You guys sure got a lotta love for the cephalopods 🐙 We got an unprecedented 90 entries for our February art contest!

Per Lee White, who judged the contest: "Ok guys, you really killed me with this one. I went back and forth on it and really struggled with narrowing this one down. We had our highest numbers of entries and they were freaking awesome!...I had to make some tough decisions. It's always hard to do because sometimes superior technique will push something into the winners circle, other times it's just a great concept. Most of the time now it's a good mix of those two things. Sometimes I like watching pro sports because the winner is always so clear cut: Whoever scored the most points wins. Here it's not as clear, but we do the best we can."

With that, congrats to Carrie Copa, for taking first place! Per Lee: "Carrie's wonderful octopus blimp thingy hits the number one spot this month. I just loved the palette and the overall concept. It has a very 'Lovecraft' feeling and really sparked my interest to learn more about this world. Great job Carrie!"

Second place went to Johanna Kim, whose sweet and endearing illustration really captured a lot of emotion. Per Lee, "This image looks so professional in terms of concept and technique. Very creative solution. Focusing on emotion of the characters is always going to be interesting and adds to the storytelling."

3rd Place went to Sarah LuAnn Perkins, with her fun take on me time. "Very cool image. The style here is on point and the concept is hilarious. I'd buy this on a t-shirt any day. Note: PLEASE MAKE THIS INTO A T-SHIRT!"

Lee also ended up picking 8 more entries as honorable mentions. Check 'em out (with Lee's comments) below!

You can see all the entries here. Thanks everyone for taking part! Can't wait to see what you bring next time 😀