Twitch creates badge for emote artists

Twitch appears to be adding a new way for streamers to thank their favorite artists. The platform has created a special badge for emote artists, according to Twitch commentator Zach Bussey.

Like the green moderator badge and pink VIP badge, the emote artist badge will likely have limited slots. It’s also likely that streamers will be able to manually assign it to their emote artists. The emote artist badge is blue and white and features a painter’s palette with a paintbrush on top of it.

Creators on Twitch have been calling for a special way to thank their channel and emote artists for years. Since 2017, one of the top badge suggestions on Twitch’s user feedback site is for Twitch to create a “paintbrush badge” for emote artists. This suggestion was posted over four years ago, but it seems like Twitch may have finally taken notice.

Based on T1Appalled’s suggestion, user Vessi wrote that “artists who draw Twitch emotes have contributed so much to the Twitch community yet receive so little recognition on Twitch for all their work. It’d be nice if these artists could receive some sort of ‘Global Paintbrush Badge’ as recognition for all the hard work they put into creating emotes.”

They go on to suggest that more established emote artists who have worked on more than 50 channels could receive a special “verified” version of the paintbrush badge to indicate their status as a prolific emote artist. Twitch’s iteration of this idea doesn’t appear to incorporate any verification or special status for emote artists that have worked on multiple channels.

While Twitch’s forthcoming paintbrush badge appears to be a more simplified execution of T1Appalled’s initial idea, it will allow streamers to give their emote artists a special badge. It’s unclear whether the emote artist badge will be available for all Twitch channels or if it’ll be restricted to just Twitch partners and affiliates.

This isn’t the first time the Twitch community has suggested ideas that go on to become a part of the platform. In 2018, YouTube partner Inventor Blades suggested that Twitch should add a “loyalty system” where viewers could earn points by watching channels and be able to redeem those points for rewards. This sounds a lot like Twitch’s channel points system, which was released in 2019.

Right now, many Twitch streamers thank their emote artists by crediting them on their channel pages, but the paintbrush badge is certainly a welcome addition. It’s unknown when the new emote artist badge will go live on Twitch.