Blizzard art contest brings wild new Overwatch skin designs

Blizzard is celebrating Overwatch fan art with an SEA Fan Art Contest. After calling all content creators to come up with skin concept art for their favorite heroes, submissions were shared on Facebook for people to vote on.

Ending March 8, the fan vote makes up 20% of each design’s final score. Judged creativity accounts for another 35%, visual presentation for 25%, and the remaining 20% of the score is based on “expressing the traits of Overwatch characters.”

The winner will be announced March 15, rewarding the crowned “Grandmaster” with $80 in Blizzard Balance, an Overwatch backpack, t-shirt, and keychain. Overwatch fans are also hoping the winning skin may one day appear in-game. Some voters even expressed that they would pay “real money” for their favorite skin concepts.

The most popular skin submission so far is Eunice Ng’s Demon Fox D.Va, sitting at 18k votes. Ng described their skin as a “mysterious yet extravagant” fox skin, complete with a “beautiful coat and bushy tail.”

Many of the submissions were inspired by the artists’ countries of origin, including Candice Savira’s Moi[Ra]ngda skin for Moira. This skin was inspired by the Balinese Barong dance’s female witch, Rangda, who sports long nails and a tall silhouette. The hand she uses to take people’s life energy has the Rafflesia Arnoldii flower, commonly called the “corpse lily,” while the healing hand features the Frangipani flower often found in temple offerings for its potential medicinal properties.

Other concepts include a cyberpunk Sombra, a pirate Reaper, and the Hogfather, a Roadhog skin inspired by gangster Al Capone. Creator Khem Thongthat Harnvorrayothin said his gun would be based on a Thompson gun, often associated with older mafia crime families. His healing bottle would be a bottle of whiskey.

Despite its lack of a story mode, Overwatch’s ever-growing lore has been inspiring fanart and fanfic since the game debuted in 2016.

The 53 art entries are currently compiled here.