So guilt and a hanging sense of failure finally drove me to circle back and finish up (or at least try to) some previous contest winners. Steve just approved his custom illustration for winning Caption Contest 49, the armored solider "Crimson Dawn":

I apologize to all previous winners who haven't yet gotten your prizes, but I am working on them as time allows and you will NOT be forgotten. Many thanks to Steve and the other winners for their patience thus far, I really appreciate it.
Hey, that looks b’dazz, Jeff. And don’t worry about it. Haste makes waste, after all.
Cool.
Verra verra nice.
Hey, all I can say is that if people are jerks about getting free stuff, they shouldn’t get any!
No no, no jerks, everyone’s been extremely patient and nice about it.
“Crimson Dawn” looks great, JH! Yo, Steve! We should totally have a team-up!
http://www.heromachine.com/2008/09/11/contest-25-prize-spiritech-zero/
Thanks,
He’s just one of many of my great ideas…but Jeff’s the man…hes a great guy!
True!
that’s awesome, glad to hear that people have been cool about it.
Didn’t mean to imply that they hadn’t been though. 🙂