Time to share your skills
Push Your Limits and Compete for Glory
Challenge yourself and unleash your creativity with our exciting contests that are designed to push you out of your comfort zone and bring out your best work.
Rookie Awards 2024
Discover the 14th Annual Rookie Awards – your gateway to the creative industries! Showcase your talent, win amazing prizes, and get noticed by the world's top studios. Whether you're a student, hobbyist, or emerging artist, this global platform is your chance to shine. Join now!
Meet Mat 3 - The 3D Digital Painting Contest
Adobe Substance 3D introduced our little mascot with the first Meet MAT contest back in 2017, he has become kind of a big deal. With hundreds of paint jobs, a dedicated book, collectible figurines and various 3D printed versions, MAT has been busy! And today, MAT is back. He changed a bit. He grew. He needs new texturing, new looks. He needs you.
Archived Contests
On behalf of the sponsors and judges, The Rookies would like to congratulate the following category winners.
Rookie Awards 2023
The 13th Annual Rookie Awards is open to young creatives in visual effects, animation, games, virtual reality, motion graphics and 3d visualisation. There is simply no better way to launch your career and start sharing your amazing work online.
Autodesk - RIG.B
Bring RIG.B to life in this Autodesk sponsored contest: enter one of three categories, Animation, Texturing, or FX!
Adobe Substance 3D - Robot Challenge
To celebrate Substance 3D becoming free for all students we have teamed up with Adobe to create a new fun challenge.
Winter Stories - A Lighting & Rendering Challenge
It's time to turn your winter blues into positive creative energy and channel it into some beautifully crafted 3D imagery.
Rookie Awards 2022
The 12th Annual Rookie Awards is open to young creatives in visual effects, animation, games, virtual reality, motion graphics and 3d visualisation. There is simply no better way to launch your career and start sharing your amazing work online.
Netflix & Skill - Stranger Things
Show us your skill, not your chill. Design, Render or Animate something that represents Stranger Things - An American science fiction horror drama television series. The series as a mix of investigative drama alongside supernatural elements portrayed with horror, science fiction and childlike sensibilities.
Knight Spider Animation Challenge
Here’s a challenge for all you aspiring animators looking to expand your talents. Rookie Alumni, Mehmet Tayfur Türkmenoğluwe has created an original character called Knight Spider using Autodesk Maya. This cool character has then been professionally rigged by Mike Fabris from Dr Reel https://www.drreel.com.
Adobe Substance 3D - Virtual Photography
Adobe has just dropped Adobe Substance 3D, a collection of powerful 3D tools for both professionals and young artists. Let's take it for a spin!
Flash Gordon Modeling Contest
It's your turn to re-imagine the famous world of science-fiction spaceman hero Flash Gordon and bring our concept art brief to life in this modeling challenge.
Rookie Awards 2021
The 11th Annual Rookie Awards is open to young creatives in visual effects, animation, games, virtual reality, motion graphics and 3d visualisation. There is simply no better way to launch your career and start sharing your amazing work online.
World of Real-time Discoveries
Discovering new worlds with their own life, creatures and biomes has always been something spectacular for the imagination and the adventurous spirit. Whether in movies or in video games, exploring these places is always something exciting and thrilling for the viewer.
Rebelway FX Challenge
With over $13,000 worth of prizes up for grabs what's not to like about this challenge! We are really excited to bring this first ever FX contest to our community in partnership with Rebelway. The team at Rebelway have provided some amazing assets and resources to help meet the contest brief.
Substance Texturing Challenge - Kombi
This texturing challenge requires you to texture a beautiful model of our Kombi van using any of the Substance apps (Substance Painter, Substance Designer or Alchemist).
Animation Challenge - Crazy in Quarantine
We're excited to announce our first animation challenge. This is a theme that should resonate with most people during these crazy days of COVID. We're expecting some dramatic and original animations.
Substance Texturing Challenge - Eddie Robot
Our first texturing challenge requires you to texture Eddie - an amazing 3D robot created by Paul Braddock, using the latest release of Substance Painter.
Forbidden Lands, Fallen Empires and Ancient Guardians
Illustration contest where entrants can win a VIP ticket to Syn Studio Gathering of Masters, Wacom Intuos Pro tablet and ArtStation memberships.
Monster Challenge
Our first Monster Challenge requires you to delve deep into the dark, look inside the closet, and into the shadows to come up with an amazing monster.
Rookie Awards 2020
The 10th Annual Rookie Awards is open to young creatives in visual effects, animation, games, virtual reality, motion graphics and 3d visualisation. There is simply no better way to launch your career and start sharing your amazing work online.
Netflix & Skill - Peaky Blinders
Show us your skill, not your chill. Design, Render or Animate something that represents Peaky Blinders - a notorious gang in 1919 Birmingham, England, is led by the fierce Tommy Shelby, a crime boss set on moving up in the world no matter the cost.
Summer Photorealism
Everyone loves Summer, and everyone has fond memories of what makes this time of year special to you. We want you to share this with us and create a 3d rendering that best represents this.
Circus Challenge
We first launched this challenge back in May 2011. It's time to revisit all the exotic animals, performers and wonder that was created for us all those years ago.
Rookie Awards 2019
Started in 2010, this is our biggest annual contest. It's open to young creatives in visual effects, animation, games, virtual reality, motion graphics and 3d visualisation. There is simply no better way to launch your career and start sharing your amazing work online.
Our Favourite Sponsors
All these contests would not be possible without the support of these amazing companies, and so many more!
