#TTRPG – Zelart Scholarship Winning Art Available

The winning piece for the ’20-21 Zelart Scholarship is in, and available.

You can get it HERE, and use it for your personal and professional products for a small fee. All proceeds go to next year’s Zelart Scholarship fund. There’s also a bunch of new stock art up, if you’re looking for something else to fill out your projects.

Here’s Mike’s story:

I am an adjunct faculty member teaching courses in Art and Game Design at a local college and university. When the world is normal, I am also working as a Graphic Designer and selling prints and drawings at various conventions. It’s been a ride of year to say the least! Schools are looking at major cutbacks, with enrollment plummeting. This means I have no confirmation if I will be given any courses to teach in the Fall. My Graphic Design job also dried up when the shop I was working for suddenly closed. And well, conventions, those are on an obvious holding pattern. Needless to say, it’s been disaster management for the last 12 months, with an unknown recovery time expected for the near future.

That was the glum reality, not far what many artists have faced this year. Now for the art. I focus heavily on monsters – both designing them mechanically as well as illustrating them. On occasion, I may dabble with other things like a map, full scene, or even portraits, but it always comes back down to the monsters. My artwork is mostly digital these days with some pen and ink to keep my hand still working with some traditional material. The creature I included here is a Greater Wisp from some game and world building I do on the side. These act like vacuums for living energy and will suck areas dry of life. That is the shorter description, I won’t go into lengthy detail here.

So onto the main thing. That “What will I do with this money part”. I am holding on financially. This means I can maintain a rent, food and a vehicle, but it’s difficult to keep the business functioning at all. Recent issues relating to poor service forced my to get rid of my webhost. Some of the money would go into resurrecting the site and giving it a functioning store. I would also like to get into setting up a mentorship and moving at least part of my studio into art content creation. This will take a few pieces of new gear. Anything left over I would place into printing new inventory. Sounds ambitious but a quick breakdown of how the funds would be spent – Website is around $250 for the first year. Capture card and new mic are around $150. And the remainder would go into prints. I can probably get together 2 new prints with runs of about 25 each.

I hope all this helped Mike out. That’s what we try to do with the scholarship!

Zelart Scholarship Seeks More Entries! Win $500!

The Zelart Scholarship fully funded, but we have still had very few entries. While you would think artists would be clamouring to get a $500 award, especially in times like this, social media algorithms and over-sensitive spam detection make it hard to get this in front of anyone. Sharing this post would, in that context, be greatly appreciated, putting it in front of more artist’s eyes.

Here’s the short-short version:

This is a scholarship fund, intended primarily for college and university students with an interest in genre art.

It is also open to any artists who are in reduced circumstances (long-term unemployment, homelessness, disability etc).

To enter all you need is a piece of print-quality art, to which the rights are available and which you have created.

You send that to me, explain your circumstances and if you win you get $500 and the art you submitted goes on sale as stock art within the RPG community to help support next year’s scholarship.

For more details contact grim@post-mort.com

#RPG – ZELART Scholarship for 2020-2021 is up and running!

Fundraising has begun for the 2020-2021 Zelart Scholarship.

The long and the short of it is that each year we raise money for struggling genre artists, or those currently in education. This year more people are struggling than ever. We’d love your donations, but we also accept art donations to be sold as stock art to fundraise for next year.

You can get some of the details on this blog, or at the fundraising link.

We’re also looking for entrants, so if you ARE a genre artist who is hard up or in education, you can enter for a chance to get a £500 payout to help you out (payment is usually in February).

To enter you need to send a piece of (at least) 300 dpi, A6 art, black and white or colour, to grim@post-mort.com marked as a Zelart Entry.

This should be genre art (SF, horror, fantasy etc) by you and free to be re-sold as stock art to help raise money for next year. A winner will be chosen by the end of February and paid out.

Please spread the word both to people who can enter, and those who might be able to donate art or money to the project.

Thanks!

#RPG – Zelart Scholarship for Genre Artists 2019-2020

It’s only January the 6th and I’m already a bit overstretched. Despite one of my resolutions being not to let that happen.

This is for good reasons at least! I used the end of last year to raise money for my friend Jamie’s wheelchair – which he should be getting soon, but we do need a bit more funding to cover fitting and customisations should you feel generous.

I’ve also done a couple of things and have given money to help fight the Australian Fires. I’d encourage other people to do that too.

I’ve also had to help out a couple of hard-up friends (worse off than me) over the holiday period.

I don’t know that I have the energy to do justice to another fundraising campaign right now, and there’s always a great deal of negativity from certain quarters when I run the scholarship. Negativity I don’t feel as equipped to tackle as usual.

I did, recently, discover some of Zel’s art that hadn’t been published yet. I will be putting the usable parts of this art up for sale, piece by piece, in the coming weeks and days.

Sales raised just about $100 specifically for the scholarship last year. I will invest that money in new pieces of art, from people that need commissions.

Otherwise, I throw this open to artists associated with the game industry or fandom, if you want to donate any pieces to the cause of raising money for next year and helping more young artists, it would be greatly appreciated.

You can contact me at grim@postmort.demon.co.uk

November Update: Postmortem Studios, Zelart Scholarship, Youtube and Me

#RPG #Art – ZelArt Scholarship Winner Announcement!

And the winner is (after many trials and tribulations)…

Morgyn McDonald!

Morgyn’s piece depicting a sexy, smoky genie or djinn is now available for purchase (to support next year’s scholarship) at RPGNOW.

Don’t forget, you can also support the scholarship by buying other scholarship supporting art. There’s even a megabundle of the first 100 pieces.

You can also support monetarily during our year-end funding drives, or by donating art to be sold to support the scholarship.

Who are you? Where are you from? Where can people find your work?

My name is Morgyn McDonald, I am a 22 year old Métis Canadian Graphic Artist living in the Greater Toronto Area.

Where did you hear about the scholarship fund?

I was scrolling through my Twitter when I saw a friend of mine share your grant and I immediately jumped at the opportunity.

What made you take the leap to enter?

As a creator who has only recently started trying to get into the industry I feel like I am scrambling to apply everywhere for every opportunity I can get to gain exposure. I just want as many eyes on my creations as possible, you know?

Can you confirm that you’ve received the money?

Absolutely! Everything went smooth as butter and I received the grant without a single issue via PayPal. Thank you so much for this opportunity!

What do you intend to spend the money on?

RENT. Oh my gosh, rent and groceries is all it can go to at this point. I am trying my hardest to get my name out there in hopes someone might need my brand of imagery in the world of digital art and design.

Will you help us spread the word next year?

Absolutely, I would love to share the chance!

If people want to contact you to commission some work, how can they do it?

My email is MapleBaked@hotmail.com and my username is @Sokawahtik on Twitter.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I would like to encourage new artists to seek out chances to join competitions, draws and contests whenever and wherever they can. Any opportunity to share your creations is a chance to make waves! Luck and light to all.

My email is MapleBaked@hotmail.com and my username is @Sokawahtik on Twitter.

#RPG #Art – Zelart Scholarship – LAST CALL

I honestly don’t know why it’s so difficult to give away money, but apparently, it is. I had selected a winner of the scholarship but unfortunately, due to injury, they are unable to complete work and get the funds. I’m going to throw them a couple of commissions down the line, but I’m uncomfortable sitting on this money any more.

So, last call.

If you are a genre artist (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Military or other genre work) and are currently hard up (unemployed, disabled, medical expenses, in education or otherwise struggling) please get in touch, with a sample of your work and/or an entry within the next SEVEN DAYS.

Entrants, if accepted, will be awarded a scholarship/hardship grant of $500 USD in exchange for their entry, which will be then sold as stock art in the RPG industry, hopefully leading to more work and contacts in the future, as well as funding the next scholarship fund.

Contact me at grim@postmort.demon.co.uk or via social media for more details.

If I do not receive any entries by midnight on the 8th of March 2019 I will do what I did a previous year and use the money to commission works from artists offering commissions to help ease hardship (#commissionsopen, deviantart and so on).

Please share this everywhere and alert people you know who could qualify.

#RPG #ART – Zelart Scholarship 2018-2019

DONATE, SHARE, ENTER!

Many artists are struggling. The gig economy, the degree of competition, university or college fees, it all adds up to be a massive discouragement to many artists and for those who make their living from their art, life can be extremely precarious. The Zelart Scholarship seeks to redress this for those who have the biggest challenges ahead of them, young or disadvantaged genre artists. For several years we’ve been doing all we can to help.

The Zelart Scholarship

Hi, my name is James ‘Grim’ Desborough. I’m an author and roleplaying game designer from the UK, with my own small press publisher, Postmortem Studios. I run the Zelart Scholarship in memory of my friend and collaborator, ‘Zel’.

Zel was an artist I worked with and helped through his education. We met through friends and formed a strong working relationship together. We made card games together and he provided illustrations for several of my gaming books. I got a great sense of satisfaction from helping a young, budding artist through school and watching his talent blossom.

Sadly, Zel was killed in an accident before I got to see him fully achieve his artistic potential or the success he so richly deserved.

Casting about for something I could do to commemorate him, I remembered how we had met, how the work I gave him had helped him so much and how good it had felt to nurture that talent. The best way to remember Zel, I felt, was to do the same for others.

In my day to day work I do what I can, deliberately seeking out young, marginalised, disabled, unemployed, homeless and other disadvantaged artists to give them a leg up, money and help in getting the attention of the RPG and publishing community to get them into more regular work.

The Zelart scholarship is a natural extension of this. A way to hunt out and promote new talent and to give them a lump sum of cash to smooth their way.

What We Need & What You Get

We sell Zel’s back catalogue of stock art, along with donated artworks and the artwork of past winners to raise funds over the year and supplement that with what we can raise via this fundraiser. This isn’t about selling a product to you, but what you get out of it is more, reasonably priced stock art, a way to nurture new artists and a warm sense of self-satisfaction.

Whatever money we get will go to the scholarship winner, if we raise a great deal over and above our target we may institute second or third tier awards. Whatever we raise will go to artists.

Risks & Challenges

It can be challenging to find people both to sponsor and to enter into this scholarship. Previous years this has proven very challenging. Whatever you can do to spread the word to potential sponsors, donators and entrants is greatly appreciated.

Other Ways You Can Help

Besides a contribution, you can help out in many other ways.

Are you a young artist or an artist suffering from reduced circumstances? Then enter!

Are an artist who is doing OK for themselves and has some spare personal pieces they don’t mind being sold to support this enterprise? You can donate art!

Do you know a young artist or an artist who needs the money due to disability, unemployment or other issues? Tell them about it!

Rules for Entry

Entries to try and win the scholarship award should meet the following requirements:

1. At least A6 at 300 dpi and able to be delivered digitally.
2. It is preferred that you have a Paypal account for ease of payment.
3. You must be either a student, or an artist in reduced circumstances, whatever those might be.
4. Your art must fit into the loose definition of ‘genre art’. That is science fiction, fantasy, horror and similar.
5. Adult art is permitted, but nothing ‘hardcore’. Consider your limit to be that of ‘burlesque’.
6. Contact for further clarifications and entires is grim AT postmort DOT demon DOT co DOT uk.

#RPG Stock Art MEGABUNDLE deal! Support the Zelart Scholarship

We do a lot of stock art at Postmortem Studios, it’s a great way to expand our art library and to support artists. We also do a scholarship every year, paid for by proceeds from the preceding year’s art.

We’ve just hit 100 (at least in terms of stock number) and that seems like a good time to throw out a MEGABUNDLE!

This is over 100 pieces of art, of various genres and types, and makes a great starter-kit for a new RPG publisher or for someone who likes a lot of handouts and props for their games.

If this sounds like you, and you want to help support genre artists through school or times of hardship, head on over and hit that buy button!

If you are an artist and would like to donate art to be sold in support of this effort, please contact me at: grim AT postmort DOT demon DOT co DOT uk.

If you would like to use our established sales-front to sell your own stock art, contact me at the above email address as well.

#RPG Zelart Scholarship – More New Art For Sale

Another artist’s work added to the Zelart Scholarship section of our stock art collection. Giedrius has created two full colour pieces of art for science fiction work. You can use these pieces for personal or professional projects – subject to the attached licence – after purchase HERE.