I've got a couple more judges I'm waiting to hear from, but there is so much information here already - I felt it would be a shame to not share all the comments I've received so far. I'd like to start things off with some overall comments I received from Lars. I thought it was good educational info, and something that should be hung on the wall and absorbed. Always follow the brief. It's easy to get sidetracked if one aspect of an illustration interests you over another, but you've still got to deliver the goods you promised.
If someone asks you to build a bookshelf and you bring them the most gorgeous coffee table ever, odds are you're still going to have to go back and build that bookshelf on your dime. I saw a lot of wings as I looked through the submissions that had no basis in earthly reality. An easy response is, well, of course not... it's Fantasy. Fantasy art is not a license to just make everything up out of your head. The people who truly excel at it have a deep reservoir of knowledge to dip into. Always remember - Fantasy is all about making the things that are real so real that people swallow the little falsehoods whole and without question. If you have to fake something, make sure you inform yourself as best you can before you do!
If someone asks you to build a bookshelf and you bring them the most gorgeous coffee table ever, odds are you're still going to have to go back and build that bookshelf on your dime. I saw a lot of wings as I looked through the submissions that had no basis in earthly reality. An easy response is, well, of course not... it's Fantasy. Fantasy art is not a license to just make everything up out of your head. The people who truly excel at it have a deep reservoir of knowledge to dip into. Always remember - Fantasy is all about making the things that are real so real that people swallow the little falsehoods whole and without question. If you have to fake something, make sure you inform yourself as best you can before you do!
Now, on to the judges comments: Zoë Robinson, Art Director. Fantasy Flight Games. Timo Karhula's Dunwich Horror. Spectacular News-Bite. I kept reading and then re-reading the text and looking at the image, finding more and more cool manifestations of Lovecraft's signature baffling and jumbled description. It's accuracy in the face of literary word salad kind of blows my mind; ordering that text into one cohesive image is the visual equivalent of an advanced mathematical proof, and the result is pretty darn awesome.