How Fortnite Fans Have Created Some Of Its Most Popular Skins

Head into Fortnite any day of the week and in its real-money virtual store, the Item Shop, you'll find a handful of character outfits, or "skins," on offer for a limited time. Superheroes like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, athletes like LeBron James and Harry Kane, streamers like Ninja and Loserfruit, and so many more return every few weeks or months and are routinely spotted in any pre-match lobby performing TikTok dances, lighting the Bat-Signal, and singing the internet's unofficial anthem, Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."

The initiative to bridge the gap between Fortnite and, well, everything has been growing quickly over the last year. Among the dozens of Marvel, DC, and Star Wars heroes, Grammy-winning musicians, and otherworldly gaming icons like Master Chief and Kratos, some Fortnite players have been talented enough to earn a spot on the digital shelf not through their likeness, but through their artwork. Fan-made skins have been in the game since its early days, and today some of the game's most beloved and oft-seen characters came from the minds of regular players.

How does one go from sharing fan art online to having their character concepts being made a reality in one of the planet's biggest properties? I spoke to several creators to figure that out, and they all unknowingly echoed a similar sentiment: Epic is paying close attention.

SweetRabbitFN's initial concept of the skin today known as Britestorm Bomber received nearly 600 upvotes and dozens of comments, many of them promising to purchase his skin concept if it appeared in-game, in the game's official subreddit last year, and it didn't take long for Epic to reach out. "I got contacted two days [after posting the concept in 2020] and I literally jumped out of my bed when I saw the notification," he told me. "At first, I thought it was fake, but when I checked the account, it was actually the legit Fortnite Reddit account that they use to communicate about updates and stuff."

SweetRabbitFN noted that his original concept centered around a new original character clad in merchandise belonging to the popular Bomber character, who has to date appeared in many variations, or "snapshots" as they're called in-universe, including the Beach Bomber, Dark Bomber, and Bubble Bomber.

After Epic bought the concept from him, the company would go on to turn her into Britestorm Bomber, who sports the classic Ramirez face and body model in a new Bomber variant style reminiscent of the several other Bomber characters Epic made in-house. "Honestly, I love the changes they did," he assured me, admitting he didn't know of the reimagining before he saw it in-game. Six months after Epic reached out, Britestorm Bomber made her debut in the Item Shop earlier this year.

SweetRabbitFN couldn't divulge the terms of their agreement, but whatever the contract stated when signed many months ago, it's not a deal that has left him jaded. "Epic is the best," he said. "No other game company that I can think of has featured so many fan-made skins in-game." How responsive is the company? I asked. "Very helpful and quick with responses."

Though SweetRabbitFN's deal comes more recently, these deals with fan artists seemed to begin in 2018. That was a pivotal year for Fortnite. It included the first major event for the game when Marvel's Thanos appeared on the island, launching the game into its own stratosphere in terms of crossover potential which today has exploded exponentially. It was also the year that Epic Games was sued by Backpack Kid, an amateur rapper who claimed Epic stole his dance move, The Floss, and sold it as an emote without brokering any sort of deal with the artist. Later, Fresh Prince star Alfonso Ribeiro sued as well, when he saw Epic selling his famous Carlton dance in the game.

This led to Epic removing both dances from the game. Today, when the company wants to include a dance move made famous online--usually on TikTok--the details of the in-game emotes mention their original creators by name, suggesting that these dancers, like concept artists, are now being negotiated with. It's a practice that seems to be improving with time, but even today Epic still receives fair criticism from others, such as Innersloth, who feel the game's recent Impostor mode crosses the line between inspiration into duplication.

For concept artist Nollobandz, it was most recently his original character Ava who was bought and reimagined by Epic as part of the Fortnite Crew Pack for July 2021. Players who subscribe to Fortnite Crew unlock one exclusive character every month, alongside additional cosmetics, a stipend of V-Bucks, and more. Ava, or Summer Skye as she was eventually named in-game, is the first Fortnite Crew Pack to come from the mind of a fan. Like SweetRabbitFN, Nollobandz praised Epic for the company's responsiveness. "The way Epic connects with the creative community is awesome," he said. "I’ve never seen another company or game really allow their players to get their ideas into the game like this."

Nollobandz has seen several of his original concepts make it into the game since Epic first reached out in 2018. Included along with Summer Skye and Dark Rex are Eco, a walking monument to the Chapter 1 map, and Lyra, inspired heavily by the mythological Medusa. Three of those skins have debuted this year, and today Nollobandz says Epic is just a DM away. "I might pitch an idea every once in a while, ask a question, or they reach out to me," he told me. "It's definitely not an every day (or even every week) kind of thing, but the door for communication is still open and I am very grateful for that."

While Nollobandz echoed SweetRabbitFN's praise for Epic, he also reiterated that once an artist signs their concept over to Epic, they can lose sight of when or how it will appear. Creators are told when their concepts will debut and asked to stay tight-lipped until then, but after that initial run, even the artists don't know when they'll be back in the Item Shop.

This can complicate things for artists because they, like other content creators in the Fortnite world, are often given Creator Codes, which allows them a portion of the earnings Epic makes when players buy cosmetic items using their codes. Naturally, many players elect to use the code belonging to an artist when buying that artist's creation, but artists can't easily promote that buying behavior when they don't know when their own skins may return.

Artists also sell their concepts as-is, but Epic reserves the right to alter them as it sees fit, which is how an original character like Ava is eventually sold as Summer Skye, a variant of an already existing character from a 2020 battle pass. It seems even with Fortnite's open-door policy, which basically allows for anyone from any property to appear on the island and be given the narrative cover of a sci-fi multiverse, the company still has some preferences for when to introduce wholly new characters and when to give someone like the ubiquitous Jonesy or Ramirez a new outfit.

For what it's worth, Nollobandz didn't seem upset about any of this, saying, "If you make concept art, especially for the biggest game on the planet, you have to be open to the idea that some things will change and not every little detail will make it through." Still, it seems to me like one area where Epic can be even more forthcoming with its fan art community.

While some fan-made characters appear in the Item Shop and others in the Fortnite Crew, perhaps the greatest honor is to have your custom skin appear in a seasonal battle pass, and for RexSadio, that's what happened last summer. The charmingly strange body-building cat Meowscles is an original concept from RexSadio, but new players today would find his face plastered on billboards across the island, on the bathing suits of other characters, and more. Like Tomatohead and Aura before him, it feels like he's always been a part of Fortnite, despite coming from someone outside of Epic.

As with the others, Epic first reached out to RexSadio via Reddit. "I was in Hawaii for vacation at the time and as I was lying down on the sofa trying to cool myself down with an electric fan," he told me. "I noticed a message request on my Reddit account from an Epic Games employee. I remember having mixed feelings about this because we were only in Season 3 at the time and I had never heard of or seen a concept being added into the game before. So I decided to inspect the employee’s Reddit account and I was surprised. The employee was legit!" He added that he tried to contain himself when he replied in order to "act cool and professional."

RexSadio's first skins to make it into Fortnite were Scoundrel and Jailbird, a pair of common crooks who were among the earliest fan-made skins to come to Fortnite in 2018. It was the fall of 2019, about a year and a half after RexSadio's debut, when Epic reached out once more regarding his "Buff Cat" concept, "and four months later [Meowscles] was announced as one of the agents for the [spy-themed] battle pass!" he exclaimed. Meowscles has since been reimagined by Epic in a Golden Age cartoon style, Toon Meowscles, while RexSadio works on a follow-up of his own, "Pawlice," a critter working in law enforcement who is on a mission to hunt down Jailbird and Scoundrel.

Like the others, RexSadio had no complaints about Epic's process when working with previously amateur artists. "They have given so many creative artists out there amazing opportunities [and they] are super responsive and helpful when it comes to collaborating," he told me.

Though I was able to confirm that Epic pays for artist concepts, those I spoke to remained tight-lipped about just how much they receive. Details such as whether they get residual payments with successive Item Shop appearances, and whether Epic pays a flat fee or perhaps more for a concept it knows will be featured more prominently remain mysteries. I dwell on these questions because of the leaked document that revealed the pay disparity Epic would pay publishers for their games to appear as free games in the Epic Games Store.

All of this fan involvement came to a head just this summer when Epic announced the Concept Royale contest, which invited fans to submit their character concepts to be used in this holiday season's in-game event. The related hashtag indicates that Epic is looking beyond Reddit for its fan-made skins these days. Hundreds, if not thousands, of players submitted their creations over the last several weeks. Epic just revealed the winners last week, and for once did reveal a sum of $2,500 in prize money for the winners. However, we can reasonably assume that these skins operate on a different pay scale since they'll be unlocked for free when players take on the wintry challenges later this year, as opposed to most other fan concepts which are sold for real money with each Item Shop appearance.

Like the others, the Concept Royale winners lbdart_ and AltaCalls had only glee to share regarding their concepts being selected as the winners. "I really do feel so honored that the Fortnite team chose my concept over so many other amazing concepts created by incredibly talented artists," said AltaCalls, who said his Forager concept is among the most challenging he's ever designed. lbdart_, or Ladiale, meanwhile, said she "cried and screamed with emotion when I got told I was chosen as a winner since this is my first concept ever. It's a dream I never thought I could accomplish."

In each of these five cases, among others I learned of, the story was always told the same: an artist would share their concept art online, Epic would rather promptly reach out and work out an agreement which at least sometimes involved an NDA and always involved a paid deal of an undisclosed amount in exchange for the character concept, all before Epic would debut the fan creation in the game, typically within a few months.

Some artists would submit several concepts before Epic reached out for their first commission, while others have already seen several come to the game. Many other artists have yet to hear from the company at all, of course, but in a community this large with plans that seem to include world domination of a sort, it's notable that anyone at Epic is even following along.

It gives me a sense, as an outsider watching it all, that no talented artist is wasting their time. Whereas with most other game communities, exceptional fan art can earn you a retweet and some praise at most, Fortnite's flexible story universe and Epic's eagle-eyed social team can combine to turn any artist's concept into the next Fortnite star--though just how much that earns its creator remains an open question.