July 2008 Contest Votes

[T Paul]

Voting will run from 24 July to 31 July 2008. Deadline for votes is 5pm EDT.

Only those that entered the contest may vote. All other votes will be deleted. If you did not enter, but would like to comment on an entry, please post your comments in the July 08 Contest Discussion thread.

Vote for the 5 best entries in order.

You cannot vote for your own image. If you do, your votes will be deleted.

Example Vote:
Pick the top five contest entries and list in order...

1. Entry X (First Place)
2. Entry A (Second Place and so on)
3. Entry Q
4. Entry S
5. Entry P

This thread will remain closed until it's time to vote.

And as always, when you vote try to include some things you especially liked about your choices…what made them stand out, what impressed you, etc. This is a learning experience!

[dennisu]

It was really fun!!!

My votes:
1. CathyH
2. Cassidy
3. KarinL
4. OlBaldy
5. Pixeltek

[Ruzzez]

1 Cassidy – Fun – I could see this as a poster
2 Karin I – well done but it needed shadows
3 Frank Lopes – This one reminds me of a mythological creature.
4 Photo B – Nice colors.
5 OlBaldy – Well put together

There were several others that I really liked but they were just a little too Mr. Potato Head for the way I saw this challenge (photo realistic new species). I think that I would like to be given more specific rules, but that might make the submittals uniform and boring.

[philbach]

Here are my votes. A fun contest

1. Cassidy
2. Lorraine
3. DWeekley
4. Frank_Lopes
5. Ruzzez

[CathyH]

Great job everyone.
1. Old Baldy
2. PhotoB
3. Karinl
4. Ruzzez
5. Pixeltek

[dweekley]

Thumbs up to everyone, they all made me laugh, which should be taken as a compliment! My votes:
1. Lonk
2. Ruzzez
3. Karinl
4. Cassidy
5. Frank

Doreen

[Cassidy]

Really hard voting for me on this one, but here goes

1. Karinl - very realistic looking
2. Frank Lopez - Looks great but would liked a little less fade from feather to skin
3. Philbach - Love your masked bandit
4. Pixeltek - Quite bizarre looking and love the little splay of black and white feathers
5. dweekly - The feathers on the head contain so much detail

Would love to be able to vote for so many more.... really well done

[Lorraine]

All the entries are amazing in creativity and execution. I finally voted for the ones that were photo realistic and had that “aaawww” factor.

1. Cassidy – I want to adopt him/her. Beautifully done in all aspects.

2. Ruzzez – Incredible work in combining the texture of the elephant skin with the zebra stripes.

3. Old Baldy – It looks like something out of Jurassic Park.
Excellent color blending.

4. Frank Lopes – Another amazing blend to create reality.

5. karinl – I’ll take him/her home as well. Great work.

Special mention to pixeltek. When I saw the dimensions required by this contest, I said to myself, a giraffe would work very nicely. Congratulations on using the elephant’s trunk to create that illusion. I would have chosen your entry in the top five, but the back foot wasn’t quite finished. Sorry about that.

Excellent work everyone,

Lorraine

[Kraellin]

1. frank lopes

2. karinl

3. ruzzez

4. cassidy

5. philbach

all very cool

[0lBaldy]

1. Ruzzez
2. Frank L
3. Pixeltek
4. Dweekley
5. KarinL

[PhotoB]

1. Frank Lopez
2. Dennisu
3. Ruzzez
4. Cassidy
5. Lorraine

[Sveltepig]

Hi all
here are my votes, nice work and well done:
1 Cassidy
2 LonK
3 Frank Lopes
4 OlBaldy
5 Pixeltek

Cassidy, I love the blend of the head onto the body and the colour work.
The eye is a little weird, but works.

LonK I love the mood of your image, and the blend between head and body works well, but I don't think the composition works well for a poster. The animal especially seems to be falling off the side of the frame.

Frank, what drew me to you entry was the transition between feathers and scales, which I think is well done, though a bit of sharpening on the bird's head would have blended the depth of field differences better. The horn also has a small halo which shows where it was removed from it's original background.

OlBaldy, I like the mood of your image, the fantastical creature seems quite plausible and the use of colour to blend all elements works very well. The zebra stripes were a bit of overkill, maybe. Also, I think the shadow is at the wrong angle.

Pixeltek, I love your creature - very fantastical and emotive. Needs a background, though, especially in order to make it look like a photo.

I also enjoyed some of the blending and distortions used in the animals PhotoB and Ruzzez created.

[LonK]

All the entries are great. I simply preferred those with the supportive scenic backgrounds that added a sense of scale and a more natural photo realism.

1. karin l
2. Ruzzez
3. dweekley
4. CathyH
5. Kraelin

[pixeltek]

Based on my understanding of the rules, I thought this was more of a manipulation of the animal and not a background manipulation. I believe that if the Children's Discovery Center was going to create an ad campaign, the primary focus would have been the animal, and the secondary focus would be finding a great background to go with the new animal --- and not to use a background from one of the existing photos --- 'cause quite frankly they would have all looked horrible in an expensive ad campaign --- just my 2 cents

As such, I had changed my background to white as it would have been a photoshoot for this fantasy animal (thanks to someone who told me to go with one of the backgrounds provided to comply with the rules) and then the new background could easily have been added for this ad campaign.

So, my top five had nothing to do with the background, just animal manipulation:

1) dennisu
2) OlBaldy
3) Cassidy
4) CathyH
5) karin l

All were really great, and this was so much fun to work on.

[Frank Lopes]

Since this was a kid's event, I looked for truly outrageous compositions:

1 - Dweekley
2 - CathyH
3 - Philbach
4 - PhotoB
5 - OlBaldy