Congratulations, man! Not many people can take a 10 month hiatus during the year and still sweep 3 awards; but, honestly, I'm not surprised you pulled it off. The quality of the work you put out during those other months was insane.

That Robert Plant one especially. Trying to make wood conform to new shapes is difficult enough, but to do it under that kind of lighting takes serious skill. I mean, just getting those specular highlights to look convincing must've taken half-a-dozen passes with as many techniques. But that's what you do. You come up with an idea that's waaaay too difficult to achieve; and then, instead of simplifying little details that nobody would notice, you brute-force your way into making it happen as imagined. And for a long time, non-photoshoppers didn't really notice how special those pieces were. But by continually challenging yourself over-and-over, you've built-up a formidable set of skills; and by putting them all together, you're producing such unique and high-quality work that you've become undeniable.

I don't listen to much jazz. And if you showed me a good local group playing a flashy arrangement, versus a world-class band doing something genuinely new and complicated... well, I'm just not familiar enough with the genre to tell who's retreading well-established tracks, picking all the low-hanging fruit; and who's trailblazing, while doing things most pro musicians can't. It all sounds new and complicated to me. But when you put on an album like "Bitches Brew" or "A Love Supreme", even I can tell it's something special.

Look, I'm not saying you're Miles Davis here; but man, you're definitely starting to do that thing where even people outside of your niche (photoshopping) are starting to take notice. It's why you've doubled your wins with just a handful of 'shops over a few weeks, despite working your ass off for years while being under-appreciated. You're finally mastering the albatross of a challenge you set yourself back in the day — building 'shops from the ground up — to the point they're out-competing images created with larger, pre-fabricated parts.

I can't wait to see where you take it next.

Thank you!

>When you praise yourself, your "self-affirmation" goes up. Then you will be able to praise other people.

Well you must be very self-confident, Arty, because you're known for being especially generous to the other creators :)

I've been thinking about the same thing recently. The more you love something (like photoshopping), the more you'll find yourself being enthusiastic about both your own work and others.

Thank you :)

>I can't state how cool it is to be on this list.

They say that the reputation of awards go both ways. While they can bestow legitimacy on awardees, they themselves derive their legitimacy from being associated with the best-of-the-best.

And there's no question that you give more legitimacy than you take in this community.

I think I can speak on behalf of everybody here when saying we're the ones that are honoured to have you, man :)

>I barely scraped a few nominations together from the weeklies in a single sitting

It must've been a productive sitting, because you picked 3 of the winners!

I know you like to down-play the effort you put into things; but seriously, man; it's clear you put some real hours into finding photoshops again this year. You don't half-ass things.

I mean... holy shit!

>Still wouldn't want to miss Award season.

You certainly didn't! Another win, another well-deserved win :D

No, it's legit. Arty's the real deal :)

It's based on Marco Sodano's "Lego Masters" series from around 10 years ago (before AI filters), and is done with surprisingly basic tools inside of Photoshop. You can try it yourself:

Let's start with this photo.

1. First up, we need to find a good image of a Lego brick. In order to match the look of the original, we can just isolate one from a high-res version of a Marco original.

Take that brick, tile it into a similar-sized grid that matches the aspect ratio of your source photo. Like so. Make sure to desaturate it, and keep the average brightness around 50%.

2. Next, take your source photo and go to Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic and set the grid to match your bricks.

3. Put the bricks layer over the pixelated photo, and set the transfer mode to "Overlay".

You'll probably need to mess with the brightness and contrast of both layers to get the colours to look the way you want.

You can also pop-in the Lego logo and "IMAGINE" brick to mimic the original art pieces.

If you really want to go the extra mile, swap-out some of the 1-piece bricks for 2, 4, or 6 piece bricks (if you find clusters of similar enough colour in your pixelated image).

Congratulations winners! You guys put out some killer work this year.

And a special shout-out to all the top nominators: /u/241baka, /u/CptSasquatch, /u/xprmntng, /u/Maymayfish, and — of course — /u/artunitinc; who not only nominated 9 of the 20 winning photoshops, also just won 3 awards himself! Yet another year we're disappointed that we've already given all of you guys the mod shout-out award :D

I misted-out the background for this week's sidebar image in order to make the text stand out. Thought the lightsaber in your shot would benefit from the same kind of isolation:

https://i.imgur.com/EnsFqiy.gif