With omens explanations and poking around some I think I now understand how this works in general with the badge collection towards llama upgrades, but it puzzles me as well, that I don't understand how the llama badge givers pick me, when I don't participate in the trading nor have given any myself. I mean, one I got from someone who also fav'ed one of my pictures, but the other two I don't think I've ever seen the user names before. Maybe they do it through the "random deviant" viewing to spread the net of mutual llamafication wider than the immediate circle. I think you must do that to collect thousands of them to get to highest scores I've seen so far.