1: photobashing is a perfectly acceptable technique in the concept art industry; whether it be for film or video and depends on the game you are working on.
2: calling people that uses photobash "fake" artist just shows me how little you know. To photobash well you need to understand value and strong fundamental. Without those skills your photobash will look like a mess.
3: You sound like you've never worked in the industry; you should check out some podcasts from Anthony Jones, Maciej Kuciara, Bobby Chiu. There is one thing in commmon; fundamentals and results. No one is going to care that you spent 3 months on a painting in black and white and then took it color. So your point of nit picking is moot.
4: If you got your feelings hurt during this contest, guess what? You are not at the end of that, there's more on the way as long as you chose to participate in these contests.
5: This is a pretty small community compare to Artstation, I hope you join one of their challenges and see what happens when you call someone a fake artist; because they used photobashing technique.
6: Stop nit picking and use irrelevant analogies, the end result is what matters. You want people's work separated into matte painting and 2D painting; why? The end result is the same; either realistic looking or stylized. Both require composition, value and focal point. You are not doing yourself any favor by nitpicking people's technique. One of my mentor said one important thing to me; I'll share in this thread.
"Technique is BS, rendering is a means to end. Result is what matters, nobody gives a **** about your sketches."
Feel free to debate, but you are not going to win. The contest result is clear and if anyone else like to contest this point? I welcome you to check out artstation's past challenges and read through comments of those winners and people that didn't win.
Please digest what you see on that website and understand that site contains some of the MOST prolific artist in the industry today.
And if you have a question as who I am, I'm the bronze league winner of cubebrush monthly contest back when cubebrush was a much smaller site and when Marc did video critiques for league winners and also a nobody.
