pixiv's High Schoolers Illustration Contest 2020 Results - A record edition! Who are the most promising high school students?

Naoki Saito: Overall, the level of this contest was very high, to the point that it made me want to check again and again if the participants were really all high school students.

However, I couldn't help but notice how some motifs were featured in the participating entries over and over, almost repetitively. When people first heard that the theme of this contest would be "Festival", I think it's only natural that some popular motifs (fireworks, candy apples) came to mind. Next time, I want all participants to think carefully about what they want to paint through the motifs, rather than just painting them as they are.

If you know what you want to paint, the illustration will turn out to be much more interesting. The winning works all did amazing in this regard.

Masayoshi Tanaka: For starters, I was very surprised to see the number of entries. As a painter, I am so happy to know that young people are drawing illustrations like these, it makes me cry.

I hope that all those who were not awarded a prize this year will continue to draw and post their work on pixiv, and get better and better. This contest was not the goal. People who have the will to participate in these contests have the talent to feed off the experience, and they are the ones who will continue drawing.

Of course, drawing what you want is important, but if you want to go one step further as an illustrator, you should also think about what you want to convey through your pictures and to whom.

To bring you a practical example that you can put into practice right away, you could try cropping your illustrations. If you trim a picture once you think it's finished, you will be able to notice what you wanted the attention to focus and you may even feel like adding some more details.

Don't call it quits when you don't feel like drawing anymore; instead, try working on your illustration objectively, and you may be able to figure out things that you didn't notice before.

Harada: I took a look at all the illustrations in the contest, and the artists are all so good that my heart was about to burst (laughs). I am a manga artist, so I tend to look for a storyline in illustrations. Even if the prompt for this contest was as simple as "Festival", I was fascinated by how unique each artist's perspective was: there were illustrations of people on their way to the festival, scenes happening after the festival, and painting telling the story of someone who didn't attend the festival, but only watched it from a distance.

Seiji Yoshida: Someone told me this contest was aimed at high school students, but I ended up forgetting all about it as I was browsing the participating works. If I may make a note, I would have liked to see a little more objective perspective on the artists' own paintings.

Leaving aside the fact that some of the "Festival" motifs were brought up in quite a repetitive manner, I think these high schoolers will be able to advance to the next level if they can think whether their drawing is going to develop in a straight line or as a curve if they can figure out what they're aiming for and how they want their illustration to be interpreted.

Mai Yoneyama: Everyone was very good at controlling the screen, which tended to get messy seen how the theme for this contest was "Festival". I can tell everybody is accustomed to composition, color, and light management.

lack: Considering that this contest was targeted to high school students, the level was very high and I'm looking forward to seeing how things work out in the future for many of these artists.