This is an interesting subject actually. I think it would be a good idea to have a WIP section for contests as other sites do.

My image does have a lot of similarities to previous works, however this contest was aimed towards a huge render. Thus i had to remodel the character from scratch with that in mind, rework textures for large resolutions and on top of that I had to write a script to render the work in segments due to the massive resolution and I noticed a lot of the entries didn't seem to take this "it was even the title of the contest" in to concideration. All in all it took me around 4 weeks of work just for this one image, and thats not including the rendertime!

Many others have the (pre-made model) gripe. A lot of contests refuse Daz models / poser models to be used in their competitions as well as textures not made by the artists, but this was not a stipulation here. I understand that not all artists can afford software to create their own models, but there are a lot of budget softwares out there. However I saw some great poser pieces in this competition, so good job to all.

As for the comment that artists make, this is a tough one. As stated in the rules it says comments will be taken into account. Note the word "account". This does not mean it is 100% down to viewers votes. Just that it MIGHT help with the final decision.

Anyway. Congrats to you chk2033 on a great image, hope to see more of your work in the future.

Daniel