I'm repeating myself here.. but 90% of the pictures need a proper background.. and this is one of them. Make a nice, clean and colorful chessboard and this will look so much better. You can also show your skills with the board.The piece itself is very clean and nicely done.

(Well, any kind of background. Be it a table, a satin cushion, some clothing or anything else..)

I'm satisfied about my background. As the contest moderator said it should look like a real macro shot. I used a "digital white box" for my background just like a photograph may do it.

Well, I'm assuming it's a glass texture and it would look a lot better with something showing through. But anyways, the piece itself is very good work, solid and clean.

Nice image, would like to see an SBS. Did you have the caustics turned on? Which render engine did you use? vray, scanline, or mentalray? Did you use any fill lights to enhance the HDR image? I do like this, I just wish you could expand on your explanation with an SBS.

I didn't use any renders in 3ds Max. Normally I Would use Mental Ray but for this clean untextured scene I used KeyShot 2 with a custom build shader.

Nice modeling, do feel that the background is lacking contrast.

cool