I thought the contest was about originality, and not money.
I used my most creative criations in exceptions of some, but truth is I do have a lot of others that would match the certain entries just by the armor color itself.
I'm not the type of person that pukes a rainbow in a costume and there done, I have a certain eye for color and things too, but if I judge only by the color, I would say most of them are generic costumes that anyone in SK can have. Knowing SK is also limited for originality creation if you don't work for it.
I do certain color contrasts to enchance the brightness of my costume, they dont always depend on my personal color but they're build to match my main colors, I also go out of the box and I make things some people think it's not right... why? Why would I wanna make a costume 99% of SK has?! Good example, my Storm Rider, I built that with love and all the thing I wanted it to reflect my coldness within, but people say ahh storm looks better with summer and storm and bla bla bla. No... Actually yellow and blue are complementary colors. It doesnt look bad as people say because they're used to seeing clones everywhere which sickens me.
But anyways, congratulation to who won, I'm not saying they dont have sense of fashion or whatsoever, it's just my personal opinion.
First thing I have to make clear is that being rich would not be able to make you win. We weren't that stupid when we thought of hosting this contest. We wanted to encourage not-so-rich people as well to enter to the contest.
I am not so sure about see-eppo but I am perfectionist to the end of time and beyond. I notice smallest of smallest mistakes. The reason we had categories for colors is because the main point how I judge costumes is by colors. So basicly it was my strongest area to judge (seasonal not so much xD). If you had wrong personal color comparing to the category, it was automatically nope nope nope for me. Personal color is supposed to back up the category, and you had the chance to change it by category. Many realized this and used it to their advantage.
95% of the people who entered to the contest said "My costumes are no match for others' costumes." and it was really depressing. Some of them I had to even force to enter. I don't want people to think that only being rich can make you win.
As for zenje. You are my great friend, I have nothing against you and you should know that. We were not favoring anyone, competitions are made to be equal. We made the categories in a way that cheaper outfits had a chance as well. Many were asking why we did not make open-styled categories like in the Lionheart contest, and reason was that we wanted to give a chance for everyone. If we had had such categories which weren't so...hmm...strict on some parts (colors in this case), your chances to win 1st place would have been higher. I'm really sorry if you got hurt by this ;<
As for future contests, categories won't be so strict but we still try to keep it fair game. There is no fun in it if we favor others.