Good evening, Steemian artists! I’m up late but that’s because I’m about to drop the winners of Trial by Comics’ triumphant return for “Inspirational Steemit Artists”, and announce the new theme! The participating and art for this theme has been outstanding. I wanted to come up with something special for the big contest return and “Inspirational Steemit Artists” was undoubtedly that. There’s a deep sense of pride in knowing that crypto can shit the bed, rewards may temporarily dwindle in value, and still there are so many brilliantly talented artists here in our community that dedicate time to create art and share it. It seemed so fitting to run a week where we all create homages to one another’s respective styles.

Before announcing this week’s winners, I have to take care of the usual business. Trial by Comics has a Discord channel and we’d love to have you there. Join us, share and shill your artwork, make suggestions on future themes, talk comics, foster the community. It’s the place to be. Also, if you’ve seen the #trialbycomics hashtag show up in your feed or resteems from the participants, I’d like to personally invite you to enter […especially this week’s, which I’ll get to in a minute]. @roadscape and @steemitblog have just opened a Pandora’s box of Hivemind 1.5/Communities and HF20 is around the corner. This is the time to shape the artists and comics community and we’d love to have you!

Okay. Here are your winners. First place this week goes to @veryspider for her entry, “Skeleton Guide and The Boy with Friend who Happens to be a Fish”, an excellent interpretation of @achristopherart’s […whom I just discovered thanks to this entry and again, why it was such a great theme] work. I can’t say enough about this. It has such beautiful, unsettling Edward Gorey feel. This is the kind of art I’d love to have a print of in my studio. Congratulations, @veryspider. 25.000SBD to you.

@scrawly is our second place winner with her entry “Iron Maidens: Morning Star”, based on @veryspider’s style. I am an enormous fan of both @scrawly and @veryspider’s art so this embodied everything I meant when I said “cross-pollination”. There are many circumstances where you can see two of your favorite artists attempt one another’s signature styles and this was so gratifying. Congratulations, @scrawly. 10.000SBD to you.

@cryplectibles grabs the third place spot this week for his entry, “Crypto Collectibles presents Inspirational Steemit Artist @crittercrats for #TrialByComics”. What an awesome, spot on interoperation of @crittercrats’ work. I was so happy to see @cryplectibles post this almost immediately after the contest theme was announces. Congratulations my friend. 5.000SBD’s to you.

As is always there case, there are so many more entries for #trialbycomics than I can include in the top podium winners, so take a few minutes to check out the artists that made it in to the merit awards spots for this week’s “Inspirational Steemit Artists”. These entries were exactly what makes me log in to Steemit everyday and appreciate the special corner of the internet we’ve created.

@bronkong

@katari

@yanes94

@eliu

@tingulini

Trial by Comics new theme is “STEEM MONSTERS”! 

Yeah! That’s right! @steemmonsters has teamed up with #trialbycomics and sweetened the reward pool with packs in addition to the regular SBD’s prize purse. FIVE packs to first place, THREE packs to second place and TWO packs to third place participants. Visit www.steemmonsters.com, browse the creatures and monsters on the cards and draw up your interpretation of those characters. To give you an example, I chose “Lord of Darkness” as my inspiration and did my usual comic book, raw pencil style in a Jim Lee/Greg Capullo kind of sketch. Choose a favorite @steemmonster and do the same in your style.

Deadline for “STEEM MONSTERS” is Monday, July 3rd 5:00UTC 12:00a.m. CTS 

Rules 

• Up to three entries per trial round [weekly].

• Original artwork only [process documentation strongly encouraged]

• Winners will be chosen based on quality of work, submitted before deadline and ability to adhere to the weekly trial theme

• Must resteem the contest post you’re participating in

• Must include #trialbycomics hashtag 

That is it! 40.000 SBD's in prizes and 10 packs of @steemmonsters cards. I’m super amped about this theme. Thanks so much to @steemmonsters to going in on the prizes and allowing us to theme #trialbycomics around their project. It’s one of the most creative, innovative endeavors happening in the STEEM blockchain today. As an avid Magic: The Gathering player with @tarotbyfergus and @vermillionfox, you can imagine my optimism for where @steemmonsters is going to go. Join our Discord, start drawing! Good night!