Absolutely no one wants to offend you or your idea. I think it?s great.
I just think that it won?t work the way you try to manage it. Making a Facebook-Group etc isn?t really enough.
We just started to disscuss the whole topic in general, when you suddenly try to launch something in a text post with links, that aren?t even clickable. That?s not really planned or attractive and so it won?t be successful in my opinion.
If you would have planned a little more you could have made up a nice visual ( I guess here are 100s of artist (me, even i?m not the greatest, included) who would do that as a favor for the community.
You could have asked Ashley to share that visual on the Facebook-Channel of C2.
You could have been looking for sponsors or prices..(perhaps Ashley would give out an Upgrade or some artist make a sprite pack as a price ...there are 10000 possibilities to make this more attractive and at least
Normally people are helpful and friendly in every case.
To make that sure again, absolutely no one tries to speak down your effort, or ideas, but your behavior is not really pro-project, to be honest. You are feeling insulted, just by a little critic. That doesn?t really spread trust to anyone, that should spend hours to be part of your contest.
This is, as people said not easy to manage....why be so harsh? Just give an idea some time to grow....