Art by Pierre Deschamps

ArtStation’s eleventh Community Challenge, Medieval: Back and Forth, launched in April 2023 with more industry-based challenge hosts, new VFX categories and a completely redesigned challenge platform with new feedback features. Like all our community challenges, the submission process was entirely open, and close to 6,000 artists took up the challenge to imagine the middle ages as a destination for modern travellers. Submissions across all categories approached the levels of quality you’d expect in game or film projects, with hosts and fellow entrants providing the encouragement and feedback to push artists to create their best works.

An all-star judging panel took on the difficult task to sort through the very strong entries in all categories. Huge thanks to: Yekaterina Bourykina (Riot Games), Donglu Yu (Tencent Games), Amy Sharpe (Riot Games), Devon Fay (Riot Games), Sandra Duchiewicz (Freelance), Finnian MacManus (Terraform Studios), Tyler Smith (Probably Monsters), David Shovlin (Riot Games), Liz Kirby (That’s No Moon) and our amazing challenge hosts Bogna Gawrońska (CD PROJEKT RED), Rembert Montald (Lightspeed LA), Suzanne Helmigh (Ghostfire Gaming), Jeanne Plounevez (Amplitude Studios), Randall Mackey (Freelance), Marina Ortega (ZA/UM), Elodie Mondoloni (UmeshuLovers), Karen Stanley (PlayStation Visual Arts), Javier Perez (PlayStation Visual Arts), Carrie Warwick (SplicedInc), Magdalena Dadela (Framestore), Dorine Laplanche (Airborn Studios), Sang Nguyen (Freelance), Jason Keyser (VFX Apprentice), Kees Klop (VFX Apprentice) and Dmitry Parkin (Cold Symmetry).

The challenge winners each receive a virtual ArtStation Challenge trophy, designed with meticulous attention to detail by industrial designer Ivan Šantić (check out the process of designing the Awards).

We’re very pleased to present to you the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in each of the categories along with the Honourable Mentions. 80 amazing artists received awards in the Medieval: Back and Forth challenge! Congratulations to everyone who entered!

Medieval: Back and Forth – Keyframe Design

Medieval: Back and Forth — Character Design

Medieval: Back and Forth – Environment Design

Medieval: Back and Forth – Prop Design

Medieval: Back and Forth – VFX Design

PRODUCTION

Medieval: Back and Forth –
Game Character (real-time)

Medieval Back and Forth –
Film/VFX Character (rendered)

Medieval: Back and Forth –
Game Environment Art (real-time)

Medieval: Back and Forth –
Game Prop Art (real-time)

Medieval: Back and Forth – VFX Art (real-time)

Check out the submissions!

You can see all of the entries for the Medieval: Back and Forth Challenge here:

• Keyframe Design
• Character Design
• Environment Design
• Prop Design
• VFX Design
• Game Character Art (real-time)
• Game Environment Art (real-time)
• Film/VFX Character Art (rendered)
• Game Prop Art (real-time)
• VFX Art (real-time)

Huge thanks to Pierre Deschamps for his Lancore And Chroma Line challenge banner.