Appropriately disturbing. The scalp and chin edges are too sharp, however, making the face look like a mask. Not clear why an 'egg head' would be cinched in in the middle (or have blurry ears). Without the blond hair, the scalp blends into the background which hides the egg shape of the head.

Less can indeed be more. The outer frame seems too light to me relative to the strong contrast of the picture, however. I am confused why "Eleanor" would appear to be "dreaming" about her own gravestone. Shouldn't she maybe be thinking about Thomas Woods's gravestone instead?

Much improved perspectively. And bigger is indeed better! Plus I think the "no jobs" on the sign adds a hint of political commentary. [Not clear if downoffthedragon merely doesn't find the image humorous (not a requirement of the contest) or if he/she disapproves of disrespecting the White House (a legitimate opinion).]

Very nice. I like the change of pace of a 'flip up' card orientation and the fact that you show the card stock as having some thickness.

Very nice. The ground lamps' perspectives are off (should be looking down on, not up at, them), however.

Clever idea (although a KFC in the West Wing of the White House itself would be more compelling). nasirkhan is right on about the perspective. The KFC source pic's horizon line (which would be the location of the KFC's vanishing point) appears to run roughly at the level of the bottom 0 in the house number on the far edge of the building -- which is well below the horizon line in the White House pic.

Creative idea. I would move the open card forward and closer to the closed card. Cropping out a lot of the unnecessary background might make the text legible without going to hi-res. The "(open)" is wholly extraneous [I'm sure even stalkers know how greeting cards work ]. You start out by saying "no words will ever be enough," but words are what you're offering. I would replace the "so..." line with something like "but let me try..." Also, I would start only the first line with a capital letter and I would put a comma after "feel."

Not particularly unusual (see for example the downtown-Miami Macy's [née Burdines] which has a café -- albeit entirely indoors -- in the walkway over Miami Avenue connecting the original building with the annex {look south from 'N Miami Ave / S Miami Ave / E Flagler St / W Flagler St' in Google Earth Street View}). Great removal of the pylon [traffic cone] and barricade, however. I think this would be more convincing if the left edge of the restaurant connected to the left-hand building.

The restaurant extraction is indeed awesome. But I think the airstrip is too hidden. I would move the left and right sides of the restaurant away from the center and toward their respective edges in order to open up the middle to reveal the arrows on the runway more. That would also allow the yellow warning sign to stand out and be a greater focus.

I need someone to explain this to me.

Very innovative to interpret "card" as business card and I always like when the entry goes beyond the basic requirements to provide some context (the hand in this case). I think we can all relate to the sentiment, but apparently its wordiness necessitated squishing the letters which makes it a little bit difficult to read IMO. The skull graphic seems totally arbitrary (why a skull?) and I question going outside the dimensions of a standard business card -- which is maybe being too practical, but I do think an unexpected message in a standard format is the point of this contest. Also, I would expand the title to "Nice to meet you. Here's my card." (if that much length is allowed). {Would "Nice meeting you. My card." fit?} [BTW a comma after "view" wouldn't take up much space.]

Very creative use of Source 3 (Arizona rock formation), but lighting could be refined and the image does seem lifeless with all the dark windows.

'Big picture' is cool but I think details could be refined. I like the 'handwritten' additions, although "John" seems trite. I share dinomario10's concern. Maybe if the card's plane were tilted forward to match that of the recycling bin, the discrepancy between the two would disappear along with the optical-illusion confusion. I also think the second line of printed text should be linked to/closer to the third line rather than the first line. I would put "nearest available" together on its own line as well. And a period after "BIN" wouldn't hurt.

The contrast with your gentle title cracked me up.

The texting abbreviations are what really make this work. Not clear why you distorted the hand. Also, the I is not centered above the U on the front and the angled version of the front doesn't have the purple triangles in the corners.

The hands and the hearts (whole and broken) are virtually invisible, yet I believe they are an important part of the message. I think they need to stand out much more. I like how the front edge is cut in such a way as to lull the recipient into thinking that the message inside ends with "I love you." (I wish the interior of the open card looked like it were truly a perfect match of the partial interior seen with the closed card.)

EDIT: Cutting out even more of the lower front around the left side of the heart so the underlying "i" and a bit of the following long stroke on the start of "hate" is revealed to really mislead the recipient as to the conclusion of the real message would be even more compellingly evil and on-theme.

Worth a smile. [BTW you're missing a space before "20."] Drop shadow on card front implies it's nearly resting on the background, but then we wouldn't be able to see the back of the card opening up. Those inconsistencies need to be resolved.

It should be "you're." Text is unnecessarily small given all the space available. I might center the text and the toilet within its own half of the image (imagining a card fold down the middle). But this still strikes me as more crass than clever, however.

Amusing with a fun bottle illustration. However, the red-and-white-striped background nearly overpowers the card IMO.

Very cute although not offensive.

Well done. And I really like that you went to the trouble to put your card into a realistic environment.

Hilarious content, but execution could be stronger IMO. I would delete "Card to my ex!" and make it the title (without the the exclamation mark). Format the three purple introductory lines to the rhyming couplets identically: left justify by the image's left edge, initial cap, and end with an ellipsis (three periods). Plus in intro two I'd change "i" to "I'll" (with a cap I) and in intro three I'd capitlize both "i"'s. Start each couplet with an intitial cap, end each first line with a comma [first couplet is the outlier on these first two items], and end each second line with a period [final couplet deficient]. In couplet two, it's "I'm," "that's," and "I" (capital I's and apostrophes). In couplet three, I would replace "until" with "but." The simple white background is kind of boring. The lower dark-gray segment on the heart might be more interesting as a drop shadow.

Love the idea of a superficially sweet image that turns out to be evil when you actually read the text BUT I personally think lavender tones with an overdone floral background would be sweeter coupled with a larger, more flamboyant and curvy italic font [e.g., Kunstler Script in two or three slightly overlapping lines] for the text (ending in a slap-in-the-face period [or full stop, if you're British] instead of an ellipsis).

Web is very cool, except links between radii should be straight (most noticable at 12 and 5 o'clock). Instead of centering the spider, applying the Rule of Thirds might be more compelling. And make the spinder stand out more.

I like the better image balance and the uniform lean/lens distortion among all three structures.

Pretty, but the bright water reflection doesn't match darkening sky. The reflection should be a simple vertical flip (with a little ripple added) of the sky just as the tree reflections are.

The towers look like they're falling backwards. The tall, skinny one apparently has no back wall as the sky can be seen through the windows. Moving the foreground structures away from the center and towards the right a little per the Rule of Thirds might improve the composition.

Cool, although I personally think the grunge-texture overlay detracts.

Inspired title and image! I like that you worked with the entire pill and it's still reasonably recognizable in the final result.

There's a lot of light behind the Pumpkin Baby, but where all it's front light is coming from is not clear (plus the left-side shadow on the baby is inconsistent with the floor lamp to the left of the baby). Also, the floor lamps and pumpkin look like they're floating because they don't have a tiny, dark shadow where they touch the floor.

I totally disagree with your "not necessarily," but I completely respect your "it's fine the way it is" conclusion.

I think this is better. I'm willing to accept light on the model's face on the side toward the viewer (opposite from the light of the window) as a necessary artistic decision, but I wish his shadow were more realistically to the right so we only see three quarters or maybe just a half of it. I don't know what the bulge shadow half-way up the right-side wall is, but I would clone it out because it's distracting.

A lot of cool stuff, but it's like it's all boring beige with no focus. I don't get the super-giant horse and rider with their off-center halo (even though that's apparently the title element). The sphere with the aura and the 'space mountain' have a totally different vanishing point than the Taj Mahal spires. And the border adds nothing IMO.

Very creative. I think it's great not having to look at another river. I like how the author didn't go with the obvious yet the source image is still clearly recognizable.

The mug looks like it's floating because it doesn't have a little shadow around its base -- see the bottoms of the condiment dispensers or even the near edge of the flatware. (BTW if you have a glass mug, you could put water in it and position it in front of a checkerboard to see which edges are actually transparent [rim and outer handle edge not so much] and how the curved, thick-glass handle and the water distort the checkerboard.)

Creative and clever. (I wish you had replaced the drink with the teeth mug -- more amusing and I think the image would be better balanced.)

anarchick: The orange thing on the duck's head is the required plate, but your confusion raises the question whether the "clearly recognizable" criterion has been met for that random item.

Very cool! The guy could never fit inside those towers, but maybe they're not for him. The tower and wall sides towards us could maybe look more like they're in shadow (i.e., follow the model of the guy).

The wide reflections imply equally high stuff along the river banks, not the flat landscape here. I think the far end of the river should get really skinny just like the road in your source1.

Nice to see something a little different. I might nudge the background up a tad so the little boat in the distance doesn't look like it's sitting on the window cross piece.

Pretty nice, except the people are a bit underdressed for the weather and, more critically, they must be Lilliputians given their size relative to the trees and house. The tree reflections could probably use a little ripple distortion to match the boat reflections, plus the edge by the steps in the lower right corner should not cover up the steps' own reflection.

I think the face is too small as it makes the implied neck too long. While the phantasm itself is cool, the smokey background is boring compared with the Aion examples IMO.

Very nice except it's not clear why the patrol helicopter is coming down so low. Nevertheless, I agree with CMYK46 that you did a great job of incorporating the rotor wash, but I actually think the chopper size may be really a tad too big. The chopper pilot's torso size pretty much matches that of the guy in white, except the pilot is a bit further away so his/her torso should be slightly smaller. While I realize you merely copied your helicopter source pic, I still think the right-side landing-gear could use some burning to make it stand out a bit more from the background.

Clearly better. Going to the next level --> If you take your background pic, make a copy of the top half from the horizon line up to the top of the sky, flip it vertically, and position it over the bottom half from the horizon line down, then you will see that it's virtually a perfect match of the lake reflections. Ergo, the lake is a pretty good mirror that takes on some fun-house-mirror characteristics where it gets disturbed. Lessons for you: The elephant is in front of the clouds in the real world so it also needs to be in front of the clouds in the reflected world. A reflection of the sky whirlpool should be part of the bottom of your image. The spired temples amongst the clouds as well as the moon have to be reflected in the lake. Ripple filter and smudging will obviously be needed. Separate issues: The fish and shell seem dubious -- and virtually unnoticeable without a hi-res. I'd make all the spires perfectly vertical.

Very dramatic mood. The dinosaur seems to be lit from a different direction than the people. The brightness of the dinosaur's reflection is inconsistent with the darkness of the dinosaur itself. Where is all the brightness in the sky that the water is reflecting?

The lightning is my favorite part. The river reflections are of tall trees along the river's edge -- except there aren't any such trees here. (Reflections are the same size as that which they are reflecting.)

Creative hairdo. I confess I don't get the political commentary of the title. Her hair on the right really blends in with the background (for obvious reasons). Maybe a different chunk of the source image would work better there.

Unique idea. Since 100% of the boats, people, and trees are reflected in the water, it's not clear why the bubbles aren't reflected 100% as well. [Note that the river reflections are full-sized (untransformed vertical flips with a ripple blur, if you will), not squished, shadow-like things as you show in your SBS.] I think including in your description a one-sentence explanation of the event depicted here would be useful for those who can't be bothered to check out the SBS.

Creative idea to transpose the two picture halves. There are three odd white lines on the image: vertical line middle of sky, horizontal line middle of left side, horizontal line running across the entire image just below the boats. The guy in white looks like he's falling forward. The fuzzy edge of the right-side tree tops is not very convincing, especially when compared to the left-side tree tops.

If you horizontal flip the truck, would it look more like it's following the curve of the road?