Let's just get it out of the way: my hatred of anime sigs holds no bounds. I really hate people using anime characters in sigs.
Now let's get to the meat of this dicsussion:
David
Back in 2001 this sig may have been seen as Godly, but this is 2004. We here in '04 have many different ideals to a sig, and your sig embodies many things behind the times. I will give kudos to the background and border but there are several things that definitely needed improvement. The font, aftershock, never EVER should be used in sigs. I find it to be one of the worst font available, and on your sig when you're going for a look of "cyberpunk neat" the font is tomato red and distracting. Adding to this is the Gohan image which has had seemingly no work done on it rather then to fill up an epty space. I will not deny that Gohan looks good on the sig, but it's just THERe, it's not there for a reason. Adding to this is the sig can be deconstructed to: border, background, font, stock image. There wasn't even any "trendwhorish" 2D art or any, seemingly, more work. This leaves the sig unfulfilled of it's full potential.
ET
I hate that font. I really truly hate that font. If there's one thing consistant in most of my sig criticisms is fonts, which nobody except a select few have managed to nail. The font on that sig is discoloured, seemingly "jagged" and does not appeal to the eye. The anime guy is also VERY distracting. I know he's supposed to be the focal point of the image but seriously look at him. He's the kind of guy you want to punch in the face for the sake of it. The kid also seems to have had no work done on him. He is also not appealing to the eye, and this brings me to both your biggest strength and greatest weakness: the background. This background is beautiful. I can see all the little effort of 2D art that isn't an overpowering 2D trendwhore. It's an ocean blue that appeals to the eye, and looks extremely nice, and here is where it all went wrong. The stock image and font do not match the background at all. They stick out like sore thumbs on a work of art. Maybe if you had gotten a better stock, added some other items, chosen a better font (and for the sake of it less emo quote) and generally put more effort into the fore then the back.
In conclusion I am obliged to vote for David. ET you could've so easily won my vote. That background is brilliant, but it fell to a common syndrome of "it needs more" when the more actually detracted from the sig. David won because his sig had at least a consistancy that I did not feel distracting, except the utterly horrible font.
David: 1
ET: 2
