Once I wrote in the contest thread that it is going to be a very hard job, to pick winners for BTC prize and also to merit the nice artworks. Double prize, Double work.
I hope you have already marked which artworks you'll be going to pick as winners during merit giveaway, otherwise your head will really explode in next run.

Not at least when Merit and Bitcoin is the prize because these are the two things most in demand in Bitcointalk.org currently.

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This is an easy way for those low-quality posters to grab some merits with some awesome artworks, they can't earn with quality posts but they may have earned with quality artworks.
I'm not discrediting anyone, but if there is someone as I mentioned then its a plus for him/her because it will encourage the user to make quality posts.

I have noticed many entries from newbies, possibly many users grabbed this opportunity to build new alt accounts because of its one in a lifetime opportunity.