AnimeSuki Banner Contest - July 2007 - "Sky"

[Klashikari]

^ nice for roughs.
i'm just picky about the fact that cropped head aren't all the time classy. here, the fact i can't see the whole face irks me a bit, and distract me from the subject.
Animesuki is extremely big, and the font is fairly too bland.

i think you should give a bit more emphasis on the sky, since both render and animesuki are completely stealing the attention (well mine anyway )
last nitpicking : the right side of the render might be better if it is completely opaque ^^"

the impression is rather neat and clean, some size adjustements are required, nothing really major.
so, i prefer the first version, since it has a bit more "sky" in it meh.

[Sephi]

My final entries are here
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...&postcount=487

Originally Posted by kayos

These two are my first roughs... I'm a little indecisive so opinions are welcome.

Can't really decide between which of the two is better. They both look equal. But overall looks nice. The only thing i notice is that the white lines. Try make the lines blend in better imo.

Well my final 2 entries for the daytime gradient. Didn't got much feedback about them so i didn't changed much about them. And i don't have a idea for another 3th banner, so may as well leave it. Hope i'll do better at the other gradient's

Iriya no Sora banner


Sola Banner

[kayos]

@Klashikari

I see... thank you for your helpful comments, I'll take it into consideration when revising it.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by kayos

These two are my first roughs... I'm a little indecisive so opinions are welcome.

I like this one a lot. The fact that we can only see a part of her face makes the whole banner feel cooler.

A little bit more clouds could help, though.

EDIT:

Hmmmm. are those feathers in the background?

Originally Posted by Sephi

Well my final 2 entries for the daytime gradient. Didn't got much feedback about them so i didn't changed much about them. And i don't have a idea for another 3th banner, so may as well leave it. Hope i'll do better at the other gradient's

Iriya no Sora banner


Sola Banner

You got it pretty well with both entries, IMO.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Sephi

Well my final 2 entries for the daytime gradient. Didn't got much feedback about them so i didn't changed much about them. And i don't have a idea for another 3th banner, so may as well leave it. Hope i'll do better at the other gradient's

i think you didn't see my earlier comment then
basically, my problem is the "inner edges", especially Iriya banner. to be more accurate, the left side is simply too opaque, and you can see it isn't really merged with the gradient BG, but rather piled on it. in fact, you can actually deduce it is a square picture, which the edges has been smoothed with blur. i think you should use a soft eraser, and change the left shape so it would look like a cloud.

the same goes for sola left side, though much less obvious.

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Sephi

Well my final 2 entries for the daytime gradient. Didn't got much feedback about them so i didn't changed much about them. And i don't have a idea for another 3th banner, so may as well leave it. Hope i'll do better at the other gradient's

Iriya no Sora banner


Sola Banner

I can only repeat what Klashikari said - work a bit on those edges on the left side and they are good to go. It might be nice to lose a bit of the brightness for the bird in the Iriya banner though - it is a bit intrusive, to the point it draws attention away from Iriya simply because it sticks out too much.

[Deathkillz]

i agree that the bird is rather obstructive...to me it looks fake which is rather bad :/ how bout try giving it a white outer glow? and maybe lower the visibility of the whole image ^.^

[Dene]

Here's my entrys ^.^

Spoiler for I gave this a try to =):

[Arakawa]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

No i agree with Daniel : i still can see the issue on the gradients of the banner.
i can distinguish the banner itself with the 2 mini template at each sides.

there is a problem with the quality i guess. (since it is in PNG, i guess it has been decerased a lot for the size. i would suggest Jpeg, i have encountered near to no problems with gradients with this format)

Indeed. I was rushing a bit before since I was busy with playing all the MGS titles within the week. So I must've overlooked it. Since some were over sized, I just save for web, and compressed it under 60 kb, the initial setting must've lowered the quality extensively. Either way, when looking at the .psd, I forget about checking the optimized file.

Edit: Here are the jpeg versions, any better? 'casue I have a bad eye for these things :|

[Aoie_Emesai]

Well... here go my first submission ^_^.



Comments, comments

[Klashikari]

@arakawa :

Spoiler for arakawa banners:

Not sure if it is a nocebo effect or anything, but i "think" i still see them on the 2 first banner, while the third one isn't affected. should need someone else to confirm or not... (meh... 1:25AM... that might explain why i can' be sure...)

@aoi_emesai




as you can see... the edges aren't good.
also, the render takes a lot of place, which leave hardly an impression of sky in fact :x
not too sure of the effect of "greek" for the font :x

[Aoie_Emesai]

OH GOD! I used a 720 instead of a 760 . I better change that.

Originally Posted by Klashikari

@arakawa :

Spoiler for arakawa banners:

Not sure if it is a nocebo effect or anything, but i "think" i still see them on the 2 first banner, while the third one isn't affected. should need someone else to confirm or not... (meh... 1:25AM... that might explain why i can' be sure...)

@aoi_emesai




as you can see... the edges aren't good.
also, the render takes a lot of place, which leave hardly an impression of sky in fact :x
not too sure of the effect of "greek" for the font :x

Of course constructive criticism is always good, but i'll fix what I can for you. ^_^

ps: I'm rather stuck at her fingers cause the image i've extracted her from don't go past that.

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Arakawa

Edit: Here are the jpeg versions, any better? 'casue I have a bad eye for these things :|

They are still there for all 3 banners ... though barely noticeable in the 3rd one (right side more so).

Originally Posted by Aoie_Emesai

Well... here go my first submission ^_^.



Comments, comments

Same as Klashikari - the edges are no good, and since the picture is so big it hardly leaves any room for the "Sky" impression.

urgh, 2:50 am @_@ ... i better get some sleep >.>

[Arakawa]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

They are still there for all 3 banners ... though barely noticeable in the 3rd one (right side more so).

Really? I just checked them right now by taking the original gradient from the first page and messing with the transparency, there's no difference that I can see. Maybe it's just this crappy computer. I don't know, but I really don't see a difference.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

It might be nice to lose a bit of the brightness for the bird in the Iriya banner though - it is a bit intrusive, to the point it draws attention away from Iriya simply because it sticks out too much.

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

i agree that the bird is rather obstructive...to me it looks fake which is rather bad :/ how bout try giving it a white outer glow? and maybe lower the visibility of the whole image ^.^

If the source image is the same one I have, then the bird is part of the original and cannot be moved/altered so easily.

Originally Posted by Arakawa

Really? I just checked them right now by taking the original gradient from the first page and messing with the transparency, there's no difference that I can see. Maybe it's just this crappy computer. I don't know, but I really don't see a difference.

See the red wave on the right side? It goes all the way to the edge and makes a cut in the gradient.

[Sephi]

My final entries are here
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...&postcount=487

Aah sorry Klashikari totally missed your comment. And funny how i never notice it and when someone mention it. I realize it's so obvious Instead of feather blending on edges i used layer mask blending. Hopefully it results in a smoother blending from the banner to the gradient.

Reworked the Iriya banner completely. Made the bird smaller and put it as decoration near the text...

@Daniel_E your right about the source. Luckily i could get my hands on the original image. The bird has been made smaller now.

Also added a birdless version.

[saphyre]

These are the two that I've made so far.
I don't think I'll consider these my final pieces yet, since I just completed them :P.
Here they are.


First one: Misuzu from 'AIR'.


I think the word placement for this one is somewhat out of place. Can't seem to find a good place to put it though.

Version 2:


Changed the position of the text, still don't know which is good, I'll let you guys decide.


Second one: Ayu from 'Kanon'.


Feel free to give some feedback, go easy though .

[Arakawa]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

If the source image is the same one I have, then the bird is part of the original and cannot be moved/altered so easily.





See the red wave on the right side? It goes all the way to the edge and makes a cut in the gradient.

Oh, I see what you mean now, before this final version, previous versions had Ikki much closer to the center, hence me not noticing the big difference here. When I was checking gradients, I just checked the left side <_<.

Spoiler:

I'm sure some people are tired looking at mine

What I still don't understand is the other two o_O

[Deathkillz]

Originally Posted by saphyre

These are the two that I've made so far.
I don't think I'll consider these my final pieces yet, since I just completed them :P.
Here they are.


First one: Misuzu from 'AIR'.


I think the word placement for this one is somewhat out of place. Can't seem to find a good place to put it though.


Second one: Ayu from 'Kanon'.


Feel free to give some feedback, go easy though .

ooo very nice

1) imo they both suffer sudden gradient changes if you look at the sides...i would try and smooth them out for a better effect

2) for your misuzu one there are 2 light sources ~ i would instead move the lens flare to the left light "globe" or remove that obstruction ~

3) for the ayu one im not too sure about the faiding ayu on the right...it would make more sense if you made the colours more solid cause now it looks pretty dull >.< maybe a lens flare over to that area can do the trick

[saphyre]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

ooo very nice

1) imo they both suffer sudden gradient changes if you look at the sides...i would try and smooth them out for a better effect

2) for your misuzu one there are 2 light sources ~ i would instead move the lens flare to the left light "globe" or remove that obstruction ~

3) for the ayu one im not too sure about the faiding ayu on the right...it would make more sense if you made the colours more solid cause now it looks pretty dull >.< maybe a lens flare over to that area can do the trick

Ooo thanks for the tips.
Did a little fiddling about with my Ayu one, added the things that you said that might make it look better... And the results are...

Ayu Version 2:



Looks alot better! . IMO anyway :P.

EDIT:

Misuzu Version 3:



Did a few changes to this too.