is after something that has presence, that actually looks like a small stand of tropical bushes, and is cheap, tough and portable.
Finally, it is done!
Area 51 is judged and finished, all that remains now is to get the entries cast up and shipped out to you guys.
Why so long to get it done? Ahh, well, I won't bore you with the gory details, but it involves a little chappie called 'Luke' who inconveniently decided to make his appearance right in the middle of getting the competition finished. He is now 3 months old, and although he still demands most of my time, I get a few hours some evenings to play 'catch up'. Another delay was some email problems which meant all entries had to be re-submitted.
All of the millions and billions (well.... okay, maybe not that many, but seriously loads!) of pictures have been edited and judged, and the winners have been informed, and now I can make public the winning entries.
The overall standard was very high and some really good concepts were submitted. We also had some very excellent sculpts entered, but unfortunately as they didn't fit the brief, they didn't place as high as we would have liked. We used a total of 12 judges to make the judging more fair, rather than just choosing what either Kev or I wanted to release - and when I totalled the scores, I couldn't believe the diversity of the choices, so it was a good job I enlisted as many people as possible!
What happens to the losing entries? Ideally, we would like to pick a fair few of them up for our White Metal range, but after shelling out 5 prizes of £150.00 GBP each we are a bit skint now so they may have to wait! Hopefully, they will still be available to us in a few months' time (that is, if the sculptor wants to sell his creation to us, of course...).
So congratulations to the winners below, and commiserations to the other entries, and roll on next year.
Thanks Lots! 
The Winners
Photo blocked by adult filter:
"Winner of the minions of evil category"
