BioWare Fan Club Guidelines

10 min read

Deviation Actions

BiowareFanClub's avatar
Published:
8.1K Views
Illustrated Art Submission GuidelinesOk. We get it that you’re busy. And maybe don’t have a lot of time to read. But here at the club, we’re trying to keep up with our motto to collect the best of the best by fans, for fans, you know? So we gotta have standards. Yup, standards. And we’re not trying to say you shouldn’t submit anything just because you’re not a pro. But we do want to see the best of what you’ve got when you submit!
To make things easy, we’ve updating our posting guidelines here with pictures! You’ll probably still want to read our full guidelines if you’re a rules stickler (and also if you get declined) but we’ll go over the basics.
The number one and most important rule: The BioWare Fan Club will only accept FAN created work fully done by you, digitally or traditionally. We’re not picky about whether you drew it by hand or as a photo-manipulation, but it does need to show EFFORT and it needs to be r


Checklist for Art:

o Is the work original? (Not a screenshot, obvious trace, or superficial image manip.)
o Is the line art polished (vs rough or sketchy)?
o Is it a complete? (vs W.I.P.)?
o Is the sketch shaded and polished?
o Is the line art inked?
o Is the art colored?
o Is the coloring consistent?
o Is the photo manipulation superficial (simplistic filtering, color change)?
o Is the photo manipulation polished (no obvious cuts, rough color changes, etc.)
o Is the digital art textured and well-rendered?

Mature subject matter should be properly categorized by DeviantArt standards. This includes:

o nudity
o excessive gore
o explicit sex, yaoi, or yuri




Checklist for Fiction:

o Is the writing safe for work? (E.g. not beyond PG-13 for sexually or violently explicit material?)
o Is the work in English?
o Is the work set in a BioWare universe?
o Does the work feature BioWare characters?
o Is the formatting correct for standard English?
o Is it a complete story (not a drabble or flash fiction)


Club Policies
  1. First, submissions not meeting club criteria will be subject to a decline without comments. Please refer back to this Guideline if you have questions!
  2. Club members are encouraged to write articles to submit to our Blog!
  3. Contributor status will be granted to long-standing members with top quality submissions; please apply by petitioning an Admin



It's always sad to get a rejection in your inbox, and we don't like giving them out, either. But your acceptance of this club's membership comes with acceptance of our rules and submission guidelines. Reviewing the guidelines in advance informs you of what you can or can't submit, and gives you advance notice of what might be rejected.

The guidelines are not meant to discourage submissions. To make it a great club experience for all, however, the Admins here have made a few assumptions:

a) we assumed that you joined the BioWare Fan Club to see awesome art (and fiction),
b) you'd like to encourage others to make awesome art and fiction, and
c) you want talk about BioWare games with people who make awesome art and fiction.

To this end, we'd like to make it as easy as possible to see the good stuff, and still preserve an area for everything fannish ever produced.

Posting Guidelines

Our goal at the BiowareFanClub is to present the best BioWare fan creations on DeviantArt by fans, for fans.

Though we welcome submissions from all members, no matter your skill or background, as more and more members join up and submit, it's become clear that we need to set standardized guidelines for the art and fiction categories.

The Admin Stuff:

1) The number one and most important rule: The BioWare Fan Club will only accept FAN created work fully done by you, digitally or traditionally. You can use bases, photo-manipulations, 3D art etc. Crafts are accepted provided the photo is of decent quality and composition. You are allowed to collaborate with other writers and artists *with their permission* and you *must* credit them!  

We’re not picky about whether you drew it by hand or as a photo-manipulation, but it does need to show EFFORT and it needs to be recognizable as FANART. (e.g. characters need to look like they come from a BioWare game.)

This means that art must display motifs and designs that are recognisable as coming from the BioWare franchise the art is based in. This includes (but isn't limited to) tattoos, armor/clothing design, accessories, heraldry, background patterns, building design, creature design etc.

Particularly for portraits of Player Characters and non-canon Original Characters, if the art looks too generic, there's a high probability that it will not be accepted. So be warned!

2) Straight screenshots, superficial manipulations, character sheets, written descriptions, etc. will *not* be accepted into the club. (It is okay to have stats and descriptions accompanying an artwork, it's just that the text cannot be the primary submission.)

3) Only finished, polished artwork should be submitted to the group gallery. The official gallery folders are to showcase polished, complete work. Fully finished line arts or black and white artwork of high quality are acceptable as gallery submissions.

4) Bad artwork and fiction *will* be declined. Illustrated artwork with disproportionate body parts, inconsistent coloring, shoddy line art, etc. will not be accepted. 3D renderings that do not demonstrate composition, lighting, and effort at texturing will be rejected. Fiction with terrible grammar, obvious spelling mistakes, etc. will not be accepted. Submissions which are unfinished, such as scraps, rough sketches, WIPs etc will be moved to the "Sketches" folder if they are of reasonable quality.

5) Please, mature filters on and no overly gratuitous sex or violence. We *will* enforce this.

6) Keep in mind that this is a Bioware fan gallery -- player characters and original characters are welcome, but if they're not recognizable as BioWare characters, we can't accept them! :O

7) COPYRIGHT CAUTION: Be careful when using references -- copyright infringement is a complicated issue, even more so because we waffle in fandom. BioWare's stance on fan creations is that they are allowed as long as you are respectful and CITE BioWare as the original copyright owner. You can read up further on the BioWare Fan Club's community values and policies here

If you are ever in doubt as to the acceptability of a piece of fan work, you can ping the administrators Korbeaux, DragonReine, RiHouston, InverseReality-2 or Lweeling .

Fanfiction

Fanfiction is thoroughly welcome! We ask that all work be complete and original. This means that stories can be short, and chapter stories are accepted, but all stories need to have the structural elements of a beginning, middle, and end (basic Three Act Structure). If you're not familiar with how to write a story, please consult many of the wonderful resources available on the web (example: Eight Point Arc). Small song or poems for snippets from other sources are okay if you cite it, but this can't be the bulk of the writing.

Drabbles and incomplete pieces without full story progression (exposition, rising action, climax, denouement) are not accepted.

To make it easy for readers to find what they want, we ask that you provide the following at the top of your fanfics so that readers can easily preview the content:

Title:
Author:
Game:
characters/pairing:
Disclaimer:

Other Good Stuff

Understanding Copyright: BioWare has been *extremely* friendly to fans in the past in allowing us to use their intellectual properties (e.g. licensed characters, stories, worlds), and as fans, it benefits us to respect the rights and properties of BioWare's copyrighted and trademarked material. Fair use in the United States means that you should not use someone else's intellectual property (or IP) without their express permission for commercial gain (aka money) but you can use it for non-commercial personal enjoyment as long as you cite the source (and just to be on the safe side, make sure to note that BioWare is the copyright holder). There are online users who specifically target fanartists in order to harass them regarding copyright, so educate yourself! Your best way to protect yourself is to understand what your rights are, and what you are/are not allowed to do. Here are some links you can read up at:

deviantArt Copyright and Art Theft Discussion Post
20 Facts about copyright
10 Big Myths about copyright explained
The Copyright Site
10 Copyright Permission Myths (by a lawyer!)

Please note that BioWare has stated in the past that they allow fan creations as long as you are respectful and cite that BioWare is the original copyright holder in your work.

Blogs: All members are welcome to post blogs on recent news in gaming or the BioWare universe. Don't be shy, speak up!

© 2011 - 2024 BiowareFanClub
Comments28
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Ladyofpayne's avatar
Please can you tell me why this art was declined?
Orlesian Grey Wardens by Ladyofpayne