SOTM 2008 - April (Dress Code: Female: Elegant/Ceremonial) - Entry Phase

[CrowKenobi]

Final version of the Clannad sig:





Now, who's next?

Link to sig entry post.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Setsilya~

I didn't really word my speech right, it is not that I am disapproving her opinion.

I wasn't trying to start an argument or anything, and it's probably what you mention about the comment that made me think something different that what you had in mind originally.

I tend to get a bit edgy whenever the topic of 'opinions' shows up.

Originally Posted by Setsilya~

I'm just saying the tone of color would lack of appeal to "most" people according to knowledge I have stored. Disagreeable or not is up to you.

Can't really say one way or the other. Lots of folks with different opinions on the internet to decide on something like this. After all, a sig that wins a competition in this forum, may end up not being so lucky somewhere else.

You just never know.....

[Marina]

I posted it on my thread, but I'll post it here too,
Here is my first try for this month's competition:

CnC would be much appreciated ^_^

[Wandering_Youth]

Well here's my current draft sig.



Mind if I get a few opinions and critiques? It's been away since I did any graphic arts.

[konstargirl]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

Well here's my current draft sig.



Mind if I get a few opinions and critiques? It's been away since I did any graphic arts.

OMG. That is just pretty and it looks nice. Maybe some falling leaves will look nice to me to mak it slighty better. It looks good.

Originally Posted by Marina

I posted it on my thread, but I'll post it here too,
Here is my first try for this month's competition:

CnC would be much appreciated ^_^

Well I like it but theres too much light on the left side. Perhaps you can like lower it down a little bit than it will look better. Otherwise good job.

[KasumiGirl]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

Well here's my current draft sig.



Mind if I get a few opinions and critiques? It's been away since I did any graphic arts.

I'd probably suggest to redo the text and use a different font or colour, since it doesn't stand out as much as it should. Also, maybe adding a light source.
Other than that, nice job on it. I like the overall feel to it.

EDIT: Holy crap - Sephi posted straight after me!

[Sephi]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

Well here's my current draft sig.



Mind if I get a few opinions and critiques? It's been away since I did any graphic arts.

Looks good. I would say. Make it a regular rectangle sig so you don't have to use PNG-8 for the transparency effect. The only thing i don't like about it is the quality lose. Other than that, it looks good. Perhaps the text could use some work to. But text is always a pain in the rear.

[Wandering_Youth]

Originally Posted by Marina

I posted it on my thread, but I'll post it here too,
Here is my first try for this month's competition:

CnC would be much appreciated ^_^

It's a good start.

The first thing that hits me are the colors. I like them but, it's too bright and fading out on the left side of the sig while the colors look desaturated and dark on the right. I'm not sure if that was intentional but that's what came to my mind when I first saw it. I like the font you used but it's kind of hard to see/read it. I say your biggest job is to work on the colors of sig it's need to be more...balanced because it's currently saturated/desaturated in certain areas.

Originally Posted by KasumiGirl

I'd probably suggest to redo the text and use a different font or colour, since it doesn't stand out as much as it should. Also, maybe adding a light source.
Other than that, nice job on it. I like the overall feel to it.

EDIT: Holy crap - Sephi posted straight after me!

Originally Posted by Sephi

Looks good. I would say. Make it a regular rectangle sig so you don't have to use PNG-8 for the transparency effect. The only thing i don't like about it is the quality lose. Other than that, it looks good. Perhaps the text could use some work to. But text is always a pain in the rear.

Yea, I thought so. Anyone got any suggestions on where to look for a good font pack?

[Shinbou]

Changed some bits and i think this is going to be my final entry, not sure yet.



Any comments?

Edit: Or rather a simple but cute one? ^^

[Sephi]

Originally Posted by KasumiGirl

EDIT: Holy crap - Sephi posted straight after me!

!! And we sort of both agreed on the text

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

Yea, I thought so. Anyone got any suggestions on where to look for a good font pack?

Not exactly a font pack. But it's best to manual select anyway. All those fonts packs only contain a few good fonts anyway. I usually look at http://www.dafont.com/ for fonts. You can use the custom preview option to see how the text looks with the word your using.

Originally Posted by Shinbou

Changed some bits and i think this is going to be my final entry, not sure yet.



Any comments?

Edit: Or rather a simple but cute one? ^^

I like the second one more. A tad to much blur perhaps. But i like the feel of it. Not to found of the soft pink border myself though. But that is just me.

---

In the first week of announcing the theme it was a bit hard for people to get the idea of the theme right. But i'm glad to see entries that are going the way i hoped to go with this theme

[Ayame_]

Originally Posted by Marina

I posted it on my thread, but I'll post it here too,
Here is my first try for this month's competition:

CnC would be much appreciated ^_^

Id have to agree with the lighting. Maybe it just is kinda shading the wrong parts? I think the sig might look pretty good without the darkening of the right side. I have a feeling that that was to use the light source make the focal point closer to the face. It might be a bit to bright too. I like it as a start, has great potential.

[Simple1]

Still my trial vers

C&C plz

[Endrance]

ok i added a border, lightened a few swirls darkened the water a bit but i still suck at the text effects and ive given up on the rippling water it just didnt come out looking like i hoped. Any critiques or tips are more than welcome

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Simple1

Still my trial vers

C&C plz

I like the dreamy quality of it, and that's a nice choice of character render. Your white border wasn't apparent to me until I saw your image in the darkened quote field - you may want to consider going with a different, darker color to account for the forum background (people will either be viewing it under a very light brown, or a light blue - the majority seem to be using brown). If you can think of some nice matching text and figure out a way to include it, I'd do that too. Text might obstruct the background though, and it's such a nice background - it really mixes well with the render.

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

Well here's my current draft sig.



Mind if I get a few opinions and critiques? It's been away since I did any graphic arts.

I like the background and the text looks nice to me, but I don't like the character. I've never watched Rozen Maiden so this may be why, but I've seen that girl plastered all over the internet to accompany the various "desu desu desu" jokes and there are others that I prefer. What makes this one look weird is the detail given to her nose (which looks relatively large in this one) and her mouth (she actually has lips here). Her eyes also look different than usual - a bit rounder I think, but I can't be sure.

If people have a good reception to it, keep it. I like the work that you've done on the image - it looks very stylish. I just don't like the work of whoever drew the character in that one

Originally Posted by Marina

I posted it on my thread, but I'll post it here too,
Here is my first try for this month's competition:

CnC would be much appreciated ^_^

People commented that it was too bright and so on, but I wanted to comment on yours (which was actually the reason for starting this post) to say that I really like it. It is very bright on the left, but it adds nicely to the image. The colors, the light, and the character's expression all combine very well. It makes me feel happy to look at it. If it were up to me, I'd recommend not making any major modifications. If you want to tone down the light a bit to make others happy you could and I'd probably still feel that it was light enough, but don't reduce it to the point where it doesn't seem like light is streaming through. Very nice, possibly my personal favorite so far

Originally Posted by Shinbou

Changed some bits and i think this is going to be my final entry, not sure yet.



Any comments?

Edit: Or rather a simple but cute one? ^^

For the first one I really like that background and the character is OK, but it feels slightly bland. You're well within the file size limit, so why not extend the image vertically and add some text? If you can find a nice quote or think up a nice saying and then style the text to match the image I think the image would be enhanced quite nicely. As it is, it looks nice but doesn't speak to me.

I like the second but the pink borders seem a little much. The dresses are tinted pink and it seems like the color matches the shade of pink on the falling petals, but when I initially saw it I felt that it clashed with the blue background of the sky. I don't have a particular bias against pink and I can't think of a color that wouldn't be out of place with that image, but perhaps there's something else - perhaps you could utilize transparency and make a more detailed border. I like the way you've made two thick lines at the top and bottom exclusively as a border, though.

Originally Posted by Endrance

ok i added a border, lightened a few swirls darkened the water a bit but i still suck at the text effects and ive given up on the rippling water it just didnt come out looking like i hoped. Any critiques or tips are more than welcome

I like the image that you've chosen - it does give a feeling of peace, as your text suggests. However, having the text come out letter by letter makes the animation seem jerky, and doesn't add much to the image in my opinion. Instead, you're just sitting and waiting for the word to be spelled out so that you can see what the image looks like with the full word there.

If you want to have a text animation there are a few other things you can try. Off the top of my head I would consider trying to have the text glow ("outer glow" if you're using Photoshop), and alter the glow intensity/radius up and then down so that the text's glow is pulsing. Glow can get tricky with GIF though, thanks to dithering and all.

Another option would be to switch to a fatter font and possibly have the insides of the letters be changed; perhaps have a color rush through it. You could do this with your current font as well, actually, but don't change it letter by letter - manually recolor it so that it doesn't look quite as jerky. I don't know how many frames you could make use of before the file size became too high, but if you move the color at the rate of half a letter (or even have the color moving in a slanted fashion)... well, it's hard to describe, and I don't envy you animators

[Shinbou]

Originally Posted by Sephi

I like the second one more. A tad to much blur perhaps. But i like the feel of it. Not to found of the soft pink border myself though. But that is just me.

For the first one I really like that background and the character is OK, but it feels slightly bland. You're well within the file size limit, so why not extend the image vertically and add some text? If you can find a nice quote or think up a nice saying and then style the text to match the image I think the image would be enhanced quite nicely. As it is, it looks nice but doesn't speak to me.

I like the second but the pink borders seem a little much. The dresses are tinted pink and it seems like the color matches the shade of pink on the falling petals, but when I initially saw it I felt that it clashed with the blue background of the sky. I don't have a particular bias against pink and I can't think of a color that wouldn't be out of place with that image, but perhaps there's something else - perhaps you could utilize transparency and make a more detailed border. I like the way you've made two thick lines at the top and bottom exclusively as a border, though.

Well about the first signature, im worse when it comes to finding quotes...I was thinking of making one but i couldnt find a good one. I'm also bad at text style choose.

About the second one, myself i hate pink but i just tought about making this kind of border that fits. And this is a stock so i can't change the background heehee. I wanted to make it a dreamy sig, thats why its blurry/dreamy.

Some other versions:

Spoiler for Save space:

Version 1, the normal version:


Version 2, Pink border, lower opacity:


Version 3, normal border, pink (sorry cant find an other colour to fit ^^)


Version 4, overlay border...also less blury:


Version 5, orange border?:

[Sephi]

I like this one the most.
you can try to extend the sides with the clone stamp or smudge tool, but it doesn't often give feasible results, and you can only extend a small bit on both side that way.

[kayos]

Originally Posted by Shinbou

Spoiler for Save space:

Version 1, the normal version:


Version 2, Pink border, lower opacity:


Version 3, normal border, pink (sorry cant find an other colour to fit ^^)


Version 4, overlay border...also less blury:


Version 5, orange border?:

You should probably change the font type, it looks more grunge than elegant.

Majority seems to be using script fonts to give it an elegant feel, try that out and see if it works.

[genryou]

current update...



smaller petals ---> done
variation on petals movement ----> done
natural movement on petals ----> unable to do it..

i cant do it as good as Riker's

[Endrance]

Another text attempt. This time i went with a scrolling light text effect dunno any opinions?

[rainbow_rena]

Originally Posted by genryou

current update...



smaller petals ---> done
variation on petals movement ----> done
natural movement on petals ----> unable to do it..

i cant do it as good as Riker's

that's very good for a first time i realy like what you've done with the petals going in other directions.