Student Art Contest - Blizzard Entertainment

Students, get ready to show off your talents: the Student Art contest has arrived!

Blizzard Entertainment’s university relations and World of Warcraft development teams are proud to present the second annual Blizzard Student Art Contest! This year, we’re calling on college and university students to submit an original environment piece and/or original character piece that would be a great fit for World of Warcraft. Check out the rules and information below....

Environment Contest

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.
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.
Sample submission - Click to enlarge

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.
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.
The final piece should have a structure similar to the example provided below. Stay within a budget of 6,000 polys with one 1024x1024 texture for the finished character.
Sample submission - Click to enlarge

In short, show us something we’ve never seen before but that still fits within World of Warcraft. You can see the submissions of previous winners here.
All entries must be received by January 15, 2013, and must meet the image-formatting requirements (high-resolution JPEG no greater than 5MB in size) in the official rules in order to be eligible to win. Please note that only current college and university students are eligible to win. Students may enter pieces in both the environment and character contests (one entry per content).

Prizes

Grand prize winners will be chosen by the World of Warcraft art team, and will receive the following epic prizes:

• A three-month mentorship by a member of the World of Warcraft art team, in the form of email or phone critique of portfolio work. (Contact frequency will be roughly every two weeks.)
• A one-year subscription to World of Warcraft
• A Blizzard Entertainment notebook (featuring an original sketch by a Blizzard artist)
• A Blizzard T-shirt