This is a (bad) photo of a printmaking project I did for a fine arts competition.  I kept some noise in the background of the print to give it an older, more medieval look and feel.

This was one piece that I literally put blood, sweat, and tears into.  The blood and tears (well, I never cried, but my eyes sure did water up sometimes) came from when I'd slip with my carving tool and take a nick of flesh out of the fingers I used to hold the linoleum sheet.  The sweat came from when I gave the two gold prints their gold effect.  I had a powder that could be sprinkled over wet ink, and then heated to melt and form a gold foil.  The only way I had to properly heat it in that fashion was to hold it over a stove burner with my bare hands, crisping myself in the process.  But damn if it don't look cool :)

It got first in a national competition, and second in a state comp.  How?  Well, the national competition was a separate one, so no prob there.  And even though in the state competition I scored a full ranking above the first place entry, I was given second, as they wouldn't give a dragon piece first place, as they didn't want that representing them in the national competition.  Why?  It was a Christian sponsored fine arts festival, and they considered dragons evil.  Here's the kicker: the competition that gave me first place in nationals was the same Christian university that the nationals from that state competition were going to be held, with the same judges.  People piss me off.