In my defense my cover is not just a filtered photoshoped image. i think what throws it off was the fact that i pasted a bearskin rug that was posterized under my female. i did spend 5 to 10 hours painting that female, even though it doesn't look like it. the only other filter on my image is the render cloud in the heavy metal logo.
i have never digital painted before. this was my first attempt to do so. i tried to follow pox's tutorial but it seemed a bit vague. if you enlarge my cover you can still see where there are some outlines left in the image because i didnt know how to make a contrast between some of the body parts to make it look like it would have if i had just traditionally drawn the image.
i am sorry that my digital skills are not as up to par as the rest of yours but at least i can say i tried, even though it appears that i have failed miserably. my cover does stand out horribly compared to the rest of them, but i never expected to even get an honorable mention to begin with, al i wanted to do was to see if i could paint in photoshop.
What throws it off is the bear skin thing, its totally photoshopped, Ive been using photoshop for like 6 or 7 years now, so photograph wise im an expert, but when it comes to physically drawing shit in it gets hard, the trick is to layer every single thing you do. Sketch and outline, colour it in with another layer, Ive tried different ways of doing things but ive found that if you draw over your girl in greyscale, like shadows and lighter areas and blur it out and use a filter you can make it look more like natural shadowing.
My pic before I fucked it up and flattened it was at about 72 Layers, the tank, sand, buildings second row of buildings, sky, logo, second logo filter, hair, eyes, skin, outline, blending, textures, light effects, brick wall, bridge, bricks on ground, clothes, camel toe, second attempt at camel toe, third attempt at camel toe (Im not very good at drawing camel toe) more hair, tights, beauty spots, goggles, belt, belt attachment, angry logo, 4th attempt at camel toe, and some other stuff I cant remember