Wow, well, okay...like I said though, as a hispanic male myself I wouldn't pick up that book to read for myself. Yeah, I know, we're supposed to be romantic "Latin Lovers", but I still feel that if I needed help in my relationship I'd hope to find something that didn't make me look like a big puss when I carried it around. JHMO.

It seems to be an error that happens in the contests lately. I've noticed that when the CH picks the winner, the "late" entries disappear (happened in that Cider Label contest I was in). It's weird. o_O Someone should probably notify the mods/admins about it....

How come new entries are coming in after the contest has ended?

You're -really- missing the point here, but I'm sorry I offended you re: the comment re: your photorealistic gender metal.
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... (separating commentary here, because the following isn't really addressed to anyone and SP's comment featuring doesn't separate paragraphs for some reason)
I have seen libraries upon libraries of books and some of them have great covers and some of them have really terrible covers, so it's a gamble. As for what I think, I think that vision176's "cover" (as in, the one named "cover") works quite well if the CH goes the romantic route...it's well-composed both graphically and typograhically (so are yao's, though they're less romantic and more subtext, which is cool too).

Tropicandrew - I still don't see why natk felt she had a right to be annoyed when I used the standard male/female symbols in my image. I see you used a heart in your image, I guess everyone who used a heart in theirs before you should really be taking offence at you too!!!
Guess I'm done with this thread - good luck to all of you - there are some really great designs for this one.

Re: "Will we know if anyone won and who won?", sometimes it takes ages for people to decide, or they just flake out and forget to decide. The last book cover that I did win (which I think is the first thing on my info page/since the new set-up is up), that contest holder flaked out and seemed to "forget" that he held a contest, LOL. It was a few weeks/a month or so I think until he finally declared. :( I would venture that this contest holder might not be like that though, because he/she's given okay feedback (some don't give ANY). It's possible that they might have their favorites and are hashing it out. Who knows? Patience is the key, I guess. ^_^

Interesting. Well, then nice work re: the 3-D modelling (you might want to fix the fuzziness on the rendering in the final design though, because it does look like a lower-res-photo of the symbols was carefully Shopped into your composition), but I still think it's a bit weird re: the comments that ensued. No one's jumping down anyone's throat here (well, *I*'m not, I can't speak for anyone else), I'm just saying that I can relate to natk's feeling re: the usage of particular symbols or design motif or model in a SitePoint spec contest. We're all creatives to various degrees, and it's interesting to watch the course of the designs coming up every day. :)

Tropicanandrew - Actually just for the record - I DID render the symbols! I created them as 3D models and then used a rendering package to create them as photo-realistic objects. Yes a couple of the backgrounds (in entry 2 & 3) are stock photos integrated into the scene but the first and last one don't use any stock photographs. I created these models specifically for the contest. If you read my post to the contest holder I wasn't implying I had any unique brilliant idea, I was just saying that I had read his comments on other pieces and taken them on board when creating mine. Not really sure why you are jumping down my throat on this one - it was a perfectly innocent statement! So in summary Tropicandrew, my comments were also 100% true - I could take offence that you are implying otherwise!

Tropicanandrew - Actually just for the record - I DID render the symbols! I created them as 3D models and then used a rendering package to create them as photo-realistic images. Yes a couple of the backgrounds (in entry 2 & 3) are stock photos integrated into the scene but the first and last one are completely created by me ie. you won't find them anywhere else - I created them specifically for this contest. If you read my post to the contest holder I wasn't implying I had any unique brilliant idea, I was just saying that I had read his comments on other pieces and taken them on board when creating mine. Not really sure why you are jumping down my throat on this one - it was a perfectly innocent statement! So in summary Tropicandrew, my comments were also 100% true - I could take offence that you are implying otherwise!

Tropicanandrew - Actually just for the record - I DID render the symbols! I created them as 3D models and then used a rendering package to create them (notice the last one is orientated slightly differently). Yes a couple of the backgrounds (in entry 2 & 3) are stock photos but the first and last one are completely created by me ie you won't find them anywhere else - I created them for this contest. If you read my post to the contest holder I wasn't implying I had any unique brilliant idea, I was just saying that I had read his comments on other pieces and taken them on board when creating mine. Not really sure why you are jumping down my throat on this one - it was a perfectly innocent statement! So in summary Tropicandrew, my comments were also 100% true - I could take offence that you are implying otherwise!

And darn it, I keep forgetting that these comments never take HTML tags, LOL! ...Do they take the other kid of tags? Testing...[i]testing[/i] (I guess I'll see in a couple of seconds if they do or not)...>_>???

Well, to say that you <i>rendered</i> them when they're obvious stock photos is kinda weird, too. I think her sarcasm is only justified because you made it sound like you had the brilliant idea of using the gender symbols when you weren't the first one to do so in the contest. It happens a lot in comments...people turn into giant vacuums with untrue/made up comments to try and sway the contest holder. I'm sure people would say the same about me since I'm wordy/talkative, but I can assure you that everything I say in my comments is 100% true, and sometimes I -do- like to tell a story about the origins of the piece. The people who often fail at that don't really have a story behind their work--they're entries Photoshopped/Illustratored for a contest. And if that's the case, then you really shouldn't try tacking on "creative commentary" when there's nothing to say. JMHO. If I were to tack on a story about my entry up there, my justifications would be the same as yours, Stealth: I took on board the contest holder's comments about using symbols to represent the couple, but instead I used Lego people to represent them. It's the kind of cover to a book that a man (particularly a macho hispanic man--like myself, I'm half Spanish/Mexican) wouldn't be afraid to tote around, but it's also "cute" enough to appeal to women; it's fun and inspiring, but it's also got the strong romantic subtext without being so girly/obvious. All of that pink/romantic stuff up there just isn't going to fly with the male demographic, if the contest holder is looking to sell to both genders. But that too is JMHO. ;)

Will we know if anyone won and who won?

Hmmm, natk - do I note a hint of sarcasm there? Sorry I didn't realise that you had taken out a copyright on using those symbols. My apologies - good luck in chasing down all thoses millions of images on the web that already use them ;-)

"I took on board your comments about using symbols to representthe couple and rendered the male and female symbols..." wrote stealthworks... True, you're really imaginative! Thanks.