I'll worry more about the hot 20 if I ever get good enough to get in there. Personally I think of the hot 20 as a little bit of cream to go with a damn fine cake. THe cake is the people and art represented here. The cream is when the group of artists are willing to say that I think your image is worth voting for. For me it's the artists like Rochr, Alvin, MrDodoBird, Hobbit, HypeBorea, amethyss, ocdoug, beton (from other galleries think of ToxicAngel and TwistedKid) etc etc who I look at and think 1) that's worthy of a vote and 2) I'll try something like that. Plus take a look at Ornlu's stuff, or Bam Bams, rarely in the hot 20 but a good source of inspiration and technique. If a piccy is in the hot twenty that I don't think is worthy I ignore it end of story. I'm sorry that anyone, especially a talented artist would leave over abuse of the hot 20 :-(

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.