BFS Art Competition

Welcome to the BFS art competition. With a first prize of £100 and publication in the following edition of BFS Horizons, it’s no wonder we receive so many wonderful entries from members and non-members alike.

We are open for submissions from 1st April until 30th June this year. Entries are judged by BFA award winner, Art Editor of BFS Horizons,  Jenni Coutts – with guest judges TBA.

The BFS strives to be an inclusive organisation and our competition is open to anyone and everyone, whether member or not, whether your art has been previously published or exhibited or not.

Prizes

*Depending on the format suitability of your work, 1st prize will be offered first refusal of the front cover of BFS Horizons. If this is not suitable, or if the first prize winner declines, the cover will be offered to the second, then third prize winner in turn. Other options for featuring in internal pages include if the image can be successfully printed in black and white. All prize winners will be featured in the BFS blog in their original format (resized for the web).

Submissions

Please only use one of the forms below. Maximum three files may be submitted. The first form is for BFS members who are submitting a single free entry. In all other cases, please use the second option “Paid entries”. Please read the rules first.

THE COMPETITION IS CLOSED FOR THIS YEAR. Please try again next year.

How it works …

Rules …

Please read these rules carefully,  it’s always a shame when we have to disqualify someone because of a technicality. These rules are here to enable our judges to remain fair and impartial and judge your work on a consistent footing with others. 

1. The artwork must have some fantastical, speculative or horror element to it to qualify.
2. All current members of the BFS are entitled to one free entry to the competition. This is a benefit of membership. One submitted piece = one entry.
3. Current BFS committee post-holders are not allowed to enter the competition.
4. The competition is open to both members and non-members of the society, but non-members must pay a £5 entry fee per entry.
5.  Artwork must be your original work. You must hold sole copyright for your artwork, the world, and the characters, except interpretations of public domain work, however, you must provide evidence in your cover note to prove this is public domain and permitted use, including any textual elements.
6. Artwork must be previously unpublished in any form. This means they must not have been published in books, magazines, newspapers, on websites, phone apps, or have been broadcast on TV,  etc. You may have shared them on social media for promotion, as long as they were not offered for sale or download.
7. No simultaneous submissions. This means your artwork must not be under consideration by another competition, or publication.
8. Entrants must be 18 years old or over.
9. We request that you refrain from sending images depicting full frontal nudity of any gender, images that can be classified as pornography, images that may be considered overly distressing, or excessively graphic violence and gore (unless this is heavily stylised). We have a zero tolerance policy for images that may be considered hate speech or images that target groups based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disabilities, or other protected characteristics.
10. Judges’ decisions are final.
11. Should your artwork be a prize winner we will request a six-month moratorium subsequent to the publication in BFS, after which time you are free to publish elsewhere.
12. Should your entry be unsuccessful, you are free to send it elsewhere immediately after the announcement of the results on the BFS website.
13. No AI generated artwork will be accepted. Any artist found to have submitted AI generated work will be barred from entry to all future competitions and publications by the BFS.

Submission Guidelines …

Technical specifications

• Accepted file formats: .jpg or .pdf.
• Please place all entry files (3 maximum) into a .zip file. Each file inside should be named with the title of the piece and your artist name, e.g. “Fantasy Unicorn – Jane Smith.jpg”
• Maximum upload size for .zip file – 2MB
• Files for print will need to be a minimum of 450dpi, but for competition entries we do not need files to be this size. However a file at this higher resolution must be available if work is accepted for print. If your work is a winner, we will request the full format files later, and will be open to other formats at that time. We will discuss which is the best way to send them, such as shared repository links, at that time.
• Cover art: If you are sending art that you hope will be suitable for front cover, it should be in a CYMK colour profile for printing to ensure colours remain vibrant and should be able to be sized to A5 without significant cropping. Please also note that the BFS logo and cover text will need to be placed over the illustration.
• For any art suitable for internal illustrations: unfortunately, at this time we can only accept black and white images, or images that will render well when converted to this. These can be of any size.
• We will also be publishing the winners to our blog and will resize the entries to fit the website’s format and size limitations.

Submission Process

• Complete the submission form above
• Attach your art file(s) as a zip containing only the permitted files. Each file inside the zip archive constitutes one entry.
• In the additional information section give the title of the story, the word count and PayPal transaction number (if applicable).
• If you are a current BFS Member, please give your membership number.
• If you are not a BFS member, or if you are a BFS member entering a second or third entry, there is a £5 fee per entry.
• We welcome submissions from outside the UK; our payment systems will convert your currency.