Agent Smith - 3 points Jaymonjay - 2 points Violet - 1 point Too many honorable mentions to, um, mention. There was a lot of great work in there!

3 pts - Prufrock81 2 pts - Amethyss 1 pt - dan whiteside

...rusty, corroded wheels starting to turn in mind...

3 points to kosv01 2 points to sackrat 1 point to tjohn

Thanks, AgentSmith! I don't know if I made it in time, but if you hadn't posted this, I definitely would have missed! Guess I should have paid better attention to that "Challenge Upload" link that sticks out like a sore thumb!

The jump I've modeled this one after (the rocks, anyway) is a fairly short jump (about 75 feet), but the bluff the cliff sits atop is several hundred feet above the surrounding plains; it never occurred to me that this image would look like I'm having the buffalo fall the full several hundred feet! D'oh!

I'd better get started!

Eric's boss might be too uptight for us artsy types, but we're not the ones going to bed at night worrying about who's going to sue us in the morning for something that was under our control. It may not be his workplace that has the problem so much as our society in general. It's sadly ironic that because one group of people has no regard for the rules of this community and another group of people is all too willing to over-enforce the rules of the larger community, folks like Eric don't get to share their art with the ones with whom they'd most like to share it...

Usually my inspirations come from sources similar to vasquez', but on occasion a particular piece of music will inspire an image.

"This kind of artist is automatically left out of the Challenge because they do not simply rely on their Bryce renders alone." I'm not sure that's an altogether fair statement. Post-work is allowed in the general challenge rules, and a LOT of contest entries have relied a great deal on it; I know mine do, unless the challenger specifically states "all Bryce," which he/she rarely does. I know post-work isn't the same thing you're talking about, but I hardly see it as relying on Bryce renders alone. It's also not entirely fair to assume nothing will change. There IS a solution. Push your talents in a new direction and win a challenge. Then you can challenge us to do more painterly work.

Ironbrew - 3 Erlik - 2 ICMGraphics - 1 It's starting to sound like a cliche, but there was too much good work to choose from. This was so hard! Thanks to those who have voted for me so far, and to those who haven't, I promise not to make voodoo action figures of you!

Welcome, and cool image! Drink Coke much? :)

I don't have the site bookmarked on this computer, but if you do a Google search for "GIS data depot" (or datadepot, can't remember how they phrase it), you should find a good collection.

kromekat: I was speaking historically. Your own post kind of makes my point; by winnowing software requirements down to those "of importance" and "graphics related," you've reduced the issue of availability by two factors. But for the longest time, one simply could not get decent --or any-- software for accounting, industry-specific applications (agriculture, construction, etc.), and a lot of games (I was never much of a gamer, so this didn't affect me personally, but the size of the game market and the frustration level for gamers can't be ignored). In many of those specific industries, it's still the case: people who just want an easy tool to work with are left with Bill Gates' version of easy because the software companies don't want to deal with porting. As for myself, I'm currently happy. I either have or could get all the software I want for my needs. I was simply saying that Mac users, over the years, have "been there."

Oh, I thought the slippers were YOURS! :) Very nice image. I quite like the horse sculpture.