I think maybe it was a combination of... one, the scenery is almost too detailed, in that the Pretender dudes don't really feel like the picture's focus... just a part of the scene overall. And two, the setup doesn't play off the characters' personalities quite as well as the others' did.

When looked at outside of the contest's realm, though, this is a lovely pic. There's so much wonderful detail, and I like the idea of two TFs just sitting around chillin' and fishin', with their armor laying around.

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Have you hugged your resident Geek lately?

Co-Founder of #Aerialbot-Fans

Adopted Characters
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I don't think that's fair at all. The one that won had Snarler cast as a dentist. Most of the others weren't particularly 'in character' in their depictions.

I think there are a lot of factors that stuffed me up -- I chose human-based Pretenders (the only one to do so), so they just look like humans. I chose not to have a really big, obvious gag. Aric and Strangefour's entries, for example, had great in-your-face gags that worked really well.

I drew a scene I could TOTALLY see happening with the Cloudburst and Landmine of the comics... but I can see why people didn't really immediately respond to it.

Still a bit disappointing.

Admittedly I know very little about the Pretenders... I guess I'm just not wording my thoughts right. It was kind of, the other pics seemed more like they drew my eye straight to focusing on the characters, while this one doesn't feel like it as strongly features on them.

(Granted, maybe the fact that I'm not familiar with the Pretenders *is* the problem... I don't have any real context to lend to the pic, and the pic itself is just two guys fishing. The other pics tend to have something inherent to latch onto.)

But I suppose you're right in that a "big, obvious gag" was the highlight of the others. (If Landmine really is an "Indiana Jones" type, I probably would have been inclined to draw him in an Indiana Jones-inspired scene, for instance, with Cloudmine as his reluctant sidekick.) The fact that humans aren't visually interesting on their own without some help is a problem, too.

But, I wasn't trying to be rude/dismissive, just try to guess why it might not have gotten as much attention. I don't think it's because it's a bad pic, at least. (I should just remember there's a reason why I almost never comment on art and stick with only commenting on writing instead. :> )

--
Have you hugged your resident Geek lately?

Co-Founder of #Aerialbot-Fans

Adopted Characters
Rewind - ~Transformer-Crew
Skids - ~DeviantART-G1-Crew
Heatwave - ~deviantart-SG-crew
Fall-From-Grace - ~DA-Gamers-Crew