Hi, I do not know liteluvr personally, not even liteluvr's gender. Liteluvr is not aware that I'm posting this, unless liteluvr sees this post after posting. I want to say how impressed I am with liteluvr's entry in the holiday card contest here at rosity. I'm amazed at where liteluvr's work is in the voting polls. It seems a shame that it has not received the recognition I think it deserves. I was drawn into the picture submitted by liteluvr and I think it deserves closer scrutiny by other voters, before they make their final voting selections. Just my opinion, but I think if you see it, you'll see what I'm talking about. http://www.renderosity.com/contest.ez?contest_id=16

I agree that the pic is superior to many of the top voted pics. What I have noticed is that all contests using community voting are nothing more than "popularity contests" within the community. As the contests have come and gone, the winners have never been what I or many of my friends consider winning, quality, skilled imagery. Also, these substandard pics seem to receive huge amounts of votes that are well outside the normal curve of dispersion. This is strange to state it nicely. My advice to you and other submitters of images is to understand the environment of the contest and accept it or, as I do; enter only contests to be judged by "judges" and not the community. This is not a flame; only an observation

Sometimes it's fun to have voting contests. And yes, popularity can help, but it's mostly just CAMPAIGNING. It's the nature of the beast and can't be avoided whenever community voting is involved. Those who entered who did not campaign, did not understand the type of contest they were entering. There is nothing shiesty about campaigning for votes. These type of contests require advertisement. I think the top three were very nice. I am dissappointed that liteluvr's was not one of them, but I saw no advertisements done by liteluvr personally, other than what I put out on liteluvr's behalf. In a professional judging kind of contest, yes, I'm quite sure he/she would have taken first or second place. I do feel that my entry would have placed among the top 5 at least had it been a judged contest. I do not appreciate, DragoNegro, the insinuation my entry was substandard, although I'm sure you meant what you said in a general sense, not pointing to my entry specifically. You see, I'm the 2nd place winner of this particular contest. For a Christmas card, I think mine was right on the money and it is the greeting card like style I was shooting for. The reason the winners have such a margin, is they advertised and, yes, they advertised A LOT, to the point of exhaustion in some cases (I know I was dead tired by the end). The rest did NOT advertise. The rest had between 1 and 20 votes out of thousands of possible ones, because people didn't all clue in that there was a contest to be voted on. It's up to the contestants to put the word out, and, of course, they're going to be plugging their own entries. What judges think is good and what the community thinks is good are often not the same thing. Judges look at skill. The community looks at what they LIKE.

As you stated, I was NOT implying that your entry was substandard. In fact, I was not saying at that time that any one particular piece was. As for the Christmas Card c'test, I think that, of the top three, yours was superior. But, the fact that the winner chosen was not the "best" out of all the entries (I did not enter this particular contest by the way) displays my point, and yours, exactly. If campaining is what wins a contest described by the sponser as "let's see what you can do", then the means does not justify the end. If the event was to elect an artist, then campaign away. Please accept my apologies if you have been offended; since this was not my intent. I am grateful for your insight into the workings of the contests. I now understand that if I wish to win a contest, my effort should not be placed in the creation of, but in the campaigning for, a work of my making. By the way, your gallery is most original and does display skills rarely seen in the winners of the contests.

Thanks, Drago appreciate your comments.