Skip navigation
Library

Introducing the Fan Art and Fan Fiction Contest

One of the things that makes the Elder Scrolls community great is the awe inspiring amount and variety of fan works created every day. From photorealistic portraits of your ingame characters, to lighthearted watercolors, to lego recreations of your favorite locations -- and from character journals, to epic poetry, to essays on metaphysics -- the works of fans are what keeps the lore community going.

In celebrating our birthday, we also wanted to celebrate the awesome community of creators that have made Elder Scrolls the vibrant, diverse, and ever-evolving fandom it is today. As such, we’ve partnered with Bethesda and Zenimax Online to run a fan art and fan fiction contest to showcase your creations and let you win awesome prizes!

This contest will run from today (September 5th) to September 30th, at which point all submissions will be posted on our forums to be admired by everyone forevermore. Community voting will occur through October 15th, and prizes will be sent out in late October.

Here are the awesome things you can win in both contests:

  • Four Honorable Mentions (two art, two writing) will get a set of Elder Scrolls character buttons and 1500 Elder Scrolls Online Crowns.
  • Two Community Choice winners (one art, one writing) will receive a set of Elder Scrolls character buttons, 1500 Elder Scrolls Online Crowns, and their choice of one Elder Scrolls game from Steam!
  • The Fan Art Judge’s Choice winner will get a copy of The Skyrim Library, Book I: The Histories, signed by Todd Howard! They will also receive a set of Elder Scrolls character buttons, their choice of one Elder Scrolls game from Steam, as well as a journal and watercolor set to sketch their travels throughout Tamriel.
  • The Fan Fiction Judge’s Choice winner will get a copy of Tales of Tamriel, Book I: The Land and Book II: The Lore, both signed by Zenimax Online developers! They will also receive a set of Elder Scrolls character buttons, their choice of one Elder Scrolls game from Steam, and a journal to document their Tamrielic adventures.
  • All winners will be displayed on our front page and our social media pages, and all submissions will be posted on our forum.

Interested? Click here for the rules and specifics.

We can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

Lady N's picture
Offline
Joined: 06/26/2010

Contest rules:

  • All entries must be created by you specifically for this contest. Previously posted works are not eligible. 
  • No entries featuring gore, sexually explicit content, or offensive themes. As a general rule, anything that could be found in a TES game is OK - anything more extreme than that is not. 
  • All submissions must be sent to TIL20contest@gmail.com, and must include the name you wish to be credited under, the title of your creation, and any websites or social media profiles you’d like us to list.
  • You may submit one entry to each contest. If you are nominated in both categories, only the highest-tier prize will be awarded. 
  • Submissions will be accepted from September 5th to September 30th.
  • All entries will be posted anonymously to the Imperial Library forums on October 1st, and will be voted on through October 15th. After the polls are closed, we will edit in the information of the creators.
  • Please do not post your works (or any preparatory materials, works in progress, etc.) prior to the conclusion of the voting period. Don’t tell people which submission is yours.
  • While we encourage you to tell people to vote, we ask that you do not try to tell people what to vote for, in the interest of fairness.
  • Winners will be contacted the week of October 22nd, via the email they used to submit their work. If you do not reply within one week, we reserve the right to pass the prizes to another person.
  • Any work/creator that does not abide by these rules will be disqualified.

Fan Art submission rules

  • All art must be related to the Elder Scrolls universe.
  • No screenshots or photomanips, please (but photos of physical items or cosplay are totally valid, as are renders of new 3D digital scenes!)

 

Fan Fiction submission rules

  • All writing must be from within the Elder Scrolls universe, in the style of a book that could be found in game.
  • Entries should be between 500 and 2000 words in length.
baumgartner's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/23/2017

Something to look forward to! To choose between spending my free time on paraphrasing  poetry around a bit of  lore or an attempting to write a credible lore book in 2000 words or less.  

Lady N's picture
Offline
Joined: 06/26/2010

I've reworded and restructured the rules a bit to be clearer. Here are the two edits: 

 

For the no sex/offensive themes rule - if it's something that could be found in game, it's OK. If it's more extreme than something that could be found in game, it's not appropriate for this contest.1

 

Only one entry per person per contest. You may submit one piece of art and one piece of writing, but only win one prize. 

 

Also, I would like to reiterate that only new works are acceptable for this contest. This is to make the voting anonymous and fair. 

 

1 This is not because I don't think this stuff deserves to be written, it is just because we will be positing these entries on our site, which is visited by a variety of people. 

Offline
Joined: 09/27/2018

Is 2,000 words the hard limit for the fan fiction entries? Or is there any leniency for going over?

TLDovahkiin's picture
Offline
Joined: 08/18/2015

There's some leniency. Unfortunately, the deadline for submissions has passed

Offline
Joined: 09/27/2018

Ah, gotcha, I ended up just cutting mine down to get it in yesterday. Just to play it safe.