UPDATE:  And the Winners are:  Prize 1 - for his critique on [link] and Prize 2 - with 9 critiques!  Congratulations to both and thank you to everyone who participated!

The official start of spring is just around the corner and that makes me happy!  Another thing that makes me happy is getting critiques on my deviations.  The result is that those of you who are interested may benefit monetarily!  I'm having a "Critique my Work" contest with 2 prizes.

Prize 1:  $25 (payable by Paypal or with equivalent DA points only  (I've never done points on DA before but I'm confident I can figure it out)) to the person who writes the best critique of one of my deviatioons.  The best is strictly my subjective opinion.  It's what I think is the most thoughtful, thought-provoking, accurate, and entertaining critique of my art or writing.  It could take as little as 5 minutes to win this prize if your critique is the one I think is the best, so not a bad return on your time investment.

Prize 2:  $40 (payable by Paypal or with equivalent DA points only)  to the person who gives the most critiques which qualify as "fair."  I'm requiring fair critiques to discourage a host of critiques from a single individual that don't reflect any consideration of the deviation they are critiquing just as a means of winning the money).  To be fair, it doesn't have to be complimentary, but it does have to be considered, thoughful, respectful, and focused on the deviation being critiqued.  In the highly unlikely event of a tie for this prize, the individuals who are tied will be notified and given an additional period of time to do further critiques.  If there is still a tie at the end of the additional time, $80 will be split among the number of people tied for first in equal shares.  The larger prize amount reflects what I believe will be a greater time investment by the contestant(s).

Eligible critiques must be through DA's "Critique" mechanism.  Critiques through comments will not be accepted.

Not all of my deviations request critiques.  The critique(s) must be on a deviation that requests critiques.  If you browse throgh my gallery, going all the way back to the first deviations I posted, you'll find loads of deviations that request critiques, so there's no shortage of critiquable deviations although it may take some time to find all of them if you're trying to assure yourself of winning Prize 2 (I recognize that the possibility that somebody critiques every eligible deviation I've done as part of this contest puts those of you who have already critiqued things in my gallery at a disadvantage for Prize 2.  I don't expect it to actually become an issue because I don't think winning $40 is likely to justify the expenditure of time that it would take, but, if the only reason that you didn't critique every eligible deviation is because you had critiqued all of the deviations not critiqued during the contest prior to the contest starting, then you'll win the prize, as well.  I think that's only fair to the individuals who have already taken the time to critique my deviations).

I'll provide updates over the course of the week providing the total number of critiques that is in the lead for Prize 2.

Contest begins now and runs through 11:59 Eastern Daylight Time on March 20, 2013.  Good luck!