
We're kicking off another contest here...
The Polycount BRAWL² Tournament!_______________________________________________________________________________
Theme:
Multiverse / Mad Max / Dystopian world, with the Inspiration of previously designed titles, stories and designs by gaming artists of the past, present and future. Reimagine and redesign your chosen entry with the options below.
Pick your genre:
- Boomers, hero, looter shooter
- Rogues, Souls-like
- RPGs, open world
- MOBAs
Room to add your own flavor, remix the design and set the mood and environment appropriately.
You can make a concept, vehicle/mount, environment, etc.
Do it yourself, or team up, based on your free time.
Choose any role in game development. Present it pleasingly with 2k screenshots. Pick your triangle & texture limitations to show us this asset/world you've created.
Present your work, and help the judges decide who achieved the top artistically-pleasing development or product.
From the lowest-poly designs to the highest-poly. Good luck have fun, impress & inspire us & yourselves!
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Dates
Contest starts May 12th 2025.
Final submissions due September 12th 2025 at 11:59pm U.S. Eastern time.
Judging will be finalized sometime mid-October, exact date TBD.
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Work In Progress Threads
Each
entry must include a work-in-progress (WIP) thread, posted in
this section.
Post updates as often as you
can. You can include work-in-progress videos as you go about
this contest, but at a minimum, periodic screenshots must be posted.
Reference sheets are required. If you're using concept art, please include credits to the artists as much as possible. Reverse image search is great for finding the source of an image:
Google,
Bing,
TinEye,
Yandex.
Although it's not
a requirement to reply to others' threads, it would be nice to keep the community alive, well and thriving. We're all in
this together!
Threads must be titled like this:
BRAWL2 [Role] Your Design's Name, Your Artist or Team NameFor example:
BRAWL2 [Environment] Pizza Town Blastorama, mastapimp420Roles:
- Animation
- Character
- Concept
- Environment
- FX
- Prop
- Vehicle
- Weapon
Optional: If you would like to create a tribute piece, for example to pay tribute to Kevin Johnstone or to anyone else, please add
[Tribute]to the end of the title, for example:
BRAWL2 [Environment] Pizza Town Blastorama, mastapimp420 [Tribute]______________________________________________________________________________
Breakdowns
Please include breakdowns with the finished work, of all materials, presented as you deem necessary for clean readability.
Example:
Texture sheets, wire frames, etc., sculpts (gray/clay render, simple lighting), callout sheet presenting the major elements.
Wireframes should be backface-culled, for example:

credit:
Joe WilsonIt's OK to present texture sheets as flats, or as multi-layer images, flat or on the model, for example:

credit:
Joe WilsonThere are no specific texture or triangle limits, except that your content must be renderable in a real-time 3D renderer. If you choose to work within a specific limit, please indicate these limits in your thread.
No paint-overs on screenshots allowed, except to add subtitles and/or framing elements like logos and artist names.
References must be included. You must include an image of the inspirational piece/concept as it appears in the original design.
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Screenshots & Lighting
All contest art must be screenshot directly from a game engine (Unreal, Unity, Godot, etc.) or equivalent real-time rendering setup (Marmoset Toolbag, Sketchfab, etc.). If your display is less than 4k, it's ok to combine multiple shots together, for example with scripts.
Real-time lighting only, only what can actually be used in a real-time 3D game title.
All real-time solutions are allowed... SSAO, cascade shadow volumes, etc.
Beauty & breakdowns at 1920x1080 (Full HD), with one "hero" shot at 3840x2160 (Ultra HD).
Include the
Polycount BRAWL² Tournament logo in your hero image (above image includes alpha, for your benefit), optionally in the rest of your images.
NO paint-overs of any kind, touch-ups, or post-process solutions, other than what is provided within the real-time renderer. Except... to add the BRAWL2 logo, artist/team names, subtitles, or framing elements.
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The Rules
- All artwork must be original and made specifically for this contest.
- No artwork previous created before this contest will be considered for final voting & judging.
- Absolutely no A.I. the reason for this contest is to challenge your skills & abilities.
- No NSFW, pornography, that means no nipples or genitals, folks.
- Minimal gore, some blood/damage is ok but try to keep it tasteful, no threats or inciting violence.
- No overly religious pieces, i.e. the Pope as a K-Pop star (as fun as that might be!).
- No overtly political / propaganda themes.
- No insulting / group-demoting / racism / sexism style elements.
There are no specific texture or triangle limits, except that your content must be renderable in a real-time 3D renderer. If you choose to work within a specific limit, please indicate these limits in your thread.
21 weeks is plenty to bust out a solid design. You're welcome to submit more than one design if you wish to do so and
yes, if you have the time and energy you may enter more than one entry
as well for any of the positions.
This is a video game art challenge, remember to challenge yourselves!
Be kind, have fun.
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Judging
Judging for the
Polycount BRAWL² Tournament will first be done by public vote at the end, also by a panel of professionals. So we'll have crowd favorites, and judges favorites.
We'll add more about this later...
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Prizes
Prizes for the PolycountBRAWL² Tournament are fairly simple: There aren't any, ha!
Will
we have prizes in the future? Perhaps, but for now the contest is purely for the sake of personal achievement in game art.
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Disclaimer
All artwork, screenshots and IPs depicted here belong to their respective owners and are shown as examples only.
Any and all 3D characters, 3D environments, etc. and images created by Polycount Members for this contest are owned solely by the artist and are submitted to this contest as fan art, or uniquely representational artworks made specifically for the contest.
Polycount or Polycount.com do not, and will not take ownership of any submitted materials on or within its domain.
This contest is FREE to enter and is not for profit nor for AI collections. We have NOT given consent for anything posted here to be used in any tech/script/robotic generation recreation monstrosity.
We're simply video game artists who love creating game-art, art and/or fan art.
May the best poly win!