The bar was raised at the second Kimbolton Sculpture Festival on Saturday with local university student Sophie Coleman's Best Wishes dandelion, and Ashburton's Stuart Mitchell's Bull Thar.
Coleman won the Creative Cocky award, and Mitchell the NZ Sculpture award.
The judges, Catherine Russ and Paul Hansen, commented that Coleman's Alice in Wonderland scale impressed along with the creative use of simple materials.
Her $2500 piece was bought by an anonymous buyer who then donated it to Kimbolton for permanent display in the north Manawatū town.
The judges said of Mitchell's Bull Thar that he'd "wonderfully captured the spirit and form with a complex integration of scrap metal elements".