 72dpi (your screen's resolution) - images for full-page use should match this to achieve the highest quality possible. And that's what we want!
  • If you can, set your colour space to CMYK. If you send RGB files we can convert them for you, but this may lead to dulling of strong, vibrant colours. Be sure to check how your piece will look in CMYK in your image editor to ensure you know how it will appear when printed.
  • Please save the file as a PNG, PDF, JPG, AI or PSD. We'd prefer PNG for bitmap images and PDF for vector images.
  • Please do not watermark your images - we'll give you an appropriate credit in the conbook.
  • Adobe Illustrator should use the crop area tool so that our page-layout program knows where the border of your work is!

For writers

  • Please send it as either TXT or RTF. Word and OpenOffice users can export their work as RTF easily.
  • Don't include any images or excessive formatting, except for bold and italic. We'll be doing the typesetting so that it fits in with the rest of the conbook's style.

Some things to remember

  • Not attending the convention? Doesn't matter! Please send us some art or writing even if you'll not be attending. It's a shame you can't come, but why miss out on this opportunity to get published?
  • Please don't be offended if your work does not get published. We can't guarantee that your submission will definitely make it into the conbook as we have only a limited amount of space to feature submissions. We'll chop and change things around to what we think works best.
  • The conbook is published under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND 3.0 UK). If you submit your work, you agree to let us publish your work under it too. To find out what that means for you, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en_GB
  • Unfortunately, we can't send you a final proof before it gets printed - the conbook contents will be subject to change right up to our printing deadline.
  • However, if you're in the book when we send it to print, we'll try to let you know by email (and, of course, you'll be credited in the book itself). If you're not attending, we'll try and find a way to get you a copy of the conbook, be it physical or digital.
  • Please, proof-read your work. We may not have the time or resources to go through and correct spelling and grammar errors, so take a bit of time to check this yourself before submitting!

In summary

  • Submit art in CMYK at 300DPI (shortest edge a minimum of 900 pixels) - no sketches, please! - preferably in PNG or PDF format.
  • Submit writing in RTF or TXT format, without images and without excessive formatting.
  • The final date for submissions is September 5th 2010

When you're ready to send stuff in, please attach your work in an email to submissions@rbw.org.uk and it will be ferried off on a velvet cushion to be considered for inclusion in the conbook.

We can't wait to see what you guys can do. Bring it on!

Here's a few snaps of last year's gorgeous conbook...