Wonderful take on the source! Great job!

This was my favorite. Congratulations for top 3 win!

Congrats!!

Whoa! Way to think outside the box for this source image! I always like these creative uses of the source. Nice job, author!

Thank you! I have been away on vacation and am just now seeing how my entries did.

Great entry, GL!

I like all the versions, nice liquifying. A little like H.G. Giger.

I see peacock, scorpion, and dragon, all at once, fantastic!

Beautiful, the purple amethysts are really nice touch

wonderful imagination! i love the earrings you've made out of the whiskers, if only they were gold, id buy em in real life!

It's a good idea but there are some problems:
- Light source : those earrings from her right ear - left side of the image would not receive as much light as those from the right side.
- Edges should be softer cause they make the accessories look flat.
- Shadows on the girl are soft, but the shadow from necklace is hard, like the light source is really close. This discrepancy makes the blend look less realistic.
- also the Design of the necklace could be improved- it doesn't look to nice at this moment.
I hope you won't mind for telling you this, you should know that i appreciate a blending entry more than a CBR where lights/shadows are abstract notions.

Thanks Greymval! It's always easy to be "too close to the trees," and a sharp eye like yours really helps to ground me!
Never be afraid to point out these things, it helps improve my skills to have a "second set of eyes" pointing out where I need to improve.

As for the "design of the necklace could be improved," that's one I can say about a lot of jewelry...lol! It WAS a whisk, after all!

Lol, i meant that metal band around her neck- the shape ( & texture) is not continuous and when it reaches the shoulders it seems it has no thickness. I guess who can easily fix it with a pen tool and a bit of cloning.
The easiest way to improve texture would be to take a sample of the whisk enlarge it and clip it over the shape, while you warp it to follow the curve.
For shadows you can :
- use a different layer in which you paint with black soft brush.
- or just duplicate layer, threshold it , lower opacity.
At the end you should use gaussian blur and fade it ( in Edit) if you think it's too much.

You can also add a few solid color layers on top of the final result with overlay & low opacity, so it improves the general mood & blending.
Some people use lighting effects & overlay to level out the main piece & place on second the BG - just try different things until you like it.

Great work with the earrings but the necklace need some shadows...best of luck author