Ornlu wrote:
"Hmm, who pissed in your lemonade PJF?"

So you've started two threads to air your sour grapes about the winning entry, putting yourself at the vanguard of a big cry-baby pissing fest. Someone takes you to task over your mean-spirited lack of grace and abysmal sportsmanship, and you ask that. Not big on irony, are you Ornlu?

ICM, you apparently don't know what "vested interest" means. But you are inadvertently correct in that I am not here for personal profit, beyond the exchange of tips and techniques with other members on the forums. I have been here since the beginning on that basis, and couldn't give a flying fuck if you or anyone else finds it unsatisfactory. One of the reasons I do not make use of the gallery facilities here is the type of appalling behaviour shown in this thread.

tjohn, I chose my words carefully. I know Ornlu's view is based on ignorance because it is obvious that he has not the slightest clue how much effort, skill and artistry BigT puts into his poses and "comic strip" type illustrations. Just successfully positioning multiple Poser figures in situations like that is difficult enough, but to give the figures appealing character and humour is indicative of a high level of achievement. I've looked through BigT's and Ornlu's galleries - Ornlu is digital technician and fiddler - an artisan at most (that's no insult, I'm the same). BigT is a true illustrator, with a capacity for telling a "story" directly, clearly and boldly. That is an art. BigT can pick up technique as he needs it. I doubt Ornlu will ever 'pick up' art.

Ornlu, and most of the rest of you, don't see the skill in the winning image - so therefore it doesn't exist. BigT is so good he makes it look easy, so hey, it must be. If you lot saw Charlie Chaplin clattering around on roller skates "just barely managing to stay upright", you'd conclude that Chaplin was a crap skater. BigT produces a simple image, and you conclude technical and artistic simplicity. That's ignorance.

It doesn't matter a damn if an image is made with true ambient, motion blurred metaballs and rendered over five days using 600 radials to double simulate radiosity; or if it's made with three shades of emulsion cleverly dabbed onto a piece of cardboard. All that matters is that an image successfully fulfils its function. In the case of a magazine cover, that function has to be defined by the art director/editor.

Many years ago, when I was not much older than Ornlu, I dabbled in photography. I submitted a whole bunch of images for consideration as covers for the county magazine, thinking I was going to knock 'em dead with my portfolio of super sharp, perfectly exposed, perfectly composed, medium format transparencies of county landmarks. The editor sent them back, having selected just one. He thanked me for sending the "fine pictures", but politely suggested that in future I take note of the usual cover images. Well, duh on me. In my ignorance and youthful arrogance, I'd assumed they'd been using the images they had been because they couldn't get anything better. Since the magazine was called "Lincolnshire Life" it should have been obvious to me that they'd been deliberately using images of, well, life in Lincolnshire. People, action, and events. Some of the images were less than technically perfect - but it was the content that made them more suitable than my 'masterpieces'.

And the same lesson is what you doofers should be learning now. Stop looking for corruption, bias, and favouritism on the part of the magazine staff, and start trying to figure out what it is they like to go on their covers. I can tell you now that it has fuck all to do with Poser. It's variations of big, bold "human interest" that they're after, and Poser is getting it by default because that's what the people doing the big, bold "human interest" images have been using. The staff couldn't care if an image is made in 3D Studio Max or in Povray - if it gives them what they want for a cover then they'll choose it. If all you see on the covers is Poser, then you're a dumb shit and you'll never get it.

Many of the images submitted were of a very high standard, but none of them did the big, bold "human interest" as well as BigT's winning image. It's their magazine, and they call the shots. Don't expect them to change what they want in order to accommodate your ideas and your ego. You want to be on their cover, then give 'em what they want. Don't like the selection criteria? Don't submit images. And in that event - quit, or quit your bitching.