Winter 2017 Fanart Contest

It's that time of year again - half the world is enjoying the coming of winter, and the other half of the world wishes they were too. You've got ten days of scribbling to get your winter-themed osu! (or community) mascots onto paper and into voting, for a chance to have them included as a seasonal in-game background!

Winter's something of a festive affair in many places in the world, and we have a fine osu! tradition of celebrating its coming with a fanart contest, among other things.

The intrepid artists among us now have the opportunity to pen a winter-themed entry featuring one (or more) of the osu! or community mascots in 10 days.

We'll be placing the pieces up for community voting as is the standard, and the top ten winners will receive 2 months of osu!supporter for either themselves, a friend, or two friends.

The winning entries will also be included into the game's winter 'seasonal' backgrounds pack, which will remain active for the weeks leading up to and after Christmas. We also have a little present brewing to accompany the winning entries, but more on that as we get closer to the end of December!

By the way, did you know that this is Mocha's first winter?

Make sure to read these rules before you begin (even if you are a long-time entrant, please do, as some have changed!):

Rules

• Artists should use the custom templates provided (PSD template / PNG template) when composing their piece as a guideline to understand where the osu! cookie will be placed during the voting process. The templates listed above show where the osu! cookie will be located should your entry make it to the main-menu. An osu! cookie will also be overlaid in the same spot during the voting process, so anything inside the dotted circle WILL NOT be shown either in game, or during the voting process. Also, don't leave the template visible in your work. It looks gross!
• Entries MUST meet the resolution requirements for a main-menu piece - IDEALLY 2732x1536. We've said in the past that 1366x768 is acceptable, and it still kinda is, but 2732x1536 (aka: 2x resolution) is VASTLY superior in pretty much every way for how we prepare the entries, so if you submit a 2732x1536 entry, it WILL look better in the voting phase and also in-game if you manage to win. Entries that are not 1366x768 or 2732x1536 will be discarded.
• All entries must be winter themed. Costume, setting, both or more - however you do it, winter's gotta be involved somehow. Think snowy. Christmas motifs are also fine, but just general winter is absolutely fine too.
• Submit only your own work! This means NO TRACING! This is important enough that we're going to say it twice - NO TRACING! NO REDRAWING! Original content only. Don't embarrass yourself - someone will notice during the voting even if we don't. People will point fingers and laugh. Also, NO TRACING!
• Don't use copyrighted characters from other intellectual properties. You can freely use any of the osu! mascots (pippi, Yuzu, Mocha, Maria) and any of the community mascots (Tama, Aiko, Taikonator, so on), but stay away from using direct representations of characters from other worlds or franchises in your work. Remember that the community mascots are also someone else's creation, so make sure to treat them with the same respect that you'd like your work treated with.

Head on over to the Winter 2017 Fanart Contest listing and enter now!

—Ephemeral