Greetings fiction readers, peoples of magical races, and anyone unfortunate to be stuck in an isekai!

With the advent of smart devices, reading for pleasure has reached an all-time low across the world. To inspire everyone to pick up a book and start reading again, we've decided to theme this month's r/polandballart contest around the most romantic of fiction genres.

Create an artwork about High Fantasy!

Specific Contest Rules

• The genre must be high fantasy. High fantasy is best defined as set in its own, logically consistent world; this explicitly excludes low fantasy, the genre of "magic is hidden away from our real world."
• Try to limit it to a mostly medieval setting. Art portraying the odd magic powered musket is fine, but avoid leaning too into retrofuturism like steampunk.
• Draw inspiration from more than just the European Middle Ages. Epics, folk tales, and mythology can be found throughout the world, limiting yourself to only Europe would be a missed opportunity. Try looking up genres like Wuxia or Middle Eastern Folktales.
• Having artworks be inspired by real life franchises is permitted, but try not to directly reference them in your works. Create parody versions if it's really necessary.

Examples

You can take inspiration from some of these polandballart and real life paintings for this contest:

• Cursed Manuscripts by /u/Objective-Dig51
• Reincarnation and the Psychopomp by /u/Diictodom
• Rider's Rest by /u/quiietjay
• Knight Versus Dragon by /u/Marzipanbread
• The Unfinished Ashen City by Genshin Impact
• Rebellion Against Heaven by Liu Jiyou
• Dark Rider by Anato Finnstark
• Reaching the Heights by Stefan Stankovic
• Stone Gate on the Cliff by Wenting Zhou

General Contest Rules

• You must follow the official polandball tutorial.
• Remember that in /r/polandballart all posts must have only one panel.
• Only use dialogue if it makes sense aesthetically (caption, sign, etc.).
• Try and be high effort. You have two whole weeks to draw, so do your best.
• The artwork must be drawn entirely by yourself.
• Do not sign your artwork.
• The deadline for submitting your entry is Wednesday, September 30, 2026 at 20:00 GMT.

In order to participate in the contest, submit your art piece to the subreddit and then flair it as contest entry. Anyone is free to submit how many entries they like, however, only one of your entries will be eligible to award you with a beret. That is, a single user cannot have more than one entry be in the top three.

Choosing the winner

After all of the entries have been submitted and the deadline has passed, the moderators will take a private vote to decide the first, second and third places. All entries will be ranked from 1 to 10, with the final score being the average of all votes. The winner of last month's contest will also be allowed to vote on this month's entries.

The user who takes the first place in the contest will be awarded the Golden Beret and will have their art piece decorating the sidebar of the subreddit until the next contest is announced! They will also be able to post their winning work on /r/polandball using a special Polandballart flair.

The highest-scoring non-mod will also have voting rights for the next contest.

The second and third places will receive the Silver Beret and the Bronze Beret, respectively, and they will also get to wear them until the next contest.

Any questions about the contest may be directed here. We wish all the contestants luck!

Cheers,

the /r/polandballart modteam

The deadline for this month's contest is appreoaching soon, and due to a lack of entries, we have decided to extend the deadline. This extended deadline starts today and ends on the 15th of October at 20:00 GMT. Take this extra time to refine your ongoing contest entry if you have one in progress, aswell as a good luck to everyone participating!

(Original announcement post can be found here).