Blizzard Student Art Contest Announced

Blizzard Entertainment is holding the contest for the 5 consecutive year. Blizzard Student Art Contest is specifically aimed at college and university students, who are working on “original artwork that would be a great fit for World of Warcraft“. There are two categories where you can submit your work: Environment Art and Character Art. Here’s the full description.

Environment Contest

Nicholas Dariano
Bowling Green State University

Peter K. Lee
Darkmoon Faire Carousel

Using your creativity and ability to work within the World of Warcraft art style, create a small environment diorama that would fit well in the game world. Your quest: Concept, model, and texture an environment piece that you could imagine stumbling upon during your travels across Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, Northrend, or Pandaria.

Kyle Jensen
Laguna College of Art & Design

Required elements are trees, rocks, grass, and props, plus a small structure (such as a shrine).

Your final piece should have a structure similar to the example provided below. We’re looking for lower poly-count models (e.g.: around 1,500 polys for a mature sized tree), so keep that in mind when creating your environment.

Character Contest

Using your creativity and ability to work within the World of Warcraft art style, concept, model, and texture a non-player character (NPC) or creature that you could imagine roaming the plains of Durotar, exploring the depths of Deepholm, or just sitting in the Pig and Whistle Tavern knocking back a mug o’ Thistle Tea.

2013 Student Art Contest
Ariel Fain
Laguna College of Art & Design
Character Winner

Required elements are the character or creature, along with some sort of clothing or armor. Feel free to go further by adding weapons or other accessories.

2013 Student Art Contest
Wan Gee
Academy of Art
Character Runner-up

The final piece should have a structure similar to the example provided below. Stay within a budget of 6,000 polys with one 1024×1024 texture for the finished character.

The worst thing about this contest is that you can only take part if you’re studying in United States or if you have a US visa. It’s incredibly unfair since there are so many talented artists, who want to work at Blizzard and don’t get to have this opportunity just because of the visa issues. But that’s life I guess.

For your efforts you’ll get a bunch of World of Warcraft loot and some valuable time with a senior Blizzard artist. Also there’s a chance that you might get an internship if your works really impress the judges. You can check out last year submissions here. The general level of the contest works is very high.

You’ll need to submit your works by January 15th, 2016. Good luck!

Source: us.blizzard.com