Halloween 2021 Fanart Contest Results

The height of spooky night is nearly upon us, and to celebrate, we've got twenty new finalists from our latest Halloween fanart contest to help set the mood!

With nearly ten thousand unique voters having their say over the course of a single week, it's clear to say that osu!'s long-standing tradition of adoring Halloween continues well into 2021.

You've struggled through the horror of having to choose only 20 entries out of 150 absurdly talented entries, and it is now time to see the fruit of your labours rise from the grave and park themselves in-game as our latest Seasonal backgrounds.

Witness true horror below (or open up your game and check it out):

As usual, you can click on any of the banner images to be taken to a high-resolution version of the entry without the osu! cookie!

4987 voters could not resist the terminal spookage of Dreamxiety's costumes for pippi and Chirou, who are dressed as a pumpkin witch and... pumpkin respectively. Ghosts watch on in awe at Chirou's balancing skills, or in anticipation of her about to fall into an open grave and become hilariously stuck. Possibly both.

Dreamxiety has been a regular in our fanart contests for a while now, and this marks the first time she's taken top spot among the finalists with a hugely solid lead that only lengthened as the voting went on. To be fair, with a rendition as cute as this one, it isn't really that surprising! Well done!

nyab- earned the approving glare of 4507 voting-owls for their take on pippi and Aiko in a witch costume and a black cat getup respectively.

Special attention to their eyes and clever design when it comes to the osu! cookie here really makes this one pop, and it's no surprise that it scored as well as it has. Simply gorgeous!

4152 souls could not resist the allure of eulorie's absurdly cute witch pippi and neko Mocha proudly showing off their costumes to an adoring audience of bats and ghosts.

The ghosts are crying from the eternal torment of having so many good entries and so few votes to spend on them. A true night of horrors, indeed.

Porukana is back again for another fanart contest with 3749 votes, this time showcasing a most demonic pippi and a broom-riding Mocha flying high throughout a twilight sky with a shooting star sailing in the distance.

Beautiful use of colour, gradient and lighting really brings this one home. I strongly suspect many desktop backgrounds will be the resting place of this entry in the future!

3358 voters threw their keyboards at their monitor in pure horror at Phoebe Yu's SUPREMELY spooktacular entry, featuring something that was once pippi and Mocha staring expectantly into your soul, presumably as they prepare to consume it.

This one really wins points for the whole Halloween theme! So much so in fact, that we've had to make the very sad decision to omit it from the main-menu display for fear of jumpscaring our younger audience half to death every time they open the game. Still, a stunning entry (quite literally), well done!

Rumour has it that players who think skills are "genetic" and spend all their time methodically squeezing the fun out of the game may receive a visit from these two on the night of Hallow's End... if this sounds like you, there's still time to repent!

3350 voters gladly obliged Kondroel's egg-Chirou and serial-killer pippi for door-to-door candy. Even a don is getting in on the costume action as a demon cat familiar.

Kondroel continues to impress in the voting and abroad, with this entry also ending up at the top of a very popular osu! related subreddit in the early days of the vote too. It isn't hard to see why, between their unique style and incredible attention to colour and detail.

Also, Egg Chirou. That is all. Egg.

Sjao sent 3329 voters screaming in terror at a very bloody vampire Mocha rising from her coffin in a sea of sanguine-hued grass, obviously awaiting her next victim.

Judging from where all that blood of hers appears to be stored, it seems she's had quite a few victims already. Horror beyond compare!

3284 could not resist the demand of MistyCRose's jiangshi pippi and Mocha to dance or die in a celestially-lit graveyard with glowing flowers.

In a bit of mild trivia, this entry technically has the osu! cookie in it despite the big angry letters telling people not to do such a thing, except that this time it is featured in the overall composition of the piece! Very clever. You and your dancing vampires get away with it this time, MistyCRose, but don't think this means you've won!

3282 voters humbly threw their stars behind Dem4eg-'s rendition of a bunny-girl pippi and vampire Mocha both asking and (cutely) intimidating the viewer for their candy.

Clearly, pippi has won this exchange given she already has a lollipop. What's that, you say? There's something else different about this entry? I have no idea what you're talking about.

Arind wooed 3252 voters with their take on a (formerly) shackled vampire princess pippi, complete with extra spooky red eyes and an entourage of ghosts simply unable to cope with how adorable she is.

Can you blame them?

3159 voters approved of tsru's triple-take on Alisa, Aiko and pippi (plus a don) sporting fancy costumes in an equally as fancy graveyard. The crying ghost hiding behind pippi is just saying, "you'll vote for this, won't you?" Or maybe it's just terrified of Alisa's angelic radiance. It could be both, we'll never know.

3054 voters simply could not say no to Evermythic's take on a witch-costumed pippi and an ashen Mocha donned in frills.

The composition and framing of this piece drew my eye in particular, managing to make the background feel a lot more alive than is standard for fanart contests without detracting from the mascots themselves any. Very impressive!

Contest veteran xxxxxx2800 returns with 3052 votes for a stunning rendition of Mr. Skeltal himself courting an aloof vampire princess pippi with the smoothest of bony flamencos. Or just an ordinary ball-dance.

pippi may not look especially impressed with these high-calcium dance moves, but come on - the guy is blindfolded! He can't even see! Granted, it isn't like he had eyes in the first place...

2860 glanced into the near future with Swarmsii's cyberpunky Halloween vista showcasing more osu! (and meme) related place names than you could shake a stick at. Plus, there's costumed mascots hiding out in there, if you can find them!

An interesting spin on the theme for sure, and bonus points for blimp-don.

HiROdoge's most spooky Chirou and witch pippi terrified 2810 voters into pushing the button. Who am I kidding, they're not terrifying, they're adorable. Even the Taikonator's getting in on the fun here, as well as a franken-don.

2672 voters sat on a pumpkin with MyAngelNeptune's costumed pippi before a big full moon. It just isn't Halloween without tiny hats. Everybody knows this, and MyAngelNeptune clearly made the People's Choice.

2614 voters fell for Tin Can's most ghoulish trick: reverse Halloween! A red-eyed bunny girl pippi, neko Mocha and terrifying ghost hoodie Aiko would normally come to take your candy, but this time they're giving it to you!

pippi doesn't look all that happy about it, but sharing is caring at least! You just know Mocha's told her to share things this time with the expression she's got.

moeyaki's colourful Halloween blitz impressed 2498 voters, featuring a most frilly witch pippi taking to the skies and losing half of her hard-earned candy in the process.

Beautiful use of framing and an evocative palette in this one, and especially creative in having timelapse cars as the quintessential Halloween orange.

yooka enthralled 2460 voter-ghosts into watching a most skeletal Chirou hold a candelight vigil for some cleverly designed mascot dolls. Or perhaps she turned them into said dolls.

So much done here without any colour! Typically, monochrome entries struggle in the voting but with a style as evocative as this, it's clear to see that the gambit worked out.

ZunK's take on an exceedingly adorable witch pippi impressed 2280 voters with that smile. That wonderful, wonderful smile. Mocha flying for her life in the background clearly must be from the fact that she just cannot handle the smile.

Download a zip archive containing all the winning entries here!

You'll find that all (bar one) of the above are live now in-game as the Seasonal backgrounds for Halloween. They won't be around for long, so make sure to enjoy them while you can! The magic of Hallow's Eve is a fickle thing and dissipates quickly once the time has passed, after all.

A big thank you to everyone who entered and voted! You can find the full voting results over at the Halloween 2021 Fanart Contest listing, so head on over to have a gawk if your favourite didn't make it to the finalists or if you're just curious how things went.

The true horror of Halloween is that it spells the beginning of the end of the year in a way, which means there's only another month or so until our Winter fanart contest rolls around to cap things off. We hope to see both artist and voter alike join us to send the year off in snowy style, so make sure to be there at the start of December!

—Ephemeral