it's Spring. isn't it? so why still Winter style "animesuki"-banners?

[Deathkillz]

well you do have the materials to make it into the finals @_@ some smudge smudge blend blend and youre done but yea i do hope you will make something new :3

[NightWish]

Sorry about constantly putting this off, but I've been very busy. In the last two contests Catgirls created some simple backgrounds for us (~10 or so which we filtered down until we were happy with one). While I'm more than able to do this, I've not yet had the time (believe it or not) to even make a simple gradient I was happy with.

As I would have liked to start the contest last weekend, I'm going to try and speed things up a little by letting you create some background. I'm not saying we'll use any of them, but if I have a selection to pick from it will be quicker than making them myself. Keep in mind we're looking for four periods in the day, so the colour needs to reflect this.

If no one wants to, or those posted don't meet what I'm looking for, I'll just make them myself as soon as I can find a suitable block of time. Any assistance will be much appreciated (and will speed things up so the contest starts sooner!). Note: if you do make some, keep them simple please. I would like to expand into more complicated backgrounds, but for now it is probably better if we stick with the vertical gradient.

[felix]

Hmm.. interesting ~
.
I'll personally see if I can come up with something ~
Been so bored lately, and just came back from 3 days of totally-boring-no-anime-no-electricity no nothin' ~
Curse you apocalyptic stormy season.
.
.
Don't really understand why you won't just allow us to make them both for each banner.
Oh well, we'll n' ever noes I guess ~


------------------------------------------------------
Q. Will the banners be centered? Like usual ~

[NightWish]

A1: Complexity. As I said, I thought about letting each person make a background for their banners, but having already introduced the idea of making 4 banners in one go so we could run them for a day at a time, we thought it might be better not to ask for backgrounds to be created also. Making a background is a little harder if done at the same time because it has many other implications. The first is the strobe effect (where the colour of the top band changes on each reload, due to wildly differing designs/choice of colours) and the second is the tessellation (edges matching neatly). Both of these could make the top look horrid, as I'm sure you're aware. Now, while many of the skilled artists/graphics designers on the forum can cope with this, we want the contest to be as open as possible and as easy to understand as possible... so for now, we'll keep it simple.

A2: Yes, I think for now they will be. Next contest we might look at asking for backgrounds too, and possibly allow alternative alignment/styling, but it would be changing too much in one go to introduce it now.

[felix]

I've been cracking at the little background problem.
Anyway here are some quick thoughts on the topic.

I think the 4-times-of-day may be over-doing it.
For the most part I think because the limitation in design imposed make it very unlikely to get anything 100%.

Also this wide range of time imposes a wide range of colors, disregarding how difficult it might be for contestants to meet the criteria there's the issue of weather or not this kind of banner switching will become a annoyance ~ changing banners may be one thing changing that entire bar is another. More so since it's just a simple gradient. Imagine for example some random color in the forum skin your using, let's say the background color for the Vb boxes, would change color 4 times a day.

How about just night & day. You know Keep It Simple & Stupid
That and somehow I'm imagining variety in opinion for the times of day.

.
On another unrelated note,
I've been doing dozens of gradient variation (2 colors 10 colors whateva), it seems to me that to get 4-just-right-ones or whatever is more a matter of dumb luck then anything else. Anyway to improve my chances of accidentally getting it right.. erm- I mean to overcome the design-blocks I've been experimenting with different ways of making the gradient..

So hence a question arises,
Q. Does the pattern have to be solid color?

Here's a quick example I made to illustrate what I'm referring to.
( don't mind the colors etc it's just an example of the principle )

Spoiler:

[NoSanninWa]

A discontinuous gradient like that is unacceptable. It needs to be smooth.

[felix]

Hai hai ~ it was just a thought.
No need to get all hostile.

[Daniel E.]

Something that can be used as a starting point perhaps?









Even if these ones dont work, they could still help someone get a better idea.

[RedFrame]

What size of the bg color that we have to do?
.... what color are dusk anyway ? i don't remember

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by RedFrame

What size of the bg color that we have to do?

760 x 100 pixels

[Areguzanda]

Originally Posted by RedFrame

What size of the bg color that we have to do?
.... what color are dusk anyway ? i don't remember

well here you have an example .
a picture I took with my phone-cam


think you see a wide spec of colors there