SOTW IX

Who do you vote for?

  • madman121: [IMG]http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/9518/mhecouldbebetter.jpg[/IMG

    Votes: 1 16.7%
  • Viper: [IMG]http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u157/Vip3rX/PCgraphics/BatmanSig.png[/IMG

    Votes: 2 33.3%
  • Snowman: [IMG]http://forum.esforces.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1204&d=1283366104[/url][/IMG

    Votes: 1 16.7%
  • Demonoid: [IMG]http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/8361/sotw9z.png[/IMG]

    Votes: 2 33.3%

  • Total voters
    6
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I could not agree more with you. And when I said "some effects don't fit right" , I definatelly ment "all the effects I'm used to gamble with are not working here". Besides I was not complaining. The fact that it was a challenge made me want to explore the software and my ideas in a way that I never did. So.., about what I said..!? It wasn't a "bull****" argument at all.

PS: btw show us what you can do please :) , you know...so we can all be inspired by new stuff.
After the Art community died out on these forums (and a couple of others), I pretty much lost interest in signature making and the like, so really...I wouldn't be of much help in inspiring anyone in terms of signature making. Nowadays, my interests have shifted more to video (not editing anime movies, but actually filming) and Photography. In the past year I posted a couple of threads of stuff I was working on (for school).

http://forum.esforces.com/threads/75563-Movie-Poster-homework-assignment?highlight=
http://forum.esforces.com/threads/77889-2-commercials-made-for-school?highlight=

The poster changed a bit afterwards though, made it slightly lighter. I maybe could post some pictures I made with my new DSLR, though I have only just begun with Photography, so I am not that great at it yet.
 
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I would like to get some Art Competitions going but, I don't think anyone would work with it. I mean this is the best I could really do is get SOTW going again. Maybe we can restart the Art of this community.
 
The Brain Freezer
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After the Art community died out on these forums (and a couple of others), I pretty much lost interest in signature making and the like, so really...I wouldn't be of much help in inspiring anyone in terms of signature making. Nowadays, my interests have shifted more to video (not editing anime movies, but actually filming) and Photography. In the past year I posted a couple of threads of stuff I was working on (for school).

http://forum.esforces.com/threads/75563-Movie-Poster-homework-assignment?highlight=
http://forum.esforces.com/threads/77889-2-commercials-made-for-school?highlight=

The poster changed a bit afterwards though, made it slightly lighter. I maybe could post some pictures I made with my new DSLR, though I have only just begun with Photography, so I am not that great at it yet.
You are the one using bull**** arguments now. What? you can't make a sig just because the art community died in this forum? I heard better excuses, and besides, I was not asking for a garden of eden sig, just some casual stuff you could come up with.

Demonoid I think that if the art community really wants to get back on it's feet it will, meanwile I think we should not force anything. Let's just enjoy making some stuff :)
 
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He didn't say he couldn't make a signature, he said he lost interest in it. There is a difference.

Why do you think I stopped posting art on here?
 
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So we can clear further comments, it was just a small friendly teasing ok?
 
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I would like to get some Art Competitions going but, I don't think anyone would work with it. I mean this is the best I could really do is get SOTW going again. Maybe we can restart the Art of this community.
Like I said earlier, I am all for getting the Art community up and running again. But continuously posting new SOTW's isn't the right way. People like Painkiller won't learn much new stuff this way, and won't improve at all. The only thing needed to get this community arty again, is have enthousiastic people who do want to learn new stuff. Instead of posting once a week in a SOTW competition saying "Well guys, here's my entry...it sucks even more than last time. Ktxhbai.", with a signature using 2 cloud filters and some other random filter. People will need to experiment for themselves, without needing a competition to get your creativity going.

Get people (like Painkiller, Papadi) to actually follow a couple of good tutorials on good-tutorials.com or pixel2life.com and have them post their results here, THEN we can help them. And get people to search the internet for neat new programs that might help them create new funky effects. There is far more to Art than just Photoshop. Terragen for example is a really good program to create beautiful vista's and together with a 3d program and Photoshop, you can make exciting new things. Apophysis is an awesome fractal program, combine it with Photoshop and you can make really awesome abstract works of art. There are bound to be even more programs like these, that I don't know of.


You are the one using bull**** arguments now. What? you can't make a sig just because the art community died in this forum? I heard better excuses, and besides, I was not asking for a garden of eden sig, just some casual stuff you could come up with.

Demonoid I think that if the art community really wants to get back on it's feet it will, meanwile I think we should not force anything. Let's just enjoy making some stuff :)
Due to losing interest, I never could be arsed to refinding my like...99% lost brushes due to a harddrive crash. And brushes are still the most important feature in Photoshop for creating signatures. I could get back into signature making again, but finding the really good brush sets (or even harder, making them yourself) can be a real *****, and I am still not motivated enough to do that right now.
 
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All I see is talk and no action... it seems like some of you just want to soapbox in the section instead of giving it life by posting your current WIPs, and what not.
 
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So am I the one supposed to set up the vote, or is that a moderator's job?
 
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Vote's up, sorry for the delay (first time hosting sotw here). One thing tough, I kinda ****ed up the poll and don't see any edit option, any pointer how to correct it would be much appreciated!
 
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Erm, where are the votes? :O
 
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My vote goes to Demonoid. Looks best, imo. Madman's sig looks too crappy for some reason. About Viper's... I don't like how he did it... I guess. Demonoid's sig has colors and good quality. I like the idea of the light on his left aswel.
 
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My vote goes to Demonoid. Looks best, imo. Madman's sig looks too crappy for some reason. About Viper's... I don't like how he did it... I guess. Demonoid's sig has colors and good quality. I like the idea of the light on his left aswel.
wow...thanks man....
 
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I like how Viper's sig is mysterious and you have to actually look in order to notice the Batman.
 
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OMFG Snowman, I'm really sorry. I forgot to write comment about your sig. :( Anyway, it's comments... Aren't so good. I Think it's nicely done, but I don't know... I somehow just don't like it... I didn't mean to offend you, Snowman. I didn't know you were taking my comments so deep to your heart :p
 
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Madman
Out of all the signatures here, yours is the most interesting. Does it win on the effects used? No, does it win on quality? No. But your IS the most interesting in when you look at the composition. Batman has always been a dark figure, the anti-hero. The flames and the added effects brings this out to a great extent in this signature. The flamey background (and the colors) mixes in exceptionally well with Batman. And the 'blood spatters' (intended? Or blending of the flames layer?) make it really gruesome.

The downsides of this signature are the more technical aspects though. Obviously, I am missing a black border, essential for good boxing. On the left side there is a weird rectangular which messes with the flow of the rest of the signature. Weird white cape part on the right side of the signature. Would look better if Batman wasn't opaque.

Viper
Not sure what you exactly tried to do here. Red is not the first color I would associate with Batman, though that may just be a difference of opinion. However, the render had some really nice and dark color shading going on, by making the entire signature somewhat mono-colored, you took that extra 'oomph' out of the render and made it more static. It is also very hard to distinguish Batman from the background. Though that might have been your entire point, I would have gone about a different way of doing that. Most likely messing around with black levels rather than a monotonous color.

The grungy background does work with Batman, and the black parts of the signature's background almost make it look like there are hundreds of bats flying over there. Can't help but think that it would have looked better if there was more color in the signature though. It could've look like Batman was in the Bat-cave.

Typography is not very interesting. The font is rather bland and the black color is hard to distinguish from the background. I had looked at the signature at least 3 times before I even noticed there was any text there at all.

Snowman
I'm going to be straight to the point here; you ruined the render. The American drawing style has some really neat shading lines going on, but you sort of...blurred the entire render. Not sure what you were trying to do with it.

Also, I'm not sure if I am seeing it correct, but were you trying to add some grain, film-noir style to the render? I can actually see that working really nicely if done properly. What I also really like is how you added that black spot in the top left corner. Emphasizes on that dark atmosphere of Batman. Sadly, the white part on the lower right corner sort of contrasts too much with it, and doesn't work with Batman.

The bats are a nice touch, but they too are of low quality, and look rather blurred. Though when comparing the blur factor with the render, they look less blurry than the render, drawing your eyes more on the bats rather than the render, giving a sort of reverse Depth of Field effect.

Typography isn't interesting here either, scanlines don't really work for texts, color is somewhat okay, would look better if it was slightly more yellowish (though I could also be wrong, because of the scanlines). I would personally also go for a different font.

Demonoid
You have some interesting effects going on here. As far as I can see it, you took part of the render and motion blurred it? What I like about it, is how the motion blurred background nearly looks like rain. And it nearly gives me the feeling like Batman is standing on top of a building in the rain, gazing down on the citizens of Gotham City. It doesn't look sharp enough to be actual rain though. If you could sharpen the lines a bit, it would look a lot better.

The glow effect you added on Batman also make it look more like a constant flow of rain is falling upon him and the rain disintegrates into a sort of mist. I would have gone with a different color of the rain though. However, you can also go about a different way with this; if you darken the background a bit, and Batman even more (by playing around with the (black) levels), and extend that glow a bit more to the left. You can have a little spot-searchlight going on here. And as we all know, Batman has his very own Bat-spotlight, so it would again add to the atmosphere.

I somewhat like the typography here, even though Comic Sans is one of the most hated fonts around (seriously, when you can; don't use it), I do like the blending of the font. Simple, but it remains readable.






That is how you give a comment on someone else's work.
 
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OMFG Snowman, I'm really sorry. I forgot to write comment about your sig. :( Anyway, it's comments... Aren't so good. I Think it's nicely done, but I don't know... I somehow just don't like it... I didn't mean to offend you, Snowman. I didn't know you were taking my comments so deep to your heart :p
Not offended at all, just got jealous :scared: Thanks for the honest comment :yes:

Snowman
I'm going to be straight to the point here; you ruined the render. The American drawing style has some really neat shading lines going on, but you sort of...blurred the entire render. Not sure what you were trying to do with it.

Also, I'm not sure if I am seeing it correct, but were you trying to add some grain, film-noir style to the render? I can actually see that working really nicely if done properly. What I also really like is how you added that black spot in the top left corner. Emphasizes on that dark atmosphere of Batman. Sadly, the white part on the lower right corner sort of contrasts too much with it, and doesn't work with Batman.

The bats are a nice touch, but they too are of low quality, and look rather blurred. Though when comparing the blur factor with the render, they look less blurry than the render, drawing your eyes more on the bats rather than the render, giving a sort of reverse Depth of Field effect.

Typography isn't interesting here either, scanlines don't really work for texts, color is somewhat okay, would look better if it was slightly more yellowish (though I could also be wrong, because of the scanlines). I would personally also go for a different font.

That is how you give a comment on someone else's work.
You got correct to every single aspect of it. I blured lots of the image because I wanted to disguise the edges of the layers, I guess I must do it in some other way then. The film noir render was the intection indeed however I should have not let so much space in white.
As for the typography, I never used it before it was just an experiment when I was selecting the fonts so I really did not think much about it.

And thanks for the elaborated comment, I'll try to make it look better next time based on your advices. Btw can you tell me what do you think about my current sig? I tried not to blur it much :fight:
 
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Madman
Out of all the signatures here, yours is the most interesting. Does it win on the effects used? No, does it win on quality? No. But your IS the most interesting in when you look at the composition. Batman has always been a dark figure, the anti-hero. The flames and the added effects brings this out to a great extent in this signature. The flamey background (and the colors) mixes in exceptionally well with Batman. And the 'blood spatters' (intended? Or blending of the flames layer?) make it really gruesome.

The downsides of this signature are the more technical aspects though. Obviously, I am missing a black border, essential for good boxing. On the left side there is a weird rectangular which messes with the flow of the rest of the signature. Weird white cape part on the right side of the signature. Would look better if Batman wasn't opaque.

Viper
Not sure what you exactly tried to do here. Red is not the first color I would associate with Batman, though that may just be a difference of opinion. However, the render had some really nice and dark color shading going on, by making the entire signature somewhat mono-colored, you took that extra 'oomph' out of the render and made it more static. It is also very hard to distinguish Batman from the background. Though that might have been your entire point, I would have gone about a different way of doing that. Most likely messing around with black levels rather than a monotonous color.

The grungy background does work with Batman, and the black parts of the signature's background almost make it look like there are hundreds of bats flying over there. Can't help but think that it would have looked better if there was more color in the signature though. It could've look like Batman was in the Bat-cave.

Typography is not very interesting. The font is rather bland and the black color is hard to distinguish from the background. I had looked at the signature at least 3 times before I even noticed there was any text there at all.

Snowman
I'm going to be straight to the point here; you ruined the render. The American drawing style has some really neat shading lines going on, but you sort of...blurred the entire render. Not sure what you were trying to do with it.

Also, I'm not sure if I am seeing it correct, but were you trying to add some grain, film-noir style to the render? I can actually see that working really nicely if done properly. What I also really like is how you added that black spot in the top left corner. Emphasizes on that dark atmosphere of Batman. Sadly, the white part on the lower right corner sort of contrasts too much with it, and doesn't work with Batman.

The bats are a nice touch, but they too are of low quality, and look rather blurred. Though when comparing the blur factor with the render, they look less blurry than the render, drawing your eyes more on the bats rather than the render, giving a sort of reverse Depth of Field effect.

Typography isn't interesting here either, scanlines don't really work for texts, color is somewhat okay, would look better if it was slightly more yellowish (though I could also be wrong, because of the scanlines). I would personally also go for a different font.

Demonoid
You have some interesting effects going on here. As far as I can see it, you took part of the render and motion blurred it? What I like about it, is how the motion blurred background nearly looks like rain. And it nearly gives me the feeling like Batman is standing on top of a building in the rain, gazing down on the citizens of Gotham City. It doesn't look sharp enough to be actual rain though. If you could sharpen the lines a bit, it would look a lot better.

The glow effect you added on Batman also make it look more like a constant flow of rain is falling upon him and the rain disintegrates into a sort of mist. I would have gone with a different color of the rain though. However, you can also go about a different way with this; if you darken the background a bit, and Batman even more (by playing around with the (black) levels), and extend that glow a bit more to the left. You can have a little spot-searchlight going on here. And as we all know, Batman has his very own Bat-spotlight, so it would again add to the atmosphere.

I somewhat like the typography here, even though Comic Sans is one of the most hated fonts around (seriously, when you can; don't use it), I do like the blending of the font. Simple, but it remains readable.






That is how you give a comment on someone else's work.
Batman is not an anti-hero, he is actually the very definition of a hero on a philosophical level, there is a 300 pages book on the philosophy behind the dark knight if you like this kind of stuff, but let's not get into that, just an observation :)
 
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Not offended at all, just got jealous :scared: Thanks for the honest comment :yes:



You got correct to every single aspect of it. I blured lots of the image because I wanted to disguise the edges of the layers, I guess I must do it in some other way then. The film noir render was the intection indeed however I should have not let so much space in white.
As for the typography, I never used it before it was just an experiment when I was selecting the fonts so I really did not think much about it.

And thanks for the elaborated comment, I'll try to make it look better next time based on your advices. Btw can you tell me what do you think about my current sig? I tried not to blur it much :fight:


For your current signature, I would have to repeat what the oldtime member VivaLaPineapple used to say; Complexity is overrated, say it with simplicity. You've got this rather...overly chaotic background render with lots of hard edges which doesn't really match with the Bleach render. And then you've got this weird purple halo, which attracts your eyes to a somewhat uninteresting part of the signature. Honestly, I could see this render work perfectly well in just a plain and simple white background. I do like the font in this one though, somehow it works with the render in my eyes.


Batman is not an anti-hero, he is actually the very definition of a hero on a philosophical level, there is a 300 pages book on the philosophy behind the dark knight if you like this kind of stuff, but let's not get into that, just an observation :)
It's debate worthy. Some regard him as hero, some as anti-hero. For me, he is an anti-hero. He stands above the law, uses a lot of violence and the like, in my eyes, that's an antihero. Superman would be a much better choice to be a real 'hero'.
 
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Demonoid
You have some interesting effects going on here. As far as I can see it, you took part of the render and motion blurred it? What I like about it, is how the motion blurred background nearly looks like rain. And it nearly gives me the feeling like Batman is standing on top of a building in the rain, gazing down on the citizens of Gotham City. It doesn't look sharp enough to be actual rain though. If you could sharpen the lines a bit, it would look a lot better.

The glow effect you added on Batman also make it look more like a constant flow of rain is falling upon him and the rain disintegrates into a sort of mist. I would have gone with a different color of the rain though. However, you can also go about a different way with this; if you darken the background a bit, and Batman even more (by playing around with the (black) levels), and extend that glow a bit more to the left. You can have a little spot-searchlight going on here. And as we all know, Batman has his very own Bat-spotlight, so it would again add to the atmosphere.

I somewhat like the typography here, even though Comic Sans is one of the most hated fonts around (seriously, when you can; don't use it), I do like the blending of the font. Simple, but it remains readable.
Thats what I was going for. The Spotlight would have been a great idea. Thanks for the ideas. I may actually go for it and use it.
 

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