Many thanks to everyone who entered Character Design Contest 81: Greed! Without further ado, I give you your Finalists:
I thought Albannach's "Futility of Greed" told its story very well.
AMS' "Midas" is a great character study.
I liked the way Blue Blazer created a non-standard sort of man in this one, along with the effective storytelling.
Diazmydiaz's "Burn the World" also features a distinctive looking character, though I think the burning of the world is going to be a "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" sort of moment for him.
FRM's "Tax Collector" is included mostly for the nice butt -- I'm not sure how that was done but it looks like it was drawn that way.
Gendonesia's "Grave Hunter" features a great composition and highly effective lighting to set the mood. All the little touches (like the spattering on the ground) work really well here.
I liked headlessgeneral's character design as well as the great use of the "Greed" design element in the background.
Kytana's dragon in "Greed" is just stunning. The hoard of gold is spot-on and the design of the creature itself is perfect.
Mashlagoo does a stellar job with this classic D&D monster, the Mimic.
What clenched Razor99's entry for me is spinning disk in the eyes and the similar leering grins on both figures. I think it sells "Greed" very well.
I think it's hard to use HeroMachine to put together a good political cartoon, but Skybandit manages it quite well here.
Watson Bradshaw also brought a nice political cartoon with his "one percent". I like the use of the cranes in the top background particularly.
WolfMoon's "Hail Money" is a great poster, with outstanding composition. I love this image.
A few others I thought had great illustrations (i.e. Tarkabarka) but I didn't get "Greed" from looking at them.
Out of the list of Finalists, there can be only one overall winner, though many were certainly worthy. I ultimately decided to go with ... Kytana's dragon! Every time I look at it I see some new little feature that adds to the overall effect without being intrusive. I definitely can see "greed" when I look at it, and taken just as an illustration it's great.
Awesome job, and congratulations both to our winner Kytana and all of our Finalists! I believe dblade is again doing his very generous "Finalist Supplemental Prize" (or some other, cooler name), so definitely check the comments for that update.
