ANTM Cycle 19 - College Edition commenced and the highest honors were given to Laura James from Paul Smith's College. The second place goes to Kiara Belen followed by the comeback girl, Leila Goldkuhl.

Laura James, from Cambridge, New York, has been a consistent achiever all through out the cycle and won numerous challenges and first call-outs. The final result was computed from total sum of the Judge's score, Challenge sore and Fan votes. Laura got a total of 379.9, while Kiara and Leila got 345.6 and 257.3, consecutively.



As the winner, Laura will receive a modeling contract with LA Models & NY Model Management and be the face of the America’s Next Top Model perfume product "Dream Come True". She'll also have a spread in Nylon magazine, campaigns with Nine West and Smashbox Cosmetics, and a US$100,000 cash prize. Here are some of the best shots of Laura James, ANMT Cycle 19 winner.

Indeed, it was a British Invasion for the Cycle 18 of America's Next Model when Sophie was crowned as the winner. Sophie Sumner from Oxford, England is the 1st runner of British Next Top Model Cycle 5.

She is known for her bubbly and positive attitude and tagged by Tyra as "Illluminata" for her ability to light up a room with her personality. Sophie won best photo twice and booked 4 out of 4 designers in their go-see challenge in Macau. Her ability to switch from girl-next-door to ethereal princess to high fashion model made her the first non-American winner of ANTM.









Congratulations Sophie Sumner, ANTM British Invasion Winner!

This week the crews will be dancing to the music of famous duo LMFAO. Here are the songs and challenges given to the top 4 crews.

Group Number "Live Your Life"	Mos Wanted Crew "Sexy and I Know it"	Rated Next Generation "Sorry for Party Rocking"
Elektrolytes "Champagne Showers"	8 Flavahz "Party Rock Anthem"

Challenges:
Mos Wanted Crew - Take off their trousers
RNG - Recreate a portion of the music video
Elektrolytes - Make the shuffle-bot
8 Flavahz - Recreate the explosive event in the music video

This week the crews will be dancing to the music of world-famous rapper, Drake.

Mos Wanted Crew "Motto"	Elektrolytes "Headlines"	RNG "HYFR"
Fanny Pak "Make Me Proud"	8 Flavahz "Find Your Love"	Collizion Crew "Over"
Step Boyz "Best I Ever Had"

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This week the crews dance to the music of the Queen of Pop, Madonna. The episode started with a shocking revelation that two crews will be eliminated. Collizion Crew, Funkdation and Irratik found themselves in the bottom three. Collizion crew were saved and has a chance to perform for another week. Here's my review of the crews' performances (from best to worst).

A while ago I was watching the first episode of "Work of Art", an American Reality show similar to Project Runway but the contestants create artworks instead of dresses. The artists were paired togehter and were challenged to make a portait of their pair. Most of them made a painting showing the personalities of their subject using colors and composition. The unique ones, unfortunately, landed on the bottom three. One was painted on an easle, the other is a type of installation, and the last one is a simple abstract painting. According to the judges, a portrait should embody the subject and show its personality. The astract painter was eliminated because her work was too abstract and it might not translate as a portrait to other people.

Talking about portrait, I went through my files and looked for my self-portraits. I had many of them because it's hard to incorporate my personality in one artwork. Some of these are just plain photographs while others had a little more effort that i put in to. Here's the different sides of me. The last one is my favorite above all. Click on the image to for full view (More after the jump).




Making a self-portait is not just an expression of my self. It's not only for facebook purposes, to have a nice profile picture. The process is what makes it a self-portrait. I am becoming aware of who I am on that moment, and what influence me as a person and as an artist. Sometimes they are created spontaneously and sometimes I am inspired by others to create my own portraits. If you were to create your self-portait now, how would it be? Is it a photo, a drawing or a painting? It is colorful, dull or in black and white?