Guild Wars 2

[THIS COMPETITION IS OFFICIALLY OVER]

Click HERE to view the submissions for the Great GW2 Art Competition.

Prologue
I am Sylvari explorer Thereon Avenrise. I have traversed the highest of mountains, delved into the deepest of caves. I have fought dragons from the deepest, darkest depths of depravity. A mighty Frostfang was forged with my blood, sweat and tears. More tears were shed when I let her go. But slowly I came to realise that my adventuring days were over.

I retired to a quaint little homestead in the forest, away from the hustle and danger that I used to actively seek. Life is good except…every now and then. Not often, just now and again….I remember times of old. The questing, the battling, the friendships and the constant and yet strangely alluring danger.

This is an open invitation to all citizens of Tyria. I invite anyone who is willing to take up the challenge to sit down with me, hear my stories of old and create works of art like no other that will evoke passion and excitement, and enable my memories to live on long after I am gone. In exchange you shall have my undying gratitude…and my hard earned riches!

The Competition!
So let’s get to the point! I quit playing GW2 a long time ago and recently realised that I had a lot of gold, gems and items left on my account. So without further ado… I propose an artistic competition! I have posted a series of screenshots to an Imgur account linked below and it is your task to use what you can see in addition to the added rules listed below to create a masterpiece! This could make a great solo project or a great guild event and I encourage everyone to participate no matter how skilled you are at being artistic!

Click here for the Imgur Screenshot Album!

The Prizes

1st Place: 2000 Gold.
2nd Place: 6000 Gems worth of gold or the Skin Pack listed below.
3rd Place: Whichever prize hasn’t been claimed from 2nd Place.

Raffle 1: A cool 350g. This will go to an entrant chosen at random from all qualifying entries except 1st-3rd places). If I get 10+ entrants I will add a second raffle prize which will be announced if it happens!

Raffle 2: ONE Dragons Jade skin of your choice, ONE Cavalier Skin of your choice & 100g.

Skin Pack: One Desert Rose backpack, three Super Short Bow(blue), one Super Greatsword(blue), one Super Shield(blue), one Super Sword(blue), one Tormented Greatsword and one Tormented Axe. Worth at time of writing: 760g(b) to 1000g(s)

Judging the entries will be myself and two of my non-gamer friends. We shall be primarily looking at effort above all else. I understand that not everyone is convinced of their artistic talent but I encourage all to try.

Prizes will be given out promptly at the end of the competition (note the 500g/week mail cap). Being that there are large sums involved I have been in contact with an ANET representative and they have given a thumbs-up.

For all proof please see final two screenshots of the Imgur Album!

The Rules.

Only entries meeting the following criteria will be accepted:

1) Submit your work either by sending me a private message with a link or sending directly to thepandacollective@gmail.com (If you want to check my credentials as a veteran player I ran an awful Youtube channel with the same name back in the day). Please include your GW2 account name with your submission.

2) Please do not post your entry in this thread as this may deter others from entering but of course feel free to discuss the competition and ask any questions. I will do my best to respond promptly. With permission from the entrant I will post the winning entries when the results are known.

3) Please submit the final image that you wish to be judged without watermarks please. When submitting you agree that you may not be one of the lucky winners and therefore may receive nothing for your submission. If you are including a signature please make it non-intrusive.

4) The larger the size the better but a minimum of A4 sized if drawn by hand. Any art form accepted so long as my character is clearly seen .

5) You may choose to use the background information from the screenshots, remove the background altogether or input a background of your choosing. If you are using your imagination please do not include any items/locations that appear in the latest expansion as I have never played the content.

The competition will end: Saturday 25th June at 11:59pm CET. ‘Judging’ will take place the day after with the winner announced Sunday evening on this thread and Reddit. Good luck!

If you have any questions feel free to ask them here or PM me and I will reply ASAP. Please avoid all unnecessary spam or hurtful comments and please note that I reserve the right to make changes to the rules or stop the competition completely if I see any abuses occurring.

Well this just got moved to a less prominent forum….not sure I agree but what can I do?

Nothing, this is the correct board.

Thereon, I suggest posting your contest to Reddit or Tumblr if you want more exposure. You could also add a link to this thread in your signature for others to see when you post on the forums. :)

In the meantime, I may have to make some time for this contest. Those prizes are very alluring. ;D

Hey Hahnchen, thanks for the input! There is already a Reddit thread up (address below) and I’ve had some interest on there as well. If I’m honest I’ve never used Tumblr…will check it out during the week to see if it will help. Certainly won’t hurt, I guess!

Reddit Thread

Some more interest this week but if anyone would like to do a little advertising within their servers/guild that would certainly help us reach that second ‘raffle tier’.

Thanks for posting this contest (though I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving)! Since I still have a little time before the end, I may be able to come up with something for it, and it’ll give me another excuse to get some art done! Do you have any preference on the colors used for the armor (between the screens you’ve shown)?

Apologies for the late reply- been a busy week! Honestly feel free to be creative. I have no preferences at all so long as my character Thereon is there somewhere! Thanks for the kind words as well but truth is I left a long time ago. Fooled myself into thinking I could play two MMOs at once….now I play none!

Any more questions from yourself or anyone else feel free to ask…19 more days to go!

Heeey! I just found this thread and prices really sound good, I’m definitely participating! I’ll do some tumblr advertising for you too, get this thing out there! Since forums can be painfully slow Not that i have many followers but even one reblog can make it huge.

I’m not sure how big a digital piece should be? You got any minimum size in mind? I usually draw on a really big canvas but tend to resize it down once i’m done, so just wanna make sure it’s not gonna be too small

That would be great, thanks NefyFeiri. I’m may extend the competition by a week or so as we’ve currently not got enough entrants for this to be any kind of competition. Obviously dont want to seem like I’m changing the rules….but it would make it a little easier for those to get their entries in on time. I’ll have a think about it in the next week.

Thanks for showing interest though, much appreciated. As far as size is concerned…the larger the better? Ideally looking for something I can maybe get printed on canvas and put on my wall one day!

I’ve decided to extend the competition until Saturday 18th June at 11:59pm CET with the final decision made on the Sunday. After this point if we do not have enough entries (five) I will look to compensate those that have already entered with some form of in game payment.

Please note you are welcome to enter multiple times and each piece of art will be judged separately. However please make each piece somewhat different…just recolouring a piece you’ve already submitted doesn’t exactly qualify!

Marking my calendar with the new end date! :)

what colours are the one she uses now (might wanna get this clear for participants)
the blueish one or whiteish?
where is her “homestead” located now? (map? kryta..etc)
more about her personality? (rather feminine or bold and harsh…etc?)

This is a nice reason to pick up the tablet pen again P:

Don’t worry about art flooding in yet, in my experience artists tend to leave things to the last minute I need to put a reminder as well of the new ending date. Since we’re allowed multiple pieces as well, might just draw another one! Good that you said that cause otherwise i’d just done one

But yeah don’t panic if art isn’t coming in, chances are that all of it will come in just few days before the deadline

why didnt i see this earlier, im in!

I sent the artpiece to the email so you know

I shall make a proper post tomorrow when I’m a little more lucid (loooong week) but thanks all for your submissions and with just over two weeks to go I think we may just have a competition on out hands! (good job as I really didnt want to start handing out measly ‘compensation’ gold).

Still, more tomorrow. Happy hunting (and creating!) Tyrians!

Okay so my mind cannot switch off this evening so lets just post now!

Update 1
We have had a couple more submissions and two who have said that they will enter. So I am happy to say that, as it stands, I’m happy to announce that the prizes are locked in. There is still the matter of the second raffle prize so I would still encourage all those who are still pondering to submit before the deadline!

Update 2
Speaking of which, it seems as though I’m going to have to go back on my word. The weekend of the 18th June has been chosen as the farewell party for a work colleague of mine. As a result I cannot guarantee I’m going to be in any fit state to get together with ‘The Panel’ and make some logical judgements! Apologies all but the new deadline will therefore be one week later on 25th June, the usual time.

Update 3
I have had a couple of people ask me for close up shots of Thereon so I have posted new screenshots into the Imgur album, below the ‘proof’ screenies. Please be aware that this will not give new entries ANY advantage over those already submitted. If I were looking for a perfect reproduction I’d just stick with the screenshots!

Extras
A reminder that you may submit more than one piece so long as it is unique and unlike your original submission(s). I shall also be advertising a little more this weekend.

My apologies again for the lack of updates this week- things have got a little crazy in my new job/role. Any questions feel free to ask and I shall try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!

So at this moment in time, being that 1st-3rd places cannot win the raffle (which is a completely random draw BTW), if you submit an entry by the deadline you have a huge chance of winning something!

What’s the worst that can happen? Submit your entries by the deadline for your chance to win!

Couple more entries this week but still below the second raffle prize! Come on people..its like you’re allergic to Gold or something! :p

Just ten more days to go! Looking forward to some late submissions!

Argh I just saw this, thanks for the extra week on the deadline :P gonna try whip somthing up

Sounds good, looking forward to seeing it!

So everyone….THE FINAL WEEK! I am ‘indisposed’ this weekend so many not be around to answer questions but Sunday evening i’ll check on my messages and next week I shall be doing a countdown until the deadline!

Ohmygod I want to participate! This is an amazing initiative, thank you for the opportunity! <3 Litterally have… 7 days! jumps around and grabs tablet

Haha the more entries the better! Looking forward to the submissions in the final week!

Four more days ladies and gentlemen!

Wow okay so with four days to go I’ve had a look and we’re ONE ENTRY AWAY from the second, secret raffle prize! To refresh your memory the raffle prize will go to a random entry from all the submissions except 1st-3rd place. Well, who would like a second random chance at a prize?!

Four days to give me an answer with a single more submission :p

I’m working on something! What day is the deadline now?

To my understanding the deadline is 25th of june, so this saturday at 11:59pm CET

That’s correct, this Saturday at midnight(+1 hour or so- I’m not going to slam the door shut if you submit something a few minutes past the hour!)

We have news everyone! After a couple of submissions last night we now have enough submissions to ‘unlock’….yeh, I can’t carry on with this ’I’m the almighty gift-giver’ thing any longer. You lot are awesome and deserve more things so the second Raffle prize is now available to a randomly picked submission that hasn’t placed 1st-3rd or claimed the other Raffle prize:

ONE Dragons Jade skin of your choice, ONE Cavalier Skin of your choice & 100g

I’ll also bump the other raffle prize up to 350g.

Thanks everyone!

Okay so the last day is upon us! There’s some info you all need to know:

1) Competition closes at midnight tomorrow CET time, give or take an hour or so.
2) Judging will take place Sunday afternoon (CET), results posted on here and on the Reddit page.
3) I shall message all of the winners in game and via the platform you used to submit your entry(Reddit PM, GW2 PM, Email) to make sure I can send with no issues. No need to be online, it will just be a test message. I will also ask permission to post your entry.

Prizes
Now this is the REALLY tricky part. ANET have a 500g cap on sending gold so this means the prizes may take their time to get to you. I have submitted a support ticket asking if there is any way ANET can help but in the likely event that they cannot this will be the plan:

Week 1: 1st prize 400g, 3rd prize skins, Raffle2 skins+100g
Week 2: 1st prize 500g
Week 4: 2nd prize 500g
Week 5: 1st prize 150g, Raffle1 350g
Week 6: 1st prize 500g
Week 7: 2nd prize remaining gold
Week 8: 1st prize 450g

Week 1 will commence 27th June. I am on holiday Week 3, hence the missing number. I know two months is crazy but it’s the best I can do unless you would be willing to accept items (ascended crafting mats?) to the value of your prize, assuming you can send these through the mail.

So last day everyone! Thanks for taking part, there are some creative people out there!

Another possibility to make distribution go faster is converting the 2nd prize gems to gem store items instead of gold. Afaik there’s no limit on the amount of gifts you can buy with gems in a week, though you can’t give people character slots or other account upgrades, and you’d have to sort out with the winner what they wanted (if they didn’t prefer gold). It might be too much hassle. Just a thought.

The end of today I shall throw a message to all of the winners asking them what they would rather me do. It’s completely up to them if they would like to wait for the gold, accept gem store items or mats/items they can then sell themselves. Having checked the prices of ascended crafting mats this would probably be much easier as they are high cost and can stack but as I say, their choice.

The competition is officially over! Many thanks to everyone that has made submissions. I shall be meeting with ‘the panel’ (couple of non-gaming mates) this afternoon with the aim of posting the result this evening (CET).

What I will say is that because this is a competition there will be some that have put in a huge amount of effort but ultimately walk away disappointed. I thank you all for your submissions- there are some extremely talented people out there and you should not take this result as a reflection on your skill. There have to be winners, there have to be those that do not win.

All I can say is good luck to all those that took part and many thanks for your contributions. Thereon would be pleased to hang any of these pieces of art in her little forest homestead!

Entries received from(in no particular order):

Teaniel (via email)
Toshinyan (via email)
NefyFeiri (via email)
LareaKei (via email)
Correllis (via email)
Gendo (via email)
Munchywheats (via email)
Chunq (via Reddit PM)
Sunnyvisions (via GW2 PM)
Heliotrope (via Reddit PM)
Faizu (via email)
Faux (via email)
HuntsForge (via email – sorry!)

If you think I have missed any entries please let me know via PM.

Ladies and Gentlemen. The time is upon us where we announce the winners and not-so-winners of the Great GW2 Art Competition. The results have been decided and the emails/messages have been sent. So that leaves just two more things to do:

First off I wish to thank everyone who took part. Going was slow to start off with and I did worry at one point that we wouldn’t get enough submissions to make this a fair competition. But in the end I have seen many great pieces of artwork from so many talented people. I know, ultimately, most of you did this for the gold but at the end of the day whether you have won something or not you should all be proud of yourselves and carry on showing that talent.

So with the thanks out of the way I am pleased to announce the winners!:

1st Place: winning 2000 Gold: Correllis!
2nd Place: winning 6000 Gems worth of gold or the Skin Pack: Heliotrope!
3rd Place: winning Gem Gold/Skin Pack: NefyFeiri!

Raffle 1: winning ‘a cool 350g’: Gendo!
Raffle 2: winning Dragons Jade, Cavalier Skin & 100g: SunnyVisions!

I have messaged and emailed everyone that entered with instructions on how to proceed along with asking permission to post their entries on an Imgur album. I will post the link when I start getting replies!

So thank you everyone, it has been a pleasure (if a little exhausting this afternoon/evening). Any questions feel free to message/email me or post here.

Dan.

Prize schedule(remaining):
Week 5: 1st prize 500g
Week 6: 1st prize 100g

Paid:
Week 1: 1st place instalment #1, Raffle 1+2 fully paid.
Week 2: 1st place instalment #2, 2nd place gem items sent, 3rd place fully paid.
Week 3: 2nd place fully paid.
Week 4: 1st place instalment #3

Edit: Week 4 complete.

gg grats to the winner

Congrats to the winners!
Are we going to be able to see the winning entries? I for one would love to ogle them. :D

Click HERE to view the submissions for the Great GW2 Art Competition.

I have included all entrants that have so far given me permission to post. I’ll update as I get more confirmations.

All but two submissions have been posted to the Imgur album including all the prize winners. The link is in the post above this and at the top of the thread.

Many thanks all.

Back from vacation and will start distributing the remaining prizes shortly!

Apologies for the hold-up. Had a few family matters to deal with. Prizes will re-commence shortly.