Welcome, welcome, one and all! We are thrilled to finally announce the ✕ Roads Fur Con. (Pronounced 'cross-roads'.) The intersection of animation and the furry fandom—a convention and film festival in Las Cruces!
The festival side of this event, the ✕ Roads Festival de Cine de Animación, will be a traditional film festival focused on animation, with an awards ceremony culminating in the presentation of El Paisano Dorado, the Golden Roadrunner. Modeled after the Venice Film Festival's Leone d'Oro and the Berlin Film Festival's Goldener Bär, this award will represent the best piece in the festival. It will be presented as a physical award, the design for which will change each year. Each individual award will be its own unique work of art, all tied together by the common name El Paisano Dorado.
Ah, but why a roadrunner? Besides the obvious connection to "crossroads", roadrunners are an animal with a strong tie to both Las Cruces and New Mexico as a whole; there's also a connection to animation, in the classic Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. But, even more subtly than this, roadrunners have one more striking connection—they, like all cuckoos, are zygodactyls. That means, with four toes, they have two pointing forward, and two pointing backward. In fact, some Pueblo peoples believe they provide protection, likely as a result of their tracks, which are impossible to track—because their footprints are '✕'.
And so, alongside announcing the convention and festival, we are announcing the official 2027 Golden Roadrunner Design Contest! Open to current Creative Media Institute students or recent graduates, the contest's submission period will run from June 1 to August 15, 2026. During this time, students may submit 3D models for the final award's design. Once submissions close, we'll spend two weeks organizing the entries for presentation. Then, beginning September 1, submissions will be viewable by the general public, who will then vote on which entry they believe should be the design for the final award! When voting closes on October 31, all votes will be tallied, and the final winner will be announced in an official reveal party!
But that's not all. In addition to having your work seen by the public, in addition to potentially having your model used to create 2027's Golden Roadrunner award, the winner will also receive a prize of $500! You retain ownership of your design too!
The first event, in late 2027, has the theme "✕-Country: The Great American Road Trip". Nostalgic nights in motels, memorable mornings motoring down a desert detour, anxiously anticipating another nexus of amazing Americana. Roadside rendezvous, rest-area romps, revisited restaurants of kitschy kookiness and crisp, deep-fried, delectable dishes. Traveling with family, friends, or even by yourself, the Great American Road Trip is an experience all its own, each unique but a shared understanding among those who've undergone the open road. We encourage participants to keep this theme in mind when creating your design!
Submissions can be made via a web form that will open at midnight on June 1, 2026. Until then, begin brainstorming ideas, and perhaps even begin working on an initial concept! But, don't let this get in the way of your classes—there's a reason we've specified the submission window when we have!
Good luck, and may the best design win!
Contest Official Rules
- The 2027 Golden Roadrunner Design Contest ("the contest", "the 2027 contest") is being organized and run by Grady Owens, on behalf of The ✕ Roads Foundation Consortium ("we", "the Foundation", "us"), a Domestic Nonprofit Corporation in the process of organizing in the state of New Mexico. By participating in the contest, you agree to these rules.
- The Foundation reserves the right to modify these rules at any time. Entrants are responsible for verifying they adhere to these rules.
- The contest is open to submissions from current Creative Media Institute ("CMI") students or its graduates as early as the Spring 2025 semester ("qualified candidates"). Entries may be submitted by individuals or groups. Any submissions by individuals who cannot substantiate this status for themselves will be disqualified. Any groups must be comprised entirely of qualified candidates, and all members must be disclosed.
- Submissions must feature a roadrunner as the principal design element.
- Submissions must be 3D models, ideally accompanied by a rendered turntable. Submissions made with any 3D software will be accepted. We cannot accept 2D designs at this time.
- Submissions created with the use or assistance of Artificial Intelligence ("AI") will be disqualified. A submission's creator has the right to appeal this decision, if they can provide sufficient evidence that the submission was created wholly without the assistance of AI.
- Submissions must be the sole creative work of the submitting party. Submissions deemed too close to existing works (e.g. the Road Runner from Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes) will be disqualified.
- Submissions must be created in software for which the creator has full creative and commercial license. Student licenses are insufficient.
- Submissions must be designed to be made into an award. The Foundation reserves the right to disqualify any submission we believe could not be reasonably made into an award.
- Submissions do not need to be textured, but must be produced with one consistent texture throughout. The final award will be a solid gold color. Any pedestal will be decided upon by the Foundation.
- Entries will be accepted between 12:00:01am MDT, June 1, and 11:59:59pm MDT, August 15, 2026 (the "submission window"). Entries submitted outside the submission window will be disqualified.
- Once the submission window is closed, we will verify all entries and follow up with any entrants as necessary, before voting officially begins.
- Voting will officially open at 12:00:01am MDT, September 1, 2026, and will officially close at 11:59:59pm MDT, October 31, 2026 (the "voting window"). Any votes submitted outside the voting window will be discarded.
- Voting will be open to the general public. By submitting to the contest, you agree to allow us to present your submission to the public for the purposes of voting.
- Anyone may vote once. Evidence of multiple votes by the same individual will result in the discarding all votes made by that individual.
- If enough entries are submitted, a panel of judges ("the panel") will narrow the number of submissions down to a select few finalists, upon which will then be voted. An announcement will be made prior to the end of the submission window if such a selection will be necessary. This announcement will state the number of finalists to be selected. The panel's participants will be disclosed before selections are made.
- Submissions should be made as professionally as possible. While these are not required for submissions, attention paid to good topology and UV practices, for example, may be used by the panel to select finalists.
- Submissions are not required to stick to the convention's theme; however, adherence to the theme may be used by the panel to select finalists.
- Submissions that do not win the 2027 contest are eligible for re-entry in any future years' contests, so long as their creators remain qualified candidates.
- The winning entry will be announced at the 2027 Golden Roadrunner Design Contest Winner Reveal Party ("the reveal party"), the date and venue of which will be announced publicly at the beginning of the voting window.
- The winning entry's creator(s) will receive a monetary prize of $500 USD, to be awarded at the reveal party.
- The winning entry will become the joint creative property of its creator(s) and the Foundation, for the purposes of advertising and award creation. All other entries remain the sole creative property of their creators.