How much talent does it take to buy a poser or other 3D model to place in a scene? Not much, considering that the amount of time and effort that it takes to create (model, map, bone, pose, and perfect) the model is bypassed and hence is the "easy" way. The people winning contests because they have the money to purchase expensive characters to place within a scene do not deserve the full prize they win, but should share the prize with the original artist who had created the model to begin with. Let me explain why I feel this way. I love 3D art. I love the feeling I get when I complete a scene that I work on. I have my own library I am building that I have absolutely no 3rd party objects in. Its taking me a very long time to build this, as well as effort. My wife hates that I do this, but she understands why I do. Now, with that said, I must ask this question to all those people whose work is 100% their own. . ."Are we wasting our time and effort?" Let me ask this on a different level. . . "If someone were to plajorise, lets say, Mark Twain for four or five chapters in a book, does he deserve to win a writing award?" I believe people that enter 3rd party models, or rather renderings thereof, are guilty of just that wether or not they offer credit to the original artists. As far as the money they shell out, this is an ARTISTS site. Not a site for THOSE WHO HAVE THE MONEY TO BLOW ON EXPENSIVE MODELS. Those who put 100% of their own work into their images, I hope, will add to this forum and hopefully we can get the rules changed for all contests. In my opinion, this should especially apply to models and textures, and not so much with post-work filters (such as lens flares and blur). Please reply with your thoughts.