ONE BIG RESPONSE

Thanks for your comments DoZZeR - you are entitled to your opinions of course but I do feel you were a little harse-particularly on me...!
Firstly this was a particular challenge for me since it was done using MODO (not 3DSMax!) -  a package that I bought a couple of weeks before I entered the competition. Yes its a testament to the package more than anything else that I could produce a respectable looking  picture with such a short learning curve but I still had to put a pretty big effort personally into producing it.

More than the picture, I also hoped that the concept was something unique too ( I certainly didn't expect to win on natural artistic ability!) - maybe it wasn't to your taste but  whatever it was something  struck a chord with the judges.Remember, the contest asked for the artists 'interpretation' of dinner with the dead -that doesn't necessarily mean having to literally have a dead person sitting at a table having dinner!

Maybe I should I just be thankful that you weren't on the judging panel! Perhaps you could post a link to your entry  DoZZeR so the rest of us could have an opportunity to comment on that (or at least see what the 'perfect' entry should have looked like) .   ;-)

TO THE REST OF THE WINNERS: Congratulations - hope you enjoy your prizes. Not sure if you are allowed to swap parts of prizes but as I already own Manga Studio  - if anyone wants to swap any part of their prize for it please PM me . If no-one wants to swap I'm happy enough to give it away- again PM me if you're interested (it would be a shame to see it go to waste).

Thanks Renderosity for the contest - I've been entering contests for years and had almost given up hope of winning anything with so many great artists on this site-the moral is, never give up hope!  :-)