Ukrainian Artist Wins the International Blizzcon Art Contest 2023
Blizzard Entertainment used the work of Ukrainian artist Olga Gyshchak at BlizzCon 2023. During the event, her art was shown on stage.
This became known from the author's publication on her personal account in X.
Olga Gyshchak's work includes various characters from Blizzard games watching the TV. The art depicts Illidan, Tracer, Thrall, D.Va and others.
Olga admitted that she did not expect to win. She sent her work to the Blizzcon Art Contest and forgot about it, not hoping for an award. And at BlizzCon 2023, she unexpectedly saw her art.
"To be honest, when I applied, I didn't believe I could win at all - I just hoped that someone inside the studio would notice me, because working at Blizzard is one of my dreams, like many people. So on the night the results were announced, I just went to bed as usual, and in the morning I woke up to congratulations and at first thought I was being pranked - and I didn't believe it until the end, because even after watching the recording and hearing my name, seeing my work, I was still flipping through it for a while in search of the real winner," the artist told Gamedev.dou.ua.
"I had no experience of winning such large-scale competitions before, so it was expected to cause a storm of emotions - no joke, I spent half a day jumping around the flat and telling everyone about it," Olga added.
The task of the Blizzard art contest was to create a completely original work in honour of the studio's 30th anniversary. The artist decided to reveal her favourite theme.
You can see the stages of creating the winning illustration on the Artstation website.
Olga Gyshchak, who is only 24 years old, graduated from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and worked as a 2D illustrator and character concept artist at Home Games (Ukraine), Yarki Studio (Ukraine), and Dreams Quest (Estonia).
"Building an in-person BlizzCon is an epic and complex affair that takes many months of preparation—not just for us, but also for the many talented production partners, esports pros, hosts, entertainers, artists, and other collaborators we team up with locally and globally to put all the pieces together," - told Saralyn Smith, Executive Producer of BlizzCon.
BlizzCon is an annual fan convention held this year in Anaheim, California. In addition to art, there was also a short film and cosplay competition.