Presenting the charm of pixiv Fantasia's newest edition and how to enjoy it! - Beginners welcome!
*The challenge prompts pixiv users to take leading roles and submit works in accordance to the designated themes.
Three simple steps to participate
1. Choose one state, out of 3 states that are fighting over territory, that you would like to support
2. Create a work that meets the designated theme and features knights, wizards, monsters, world settings, or other fantasy-themed materials
3. Tag your work with the designated tag and post in on pixiv
Your work may be in any form, i.e. an illustration, manga, or a novel, as long as it is something that you can upload on pixiv.
Experience what it feels like to have the state you're rooting for gets destroyed while you're asleep!
── Could you tell us about PFFK?
arohaJ:
PFFK is one of the installments in the pixiv Fantasia series. It is set in a world called Erlandir and it depicts the story of 3 powers who are in conflict with one another--the rebels, the rulers, and the revengers. The story developed into the darkest one in the entire series. The participants all had their own ways of enjoying the challenge, so I hope to introduce some of them today!
Create your own characters
arohaJ:
The world of PFFK is a dark one and so participants tended to submit characters with heavy back stories. I think these characters were the most frequent precisely because of the dark outlook that the world in PFFK has.
arohaJ:
This is something that holds true to all pixiv Fantasia installments, but it is really interesting to get to see that the participants' quirks and hobbies are reflected through the characters they create. Artists who usually draw illustrations of cute characters will submit works that feature lovely characters, for instance. Some artists make it their policy to submit only characters in armors or attractive middle-aged men.
Some illustrations mourned over the death of an official character
arohaJ:
Battles decided the story's development in PFFK and a defeat meant the character who led the troop during the battle would die--this was a grim mechanism that I prepared.
── That must have been a great shock to the participants...
arohaJ:
I think the participants were also surprised when they learned of the rule that whenever a power loses, it would lose its members. Users decide to take part in the challenge because they find a particular state fascinating, so when a battle ends up with their favorite state's defeat and the deaths of its important characters, it'll be such a huge blow to them. Still, when this happened in PFFK, the participants reacted in a way that I didn't see coming.
── What do you mean?
arohaJ:
When one of the key characters, the Red Macbeth, was killed in the battle that took place in Chapter 2 "The Battle of the Tempest Plain", more than 50 illustrations were submitted using the tag Aka no Tsuito (The Red Mourning) to mourn for him.
Build the worldview together using settings and items
What's fascinating about pixiv Fantasia is not only its story but also the fact that it allows the participants to freely create everything that exists in the world where the story takes place. The participants of the challenge build the world together, including designing the splendid buildings that appear in the story, the food that the peoples eat, and more.
── How did these works come to be?
arohaJ:
Official information included only the world map and settings of the states, so these works were born from the participants' power of imagination. Because official settings were sparse, participants had to imagine the nature of a region or a state on their own. The world's state of things, buildings, forms of magic, even cuisines--these were all created by the participants themselves.
Form a guild, look for members, and expand your circle of comrades
arohaJ recommends those who want to enjoy the challenge with other participants of the same mind to build a guild or join one. By creating an order of knights who follow the same codes, wearing the same attire, or fighting for the same cause, we guarantee that you will find yourself getting hooked on the world of pixiv Fantasia.
arohaJ:
I agree. The guild system was something that participants from the early days of pixiv Fantasia came up with and now it's a way for participants to enjoy the challenge, namely by looking for characters who would want to belong to an organization.
The sight of your characters in the same attire is visually impactful and the guild system can also be a starting point of interactions among participants. Also, pixiv Fantasia receives a tremendous number of works each time, so although it may be hard to comprehend every little thing, participants can choose to just focus on a specific group that they like and enjoy the series with this particular group.
Creating fan-works based on other participants' characters
arohaJ:
pixiv Fantasia also allows its participants to freely produce derivative works inspired by not only official settings but also works by other participants.
── What do these derivative works look like?
arohaJ:
Some submitted illustrations that depict other participants' original characters fighting against each other or along each other, putting their differences aside. Being able to see the participants' derivative works is another fascinating part of this challenge.
And sometimes when a story in the challenge is nearing its climax, some participants would submit group illustrations that feature teams of characters who fight together. These illustrations are tagged with pixFan Group Picture. There's just so much power in an illustration that features a bunch of characters in one frame!
── No one would be able to draw these illustrations without love! And it's so palpable!
Let's weave a new tale together.
What kind of drama will unfold in the newest challenge? pixiv Fantasia Last Saga will commence on February 1, 2019. If this article has sparked your interest in the challenge, pick up your tools and start creating now. We're looking forward to your participation.
About pixiv Fantasia
A user-based challenge that arohaJ, the owner of this challenge, started in hopes of enlivening the fantasy genre on pixiv*. The series is a work that has been representing pixiv since its early days and users have lovingly referred to it as pixFan (ピクファン). pixiv Fantasia has been an annual event since 2018 and this year's challenge marks the 11th installment in the series. In total, pixiv Fantasia has managed to garner more than 244,161 works.