ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE MASCOT CONTEST!

Hello everyone! It's been a grueling 3 months since we opened the mascot contest, and 1 since we closed it! I know most of you all are excited to finally see the winner of this contest, because I'm really excited to finally announce it myself!

We got 13 unique entrants and 16 designs to look through! I was really overwhelmed with the response for such a small contest. We want to stress to everyone how hard it was to pick from so many great applicants. For these reasons, we had a score card for our guest artist judges! The scoring system was based on Visual Appeal, Apparent Age of the Mascot, How Well Appearance linked to the Bandori.Party website, and memorability. Each category had a certain integer associated with the answers taken from the artists. Meanwhile, active staff members were asked to rank their top 3 and give reasons to their vote, and were added to artist score cards as bonus points. Additionally, names were removed from all entries to prevent a bias if there should have been any connection between the staff, artists, and art judges.

You can view all of the entries here!

Without further ado, our winner of BOTH Artists Choice & Staff Pick, and our mascot for Bandori.Party is...

ENTRY 4 - BY USER NEROMAO!!!

Design is not final, however. There will be modifications made by our official artist. The winner is aware!

The end of this contest means a new one will begin, because I think our Character Needs a name, don't you? You can submit names here until 15 September. This will be a for-fun event and final voting will occur after the names are screened by the staff for the top 4 names! You can submit as many names as you would like, just submit each name separately. Thank you!

We have some comments on the winning design presented by our staff and guest artist judges to go along with the announcement!

Our first judge is Amber Avara, a webcomic creator who's addicted to character design! Her comments were as follows with the announcement of the winner: "The winning design is very cute and definitely reads as an idol girl character! I'd personally work a little more on "branding"--parts of the other designs that I thought were really successful was the use of the yellow star, if that could be incorporated into this final design I think it'd be a perfect match! She's got an oldschool vibe that's nostalgic in the good way--reminds me of classical magical girls like Cardcaptor Sakura. Overall, a very cute character! Congratulations!"

Our second judge is D. Artemisatto, who collaborated with Natasha Allegri on the design for Vocaloid Ruby. She had this to say to the winning design: "A very lovely design, not too serious or too informal, nor does it feel too Idol-like by itself, but as a manager indeed. I feel it picked the webpage elements nicely, plus added some interesting accessories like the usb cords as hairpiece and tablet relating it to the digital nature of the game and the online community. As a character I can link it to the franchise both as a mascot and as a demographic, she doesn't feel too old or too young, but someone anyone can relate to."

Third, we have Jadii, a very prolific colorist and artist from Ireland who's had a following on dA for sometime. Her comments to the winner: "I think this design is the perfect middle ground between too simple and over designed. It has an excellent balanced colour scheme, structure and plenty of well thought out small details that bring the design together. There were many good designs I liked but I think this is a great representation/mascot for Bandori.Party!"

Our fourth and final judge will be the final designer and artist for the winning design, Brella! "Congratulations on the winner! It's my pleasure to be able to draw their character as the chosen Bandori Party mascot. She was one of my favorite designs of the bunch as she was a clear reflection of the website's purpose, and design aesthetic. I see the vibe of someone who's intelligent, responsible, enthusiastic, and youthful."

The staff comments on the design begin with mine. Personally, I just had a feeling with this one. Her color scheme of course was very indicative of the franchise and our very own site, and I love that she's basically a gijinka of the database! Ambi commented on the fact her character data was "android" over human, changing the game for her completely when it came to voting. The artists comments on the use of memory storage also really stood out, as well as the color scheme (again!) and the use of a dark brown/red over a complete black in the design.

Our final staff comment comes from Passionate, "Though I didn’t expect a non-human entry in this competition, it was a rather unique entry that definitely caught my attention! I personally have very little experience in judging mascots and such (this is my first time being a main judge, to be honest), but out of all the entries (which were all very appealing, by the way!), this was one of the most visually appealing. Not only was the colour scheme of this entry was fairly easy on the eyes, it also matched very well with colours of Bandori.Party, as well as the concept of Bandori.Party’s mission - a fan-made database for BanG Dream, made by fans, for fans! Starting from the unique concept, to an appealing colour scheme, and above all, reflecting the purpose of Bandori.Party, this entry was definitely one of the strongest, and was in no way undeserving of being the winner! Congratulations!"

The two other staff members involved in the voting declined to comment or couldn't be reached.

Thank you again for everyone's submissions. I really had no idea how this would turn out. I was getting kind of anxious that this event would be a total flop or we wouldn't be able to see it through. Thank you all for submitting, and thank you all for viewing and supporting Bandori.Party so far. Hope to see you again soon!