Each category produced distinctive work worth looking at in detail.
The 2023 Environmental Art winner was Joshua Tyer from Laguna College of Art and Design. His piece, "Glade of Ysera," depicted the enchanted forest realm associated with the Dragon Aspect Ysera — known in World of Warcraft lore as a dreamweaver of the Emerald Dream. The work was recognised for its intricate environmental detailing and the sense of depth created through colour and light composition.
The two runners-up brought equally strong regional interpretations of Azeroth's landscape vocabulary. Fred Osborn (College for Creative Studies) submitted "Journey to Oasis," a desert panorama that balanced negative space with vivid foreground detail. Kyle Chen (University of Central Florida) presented "Forge in Darkmaul Plains," set in the rugged ogre territory first seen in Warcraft III — a challenging subject for an environmental piece because the setting demands functional, lived-in industrial design rather than scenic beauty.
Ryle Sammut from the Savannah College of Art and Design took first place with "Sphynx Cat Desert Assassin," a wholly original character concept that drew on WoW's anthropomorphic racial designs — particularly its tradition of detailed plate armour storytelling — while introducing a feline silhouette not represented in the current playable roster. The judges noted the expressive face and the layered, worn quality of the character's equipment.
Runner-up Jonathan Nhim (DigiPen Institute of Technology) submitted "Heartsbane Refugee: Worshipper of Elune," a devotional character piece grounded in Night Elf religious iconography — the crescent moon motif of the goddess Elune appears throughout the armour and pose. Fellow DigiPen student Andrew Moon offered a deliberate tonal contrast with "Heebo the Hippo," a creature-companion design consistent with WoW's comedic fauna tradition.
Quynh Ton from Ferris State University won the FX category with "Arcane Rain," a particle-system piece depicting arcane-school spellcasting. Arcane visual language in World of Warcraft is characterised by deep blue and violet hue ranges, hard-edged glyphs, and controlled symmetry — Ton's entry applied those conventions while adding a vertical weather-system quality that the judges found particularly effective at conveying scale.
Runner-up Christian Baca (Full Sail University) presented "Moonkin, Nebula Beam," an FX piece built around the Moonkin Form used by Balance Druids. The nebula-textured energy beam introduced a celestial colour space that diverged from typical druidic greens, giving the piece a distinctive visual identity.
Theresa Chang from California College of the Arts won the Animation category with "Two-Hit Combo Attack," a short combat sequence focused on the timing and anticipation principles that define WoW's melee feel. Strong animation in a WoW context is less about photorealism and more about the game-feel properties (hit-stop, wind-up, recovery) and the judges found Chang's work conveyed those properties convincingly at a student level.
Runner-up Hee Seung Chung (School of Visual Arts) entered a thematically similar piece, also titled "Two Hit Attack," which offered a contrasting stylistic interpretation of the same combat concept — a direct comparison the judges found instructive in showing how the same mechanical action can support different visual readings.
All four category winners received a one-hour virtual mentorship session with a Senior Blizzard Artist through the Blizzard Early Careers programme — the same team behind the WoW Student Art Contest's thirteen-year run. Runners-up received prizes listed on the official Blizzard announcement.
The WoW Student Art Contest is an annual competition run by Blizzard Entertainment's Early Careers and World of Warcraft development teams. It invites students enrolled in art programmes to submit work in categories tied to professional game-art disciplines: Environmental Art, Character Art, Visual Effects (FX), and Animation. The 2023 contest was the thirteenth edition.
Joshua Tyer from Laguna College of Art and Design won the Environmental Art category with his piece "Glade of Ysera." Fred Osborn (College for Creative Studies) and Kyle Chen (University of Central Florida) were the runners-up with "Journey to Oasis" and "Forge in Darkmaul Plains" respectively.
Ryle Sammut from Savannah College of Art and Design won Character Art with "Sphynx Cat Desert Assassin." Jonathan Nhim and Andrew Moon, both from DigiPen Institute of Technology, were the runners-up with "Heartsbane Refugee: Worshipper of Elune" and "Heebo the Hippo."
Quynh Ton from Ferris State University won the FX category with "Arcane Rain." Christian Baca from Full Sail University was the runner-up with "Moonkin, Nebula Beam."
Theresa Chang from California College of the Arts won the Animation category with "Two-Hit Combo Attack." Hee Seung Chung from the School of Visual Arts was the runner-up with a thematically similar piece also titled "Two Hit Attack."
Each category winner received a one-hour virtual mentorship session with a Senior Blizzard Artist through the Blizzard Early Careers programme. Runners-up received additional prizes as listed in the official contest announcement on the Blizzard website.
Blizzard runs the contest annually, with submission periods typically announced on the Blizzard news page and World of Warcraft community channels. Eligibility is generally limited to students currently enrolled in accredited art programmes. Watch the Blizzard Early Careers pages for the next open submission window.
Last reviewed 2026-06-10 against Patch 12.0.5 Lingering Shadows — Maintained by WowCarry's WoW team.
