As the mists of October draw ever closer, the artists of the osu! community have only one thing on their mind: spooky month. Turn your tablets to their true and terrible purpose in our latest Fanart Contest!
Chills and thrills abound during spooky month, and as always, we're throwing skills into the mix too by inviting any brave enough to put their work up for voting. It begins with just one question: do you like to draw?
If so, you're in luck! Draw any of the osu! mascots (or community mascots) in a Halloween theme or setting for fun and a chance at glory and possibly even some sweet profile loot to boot.
You've got 21 days from the date of this post to conjure up your harrowing Halloween spectacle, but only once you've CAREFULLY read the rules listed out below.
As always, a selection of the top-voted finalists will make it into the game client as our special Halloween 2023 seasonal background, and their artists will nab 3 months of osu!supporter to commemorate their effort. The top three voted entries will also have their pieces made into bespoke profile badges in honour of their grand victory.
Got all that? Great, time to get on to the rest:
By submitting your artwork to this contest, you grant us permission to use your artwork in the main menu client should it win, and to use it in promotional material for both the game (osu!) and the contest (Halloween 2023 Fanart Contest). You retain all rights to your creation and you can sell it and distribute it however you like — it is your work, after all. We're just saying here that if you submit your piece to this contest, you should be okay with us using it.
All entries MUST follow the contest theme (Halloween) and contain AT LEAST one of the osu! official or community mascots. Wouldn't be an osu! fanart contest without at least one of our beloved mascots, would it?
All entries MUST be suitable for all-ages viewing. Keep the actual gore out of your art pieces! Some blood is fine, just be reasonable with it.
SUBMIT ONLY YOUR OWN WORK. REDRAWING AND COMPOSITE WORKS ARE NOT ALLOWED. Plagiarism sucks. Don't do it. Someone in the comments will call you out for it as has happened every other time someone's tried and they're going to do more damage to your reputation than us removing your entry from the voting will do. Use only your own work — brushes and the like are fine, but that's it! Don't redraw someone else's work.
Generative art programs or methods (such as AI) are not allowed. This includes any kind of software that has you supply a written or visual prompt and fills in large amounts of details for you. We will know if you do this. If we somehow miss it, the community won't. Don't sully your legacy as an artist!
Artist attribution (names, social media handles, etc.) must be limited to no more than three lines total and confined to any corner of your entry. Being proud of your work is good, just do it in a reasonably small spot of your work. One thing unique to osu!'s history is that we really don't like forced advertisement, and attribution that is too large can come across like it.
Entries MUST meet the resolution requirements for a main-menu piece — namely 2732x1536. THIS IS CHECKED BY A SCRIPT AND ENTRIES THAT DO NOT MATCH THIS REQUIREMENT WILL BE DISCARDED AUTOMATICALLY. This remains the #1 reason for distressed emails sent after the contest about why an entry didn't make it in. Even ONE pixel off is enough. Export your creations at the correct resolution!
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 on the main menu and during the voting process. The circular spot in the middle shows where the main-menu cookie will be when inside the game. Factor this in when designing your piece, as anything inside it is likely not going to be seen. This doesn't mean leaving a big circular hole full of nothing in the middle! Be creative.
Make sure you don't leave it visible in your end result.
Do not leave the dotted osu! cookie template visible in your submission. Leave the meme in the grave, where it belongs.
If you're using characters from other intellectual properties, do so sparingly. All the official osu! mascots and the community mascots are fair game, but please avoid using excessive representations of characters from other worlds or franchises in your work - the contest is about osu! foremost, after all. Remember also that the community mascots are someone else's treasured creation, so please treat them with the same respect that you'd treat your own OCs and work.
When you think you're ready, head on over to the Halloween 2023 Fanart Contest listing and drag-drop your entry into the box with the plus sign in it.
You can delete and resubmit your entry at any time and as many times as you like before the contest closes and voting starts. This is ideal for the creative types who finish something then notice one pixel out of the four million, one hundred and ninety-six thousand, three hundred and fifty-two that they just placed is slightly off.
We look forward to seeing your creations!
—Ephemeral
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