u/sausageandbeer1

Hi r/TolkienArt,

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

This community exists because people love Tolkien's world and the art it inspires. We are lucky that so many of the artists behind that art have chosen to share their work here directly. Today we are pleased to share something we have been working on to better recognise and support the creators among us.

Introducing Artist Flair

From today, verified original artists can apply for Artist Flair. Once approved, your flair appears alongside your username, signalling to the community that you are a genuine, contributing artist.

What Artist Flair unlocks

As a verified artist you will be able to leave a single self-promotion comment on your own OC posts, where you can share links to your portfolio, commissions, shop, or socials. This gives every artist here a meaningful way to connect with the people who love their work.

Why we built it this way

r/TolkienArt has always been a place for art and appreciation, not a marketplace. We wanted to honour that while also recognising that many of our artists are working creators who deserve a space to share what they do beyond this subreddit. The flair system keeps things personal and contextual, tied to real contributions, so the community always knows who they are engaging with.

How to apply

Send a message to the mod team with the subject line 'Artist Flair Application' and include a link to your portfolio or social media showing your work. We will review your application and be in touch.

How to message the mods:

• On desktop scroll down the r/TolkienArt sidebar and click Message the mods under the Moderators section.
• On the app tap the overflow menu (the three dots) in the top right corner of the subreddit page and select Message moderators.

For full details see our wiki: Artist Flair & Self-Promotion

Updates to our Self-Promotion Rules

Alongside the launch of Artist Flair we have updated our self-promotion rules to reflect this new system. Self-promotion is now permitted exclusively through the verified flair system described above. Promotional content in post titles, post bodies, or in the comments of other users' posts remains against the rules.

These changes take effect today. Our full updated rules can be found in the sidebar, and further detail is available in our wiki.

If you have any questions, please reach out via modmail.

The r/TolkienArt Mod Team

Hi Everyone!
The Mod Team wanted to get your thoughts on something.

We’ve been discussing how to better balance showcasing Tolkien-inspired art while still giving artists space to share their work (commissions, shops, etc.), without the sub turning into a stream of self-promo posts.

We absolutely want this to be a place that supports artists and helps people discover their work. We’re also lucky to have some genuinely outstanding artists here who already contribute in a way that really adds to the community, and we want to continue championing that. At the same time, we’re aware that too many promo-style posts can make the feed feel more like ads than a community space.

Before making any changes, we wanted to open this up and hear what the community thinks would feel fair.

Some ideas we’ve seen work in other subs include:
- Using specific flairs for artists
- Keeping self-promotion and external links to comments instead of titles or body of the post
- Limits on how often commissions can be posted
- Weekly self-promo threads

We’re not set on any one approach, just looking for constructive input that helps us support artists while keeping the sub enjoyable for everyone.

What would you like to see?