A NEW 'supermodel' is born.
After 10 gruelling weeks of challenges, Evelyn Lee-Ann Leckie has won online modelling reality series Supermodelme.
The Australian-Chinese babe, 18, outshone local model Christabel Campbell and Irish-Thai beauty Kathlene Orasa McKinney at Saturday night's finale party at Zouk.
Christabel, 22, took second place, and Kathlene, 17, was third.
A stoked Evelyn was still in disbelief when The New Paper met her after the show.
The Perth native said: 'The show's challenges were nothing compared to being away from home and family. I was really homesick.'
She recently returned to Perth for a week.
Perhaps Singapore has won her over and Supermodelme has toughened her up. Evelyn, who is 1.8m tall, will be based here for at least the next two months.
Evelyn's prizes include a Fevo Prepaid MasterCard with $10,000 credit and a cover shoot with Jetstar Asia's inflight magazine.
The final episode will air on www.Supermodelme.tv on 1 Sep.
Debuted on 15 Jun and hosted by top local model Charmaine Harn, the series saw 10 aspiring models from countries like the US, the UK and Thailand competing for a shot at becoming Asia's next modelling sensation.
The contestants lived together in a rented bungalow here and were graded on their performances in various challenges including photoshoots in the buff and in lingerie.
Each week, one girl was eliminated from the contest.
Saturday was no different. Evelyn, Christabel and Kathlene were given two challenges - a bikini photoshoot and working the runway in couture gowns by local fashion designer Frederick Lee.
Public voting via the website, its Twitter page, SMS and from attendees on Saturday night contributed to 50 per cent of the final results.
By Saturday afternoon, Evelyn had garnered nearly 50 per cent of over 1,200 online votes.
Didn't mince her words
The other 50 per cent of the final results was determined by the night's judges, which included photographer Olivier Henry and Her World magazine's fashion and beauty director Jeanette Ejlersen - who did not mince her words when it came to critiquing.
Commenting on Christabel's performance after the catwalk challenge, Ms Ejlersen said the 1.78m-tall babe should 'stop nodding' every time she changed poses.
When asked about this, Christabel said: 'I didn't know that I do that. No one has ever told me about it.
'I'll bear her advice in mind and have a look at the video.'
Christabel, whose mother is Chinese-Indian and her father is Scottish-German, will be off to London Fashion Week next week.
The former New Paper New Face finalist says she will be based in London indefinitely and is thinking of venturing into acting as well.
She said that one would never know if something may work out. So her motto is 'just tryit'.
She added: 'I joined Supermodelme because I wanted to improve my portfolio with the pictures we took during the series.
'Now that I've achieved that, I'm ready for the next challenge.'
However, it's back to school for 1.71m-tall Kathlene.
The Brit babe, who was born in Singapore, will be enrolling in an interior design course here.
She said: 'I joined the contest to find out how much I wanted to model. I never thought I would make it this far.
'The show has made me more mature in so many ways. Everything else has been a bonus.
'Right now, studies come first.'
This article was first published in The New Paper.