Our yearly Gaia artwork contest ended on Sunday. Today, I’m showing you all the submissions that didn’t make it into the top 12. There are some very nice pieces of artwork among them, so you should definitely check them out as well. In a couple of days, I will post the top 10!

First, let’s start with the unplaced submissions in alphabetical order, then let’s continue with the submissions placed between #13 and #20. Show your support by visiting the artists’ websites and/or writing a comment in the comment section of this blog post!

To our gold and diamond patrons: As usual, I will later offer a convenient download archive containing all submissions in their original size.

by Amelia (website)	by Erin Maxwell [Artist’s comment: I wanted Ilias and Viviana to become a couple at their first interaction. Thank you for the possibility that after all the crazy magical dilemmas occurring, those two might live “happily ever after!”]
by Prismaudy (website)	by Prismaudy (website)
by Ray Zhang (website) [Artist’s comment: I started to make a full minimalist set of a bunch of characters from Gaia, but I didn’t have time to make more than one. Here’s Eldor!] Ray Zhang reached 5th place in 2014 with a Bioshock inspired drawing, and 4th place in 2016 with a Sandra and Woo clock. But this year’s entry just doesn’t have the same quality.	by Silver Raven (website) Silver Raven has also submitted another drawing which reached position #17.
by Rob van den Berg	by Terrastone Gamer (website)
by Umairah (website)	by Umairah (website) There’s an alternative version with a different background.

Here are the top 20:

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Joint place 20 goes to Byrrus

[Artist’s comment: The piece I draw is literally a fanart shipping of Ilias x Lily. When I read the first page of Breaking All Barriers somehow I got a bad feeling that Ilias x Lily won’t happen, mostly due to Vivi showed up more and more lately…]

I’m sorry to have disappointed you, Byrrus, but Ilias x Viviana is clearly superior! 😉

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Joint place 20 goes to Nitelini (website)

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Place 19 goes to Umairah (website)

This is a recreation of the scene shown in The Letter of Jael Bara 77 where Lilith created a play of light for Teglen and Edwyn.

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Place 18 (Part 1) goes to Kelsey Adams

[Artist’s comment: I’ve attached two different crosswords for the artwork contest. One is a New York Times–style crossword, and the other is a “simple” version.

I used the app Crossfire to create both of them, but I filled in all the entries manually for the simple version and did 90% of the entries manually for the NY Times–style one. I tried to take a couple of screenshots to show the progress. […] Making the crosswords was about twenty hours’ worth of trial and error — put in a word, try to complete that corner of the puzzle, find out it doesn’t work, undo everything, and start over.]

This is Kelsey’s simple crossword, you can find the NY Times–style crossword directly below.

I was quite excited when Kelsey wrote a message to me that he’s working on a Gaia related crossword. But I have mixed feelings about the result. The simple version is all right, but I’m of the opinion that the questions for the Sandra and Woo crossword I once created were a bit more original. The NY Times–style crossword has the problem that most questions have not much or nothing to do with Gaia and it also features several words that I, as a non-native speaker, have never heard before in my life. Overall, I like the simple crossword better, but not enough to put it into the top 10.

Here is the solution for the simple crossword above.

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Place 18 (Part 2) goes to Kelsey Adams

See the entry above for the commentary about Kelsey’s crosswords.

Here is the solution for the NY Times–style crossword above.

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Place 17 goes to Silver Raven (website)

[Artist’s comment: I couldn’t fit more than four characters in this drawing, and I’m sorry if they don’t exactly looks like the original, and yes, Ryn is doing the ninja running style. :3]

I like the look of the chibi characters, especially Viviana. But the background would have needed to be a bit more elaborate to make it into the top 10.

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Place 16 goes to Yume Star

[Artist’s comment: My favorite characters!]

The use of colors is the strongest point of this drawing of Ilias and Viviana.

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Place 15 goes to Gian Pusung (website)

Gian Pusung has also submitted another drawing that made it into the top 10.

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Place 14 goes to Kelsey Adams

[Artist’s comment: The story is loosely structured on the idea of surprises: five times Viviana surprises Ilias, one time Ilias surprises her, and one time Viviana surprises Ilias only to be far more surprised herself just a few minutes later.]

Kelsey reached #5 in the contest 2016 with another piece of Gaia fanfiction titled Alissa and Lilith. While this year’s story is again competently written in a professional manner, it fails to reach such heights because it just retells various scenes from Gaia that feature Ilias and Viviana. I therefore found it lacking in suprising elements.

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Place 13 goes to Neelam Ayuningrum (website)

[Artist’s comment: Artwork is about Viviana escaping from the house in The Red Hall 14.]

The background and Viviana’s body are drawn very well, but her face doesn’t look as good and a recreation of a scene from the comic isn’t super original, so this piece narrowly missed the top 12.