Welcome to the annual Kao-coin drawing contest!

Content period: 10/12-11/11

Open to: all registered members of renshuu (the app, or renshuu.org)

As you probably know, all users on renshuu can collect kao-chan coins as they quiz! While the original ones were done by our artist Saki, we've had a number of lovely submissions by learners in our community.

How to submit an entry:

1 - grab the blank templates on the entry page here: Entry page

(1024x1024 in size) (You can also do the picture in real life and snap a photo of it!)

2 - draw any thing, person, animal, or idea that has our mascot kao-chan's face/body mixed into it.

3 - Please return to the entry page to submit your kaocoin. Several things are required for submissions:

Digital submissions (drawn with an app)

1. A screenshot of the drawing app at roughly 20-30% completion

2. A screenshot of the drawing app at roughly 60-75% completion

3. A screenshot of the drawing app at 100% completion, with some of the layers hidden

4. The final image, with suggested name of the kaocoin (in Japanese)

Hand-drawn submissions

1. A picture of your drawing/sculpture/etc. at roughly 20-30% completion

2. A picture of your drawing/sculpture/etc. at roughly 60-75% completion

3. A picture of your drawing/sculpture/etc. at 100% completion, with the name of the kaocoin written on a piece of paper, and placed partially over the final piece.

4. The final image, with suggested name of the kaocoin (in Japanese)

Rules, Guidelines, and Hints

1. Use of AI at any stage of your creation is strictly forbidden. We will actively look into any suspected AI use, and anyone determined to have used AI will be disallowed from participating in all community-related features on renshuu.

2. Other images can be used as reference, but images cannot be spliced or traced into your artwork.

3. (New) I will be grading non-Halloween entries slightly higher than Halloween ones. Due to the timing, we get a TON of Halloween entries each year, even though the Kao coins are used year-round.

4. All entries should be appropriate for all ages.

5. Entries for words already covered by previous Kao coins (example: りんご) are allowed and welcome.

6. There is no limit to how many submissions can be made by one person. However, a single participant can only win (at most) one prize.

7. Need some inspiration? Check out the entries from 2025 and 2024

8. If you suspect an entry is breaking any of the rules above, please use the Report Content link (the flag icon) on the submission thread.

What you can win!

We'll be choosing ten winners!

The #1-3 entries will receive both 6 months of renshuu pro.

The #4-6 entries will receive 4 months of renshuu pro.

The #7-10 entries will get 2 months of renshuu pro.

★ All participants will get some money for their Kao garden as well :)

★The renshuu pro will be given out as Supporter Points. These are new from last year, and can be used on your own account (to get renshuu pro) and/or can be given to others for their community content on renshuu.

Note: by submitting your images to this contest, you agree to have these images used in the kao-coin collection on renshuu (available free to all users, will never be sold), and may be used on renshuu's forums/discord to promote this contest or future ones.

Where to view submissions

All contest entries

Got questions? Feel free to ask in this thread. Any contest submissions submitted to this thread will be removed without notice.

When I draw, I often draw the sketch by hand, scan the image, and then do the line art and colours digitally, is it possible to do this within the rules of the contest? For example by taking a photo of the hand-drawn sketch, then a screenshot of the lineart layered on top of the scanned sketch, and finally the coloured version? Or would it better to draw my entry completely by hand?

Either way, I'm excited for the contest! Thank you for arranging it yet again!

A question: Would an (additional) time-lapse video also help? Or would it be too much to download / skim through, etc.? I just found the option on my digital art app and thought to ask first. :)

I don't know if you remember my entries from last year but back then I showed lots of prototyping and ideation from poor sketches and abandoned drawings to messy writing. Should I still include that wackey phase as it is technically planning?

Edit: Also I understand it may not be a rule that can explicitly be added but something that saved me from AI assumptions in the past in my life due to my heavily simple drawing styles. (My drawing styles look like a 3 year old's doodle)

This may be a misunderstanding on my side but won’t the templates be available before 12th October so that I could already start drawing as mentioned? Following the link above, I only get an error message saying page not found.

​My problem is not providing a drawing. I have issues getting the template and the broken link. I wanted to know if the link is broken only for me or if won’t work for anyone before 12th October (=the templates won’t be available for download before 12th October).

​Thanks.

​I did the same thing

@メロディー( ^ω^ )melody I'm pretty sure square drawings/images get cropped automatically, so you don't need to manually draw/insert a circle. Although having one makes it easy to see what your coin will look like.

The template is just a 1028x1028 square with a white circle and a transparent background. I actually just make my own since it's easier (for me anyway).

( I know it says 1024, but it's 1028 on the file for me )

I wasn't able to participate last year because I was super busy, but I'm hoping to submit at least one entry this year