Building drafts before reading the rules is not a violation under the published NEXT ART AI 2026 rules. They judge the work you submit and ask you to disclose how you made it. They don’t require draft files, and they don’t prohibit unused ones. What matters is whether the final piece is original, made with generative AI, correctly formatted, and cleared for commercial use.
One timing fact comes first: the stated application period ran September 1 to September 30, 2026, ending at 11:59 PM KST. As of early October 2026 that deadline has passed, and nothing retrieved from the organizer shows it reopening. The rest of this article is a compliance check for anyone holding drafts, whether for a late-confirmed window, a changed schedule, or a future round.
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What the rules say about drafts
The official application overview from HOBAN Cultural Foundation / NEXT ART AI does not list drafts, sketches or work-in-progress images as submission materials, and it does not forbid making unused drafts. The conclusion is narrow: three preliminary drafts are not, by themselves, a flagged problem.
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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →That does not guarantee eligibility. The picture changes if a draft is itself the submitted work, if the final piece includes unlicensed material, or if another rule is broken. The page does not address how drafts that were never submitted are treated, so don’t read more into the silence than it says.
#1 Best Overall
Check each draft against the eligibility rules
Run every draft, and the one you’d submit, through the points below.
Originality and generative AI
- The work must be original, created by you or your team using generative AI.
- The creative process must include AI, for example AI-assisted direction, transformation or generation.
- A work that previously won an award in another competition is ineligible.
Who can enter and how many works
- Open regardless of career background, nationality or age. Under-19 applicants need a legal-guardian consent form.
- Individuals or teams of up to three people, including a representative.
- You can’t enter both individually and as part of a team. A team representative applies from their own account, and members must provide the personal-information consent form.
- One work per category: AI IMAGE ART and AI VIDEO ART. If your three drafts are variants of one idea, pick one per category at most.
Commercial-use licensing
Free or paid external assets, game engines, AI frameworks, open-source tools and editing software are all allowed. But you must hold a commercial-use license for every element in the submitted work, and work infringing third-party rights may be excluded. Drafts made in a hurry are where this usually goes wrong: a stock texture, a reference image, a font or a model with non-commercial terms can slip in. Check each element in the draft you intend to submit, not just the main generated output.
Disclosure
You must disclose the AI tools used, model versions, specific prompts, assets and editing tools. If you’ve been iterating without notes, reconstruct this for the chosen piece while you can still recall it. The official page also says the choice of AI tools, the scope and method of their use, and related prompts are considered when evaluating creative use of AI, so this record is part of how the work is judged, not just paperwork.
Format requirements by category
| Item | AI IMAGE ART | AI VIDEO ART |
|---|---|---|
| Form | Single image | Single video, under one minute |
| Resolution | 150 dpi or higher | 1080p or higher |
| File types | JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP | MP4 (H.264) or MOV |
| Size limit | 10 MB maximum | Not stated |
| Recommended | Not stated | 30 or 60 fps; stereo 48 kHz audio |
| Delivery | File upload | URL after upload to YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, OneDrive, or an accessible alternative where those are restricted |
For video, the link must be accessible. Inaccessible videos may be excluded, so test it in a logged-out browser before submitting. For images, a 10 MB cap on a 150 dpi file may force you to re-export, so check that early.
How entries are judged
Preliminary review covers eligibility and verification: compliance, thematic relevance, creativity, artistic merit and completeness. Final-round scoring is weighted as follows, per the organizer:
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Technical excellence | 20% |
| Thematic and conceptual relevance | 20% |
| Creativity and originality | 20% |
| Aesthetics | 20% |
| Emotional impact and social relevance | 10% |
| Suitability of description, interpretation and supporting materials | 10% |
The page also lists an online public vote. Because thematic relevance carries 20%, the useful thing about reading the rules late is to compare your drafts to the theme and pick the one that fits best, rather than polishing the one you like most.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Schedule, prize and what may change
The stated timeline places preliminary review in early October, the final round in late October, the announcement and ceremony in early November, and the exhibition in late November. Total prize money is KRW 21,000,000, paid after applicable taxes and public charges are deducted. The independent AI-ARTS listing reports the same prize and describes entry as free, but the official rules govern. The organizer says details and schedule may change at its discretion, and the retrieved official page carries no publication date, so confirm current status on the official NEXT ART AI site before acting.
Quick Recap
A practical checklist for your drafts
- Choose at most one draft per category and discard the idea of submitting variants.
- List every asset, font, reference and model in it, and confirm each has commercial-use terms.
- Write down tool names, model versions and prompts for the chosen piece.
- Export to the category’s specification and re-check size, resolution and duration.
- For video, host it and verify the link opens without your login.
- Confirm team, consent-form and guardian-consent requirements if they apply.
- Check the official page for the current application status before you rely on any date.
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