Quote -
Since no one can afford the amount of money it would cost to have oodles of stuff in their folders to have new eyecandy in EVERY picture they post....... i say yay for postwork.

True.
Same goes for most of the postworking tricks - we've seen them, over and over again.

But It's not the uniqueness of a model, a texture, or painted hair/clothes/whatever that makes an image unique. And using the same old building blocks over and over again doesn't necessarily lead to the same old images. Although it often does. I agree, the typical blank stare of the umpteenth new Victoria character set doesn't tell the viewer anything but "Look, I bought this new character. Cool, isn't it?" 

It's the vision of the artist, and the way he/she gets the vision across. Doesn't matter what tools or techniques are used. Does the artist want to tell the viewer something, and does an image manage to tell the viewer what the artist meant? That's what makes an image worth looking at, IMO. 

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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