Komainu Pt2

This was supposed to be part two of a blog delving into the creative process behind one of my latest characters "Komainu". (You can read the first part here: http://shawnah-lean.blogspot.com/2013/12/komainu-origin.html)
To bring new readers up to speed, I'm participating in an online contest at Talenthouse.com for the new 47 Ronin movie starring Keanu Reeves. The challenge was to design a mythical beast inspired by the movie which would then be subject to votes. (Deadline for votes is Monday December 23rd. Vote for my piece here: http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a3fa924eb874b92f4a55a0ba241309f7/6690
You can vote more than once on both facebook AND twitter of which I'm now a member..sigh..@ShawnAlleyneArt)
Here's the official entry. 

Designed and drawn by yours truly/colored by Renee Clarke. The Lion-Dog spirit exists to protect the righteous and guard against evil, but it remains to be seen if this Celestial being has been corrupted.

Instead, this is going to a public service announcement. It was recently brought to my attention that some of the contests in the competition have blatantly stolen artwork, tweaked it and are calling it their own. This was discovered by someone who knew of the original and came upon the contest. Now, I won't put the names the artists out there, nor any direct links, I'll just show you the artworks and you can judge for yourselves. Below is one of the "official" entries in the contest..

and here is the original artwork that was ripped off...

Ridiculous. And this entry is in the top 5 of the contest!!!! As you can see this piece was stolen, cropped, then meshed together with a different head. That was probably stolen from somewhere else as well.

Here's another entry:

And here are stolen pieces used to create this piece..

Double ridiculous!!!!! This one just pisses me off for the fact that a minotaur has no place in Japanese mythology.
It pains me that these entries are in the top of the contest just because they were able to convince more people to vote for them. That's why I hate these types of competitions. It doesn't come down to skill or passion, just this new age facebook and twitter popularity bullshit!
But maybe it's me.At the end of the day I'm probably going to be called a hater. I'm probably going to be called a sore loser.Maybe I'm reading too much into it. You be the judge.

Once again you can vote for me here: http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a3fa924eb874b92f4a55a0ba241309f7/6690

And see all the contestants and rank here: http://www.talenthouse.com/design-for-47-ronin

Thanks for reading

Peace
Shiz