make gfx, not warcraft

[Alternative]

→ king of fantasista ;;

Don't expect much here, just some graphics and I'm on my way.
(Also these are quite old and I haven't been up to much lately, but I will try to get some nice stuff out soon.)

​

 

[abnegation]

Here I come. Good to see you back by the way.

Spoiler:

There's a few fairly obvious, straightforward mistakes in this tag, though it has its good points, I do see a large margin of error in your approach. Easily rectified however, but really, the render just doesn't suit the tag so well.

Now, more in depth. The effects in this tag don't really suit the type of render you've used. You see, the render is a 2D styled cartoon cut-out. This means that the type of effects that will best suit the tag are vector based ones, with less anti-aliasing and feeling of "glow" to them. However, you have quite the opposite here. Your effects are quite flashy and detailed, and while this would suit renders with a more 3D feel to them, it doesn't quite bode well with the kind of stock you're using. So, that's a clash of style. You see, for example, your C4D's are 3D type images, which totally contrasts with the render you're using. This is where your tag will fall down on marks of consistency.

Next I just have to mention a number of fundamentals. First of all, the lighting is completely random. You can't just throw in lighting anywhere you feel like it, it has to make some degree of sense. In this case, the lighting is coming from nowhere, it would have looked more normal coming from the torch in her hand. That's a typical light source which makes sense.

The depth of the tag isn't the best, it doesn't fall very deep at all. I see so much canvas, and that's not particularly a good thing, it shows you had issues filling up the tag. In a normal case I'd recommend that you add more C4D's and effects into the background, but since the type of effect you used here doesn't work, you wouldn't do that for this tag. You would also need new effects over the render, there's a slight blending issue if you take out the lighting.

The text could be better, it'd probably suit the tag more if you went with a more vector styled tag like I recommended earlier, but here the lighting kills in and the edges look quite odd. I would play around with the text setting such as "crisp" and "smooth", as it just looks odd currently.

Quite a lot of recommendations there I know, but your composition is decent, but the overall creation of the tag hits a lot of branches as it falls from the tree. The biggest issue however is the clash in style, so just avoid doing that with future work.

Spoiler:

A fairly straightforward piece so I can't imagine I'll have too many comments on this one. Might as well throw it into one paragraph or...possibly two. ANYWAY, you did the right thing in blurring the background and sharpening the focal point. That is always a good step for pieces like this. It reminds me of a livejournal based graphics piece quite a lot actually. They tend to be quite simple banners but intend on looking well. I'm not a big fan of the colours, I think it could have done with a gradient map, and some good use of curves of even selective colour to fix the skin, it's too bright and white. Especially on Ron's face. I have to always point this out to graphic artists, skin colour is really, really, important. It can absolutely kill a piece. If you make it too bright or unnatural and give no reasoning for it, it'll be noticed right away. Another thing that bothers me about the tag is the right hand side of it where it suddenly drops off to black. It all seems too sudden there, and I think it shouldn't even be so dark. Not so much in the top right corner as I see what you were going for, but make it so that not the entire side fades to black. The effects could be better here. They don't reeeally go with flow or anything. They just seem quite random. So perhaps you could have worked on making them correspond to the low a bit better, which may not be easy with the flow in this tag being quite odd. But it could go in the direction of Ron's stance. Lastly, the text is decent. But I would replace the white background with like, a jotter pad stock, like this, but bigger, rotated and, well, generally better. But you get my idea. Otherwise, a pretty decent tag, in need of some refinements. It's pretty basic though, so I can't really give you a whole lot of positive feedback other than what I have on it.

Spoiler:

The effects really smother this one. You just about get away with the effects and the background being in a slightly different style due to the render being slightly 3D anyway, this is just due to the pretty detailed shadows and sense of lighting it has, as well as the pose. The right hand side of this tag is a total mess though. The colours are really all over the place and it's extremely dark and completely different from the rest of the tag. That... thing behind the top right of his head is also really distracting from the focal. Overall the effects in this tag are really not executed in the way I'm used to seeing you do. It's an area you need to work on a bit more in general, but in this tag you've just gotten very messy with placement. I can see that you were trying to use the effects to go around the focal, but I think you chose the wrong ones here, they're way too heavy and too bright. Meaning they both create a field of inaccurate lighting as well as smothering the focal point. I just find your effects to bounce all over the tag, the left hand side of this tag doesn't really have much depth as I can kind of see a window of effects on it. The entire tag feels like you have a background stock, a render put above and then a group of effects on top.

The tag is just a warzone, I would really recommend trying a different background, and some higher quality C4D's and effects instead of these ones. Picking up some lighting textures and setting them to linear dodge or screen can often be really obvious and often kills the quality of a tag you know? So, I know it might sound like I'm being really harsh, but those are just some things you can try work on in future tags buddy.

Spoiler:

Now this tag, it has a lot going for it. The smudging is quite good in some places and the little specs add a really nice effect. I think you could have added more of them perhaps. Though I have two big issues with the tag, the focal point, and how you've seemed to have made a lot of the smudging semi-opaque. You should really avoid doing this is smudge tags, because it just looks flat and does nothing for depth really. It just makes the eye look past what's in the foreground and notice this shroud of yellow mist in the middle of the tag.

The next thing, is the focal, but I just have a few points on how you can improve that one. First of all, it's over sharpened. Look at the edges, and try make out some of the detail. Reason for this is that you've made it too small, I would up the size of that stock image and then incorporate it into the tag a lot more. Otherwise, the colours are looking really nice and youve done a pretty good job on the smudging.

I could get really nit picky, but just watch out how you use your opacity, try to avoid relying on lowering it all the time. Take note of the yellow mist fiasco. Otherwise, much better from you.

Spoiler:

I actually really like this tag. I think it is really on point. I think you got the whole concept across really well. I actually struggle to recommend some things to you. Though I think you could have filled out the tag, especially around Jimi, with some more of those colourful C4D's. The text works well, but you should darken the part of Jimi's arm where the "h" is as it's slightly hard to make out there. The tag is a little monotone but I think my earlier suggestions could help that, otherwise, a really solid tag.

Spoiler:

I like this also, your latest stuff is so superior. Though I wish it was a little wider, I think it would have benefited from a little more width. However, I would go wild and change the colour of Kaiba's jacket to go with the colours over it, just a little. Mess around with the hue in selective colour and try some things out. I think that blue is a little too deep here. Other than that, it's solid, but you could bring down the size of the "Kai" text a few pixels. Or points, which ever you use. Eh, not a bit fan of the dark corner either, a little too heavy, make it a little lighter.

Spoiler:

The colours are decent, but I think you seem to struggle a little more with these kinds of stocks. In all honesty, the football kills it so much. The part around the focal point is amazing, and the flow goes really well, but that football serves as a whole new focal point which completely distracts from the main focal. I can't really think of many ways to rectify this though. I think you could perhaps chop off the left half of the tag, and put some effects over the leg that is semi chopped in half, or if you can, draw it. I've had to do that a few times. Just use the pen tool. Anyway, other than this, the right half of the tag is great, just toe down the power of the effects by the arm there, the lower arm, it's borderline creating an unsanctioned lighting point.

You're getting a lot better. But just think about your stock choices a bit more. They tend to hamper your performance at times. Good work though man, and again, good to see you back!

 

[Kelp]

Some the tags are suffering quality wise, and I think it's because some of the effects or nebulas you use. So try not to overdo it with the effects.

But I really like the last tag. I agree with Abnegation, in that the tag would be a lot better with out the soccerball, but you've incorporated a lot of nice effects there. Maybe change the text placement a bit though.

Overall nice stuff, keep it up. :D

 

[moments.]

Gav covered them all, I'll try cover a few in more detail! :D

Spoiler:

This is a style very close to one that I have admired on another forum, but using sprites as the focal, and this is definitely your best tag with a lot working for it!

So the first thing that I want to comment on because I noticed first, and I feel has been an issue in some of your other pieces, but especially in this one is the yellow/magenta C4Ds over his back, directly left of the text. The colours are good, but it is ridiculously messy and I can't really see what you've gone for here. Making the foreground effects to blend was good, the colours are fab, but yeah, needs less effects here, more obvious direction and maybe even blurred just like 1px in gaussian blur. Also, I'm sure it is the same C4D, but those yellow specks on his hair, to the left and to the right of the text, I reckon you can straight up delete them. Again, they just feel messy and I'd argue work against the flow as well.

Gav mentioned the dark corners, and I agree with him but for a different reason. This tag could benefit a heap from being really simple and using the simplicity as an effect. If your background was the solid beige, no textures / brushing in the corners, it would actually work really well with negative space! That's honestly what I feel you should do with this tag. Working with the simplicity and the point above, you could even ditch the yellow / magenta C4Ds entirely and I'm sure it would still work.

Just a minor thing, to the right of the guy, in between his arm, and then to the right of his arm, there is a solid line of a lighter beige. Not sure if this is something left over from another layer or what, but it looks dodgy. Just needs some soft erasing to blend it in so you can't see it.

Text is fabulous, placement, font and colour are all wonderfully executed. That second line of text though, 'toshiki', I'm not feeling at all, if you moved it up to get rid of the pixel gap between the two words, it might feel more solid, but otherwise it just feels a little disjointed.

His face however feels a little low quality, not sure if it just needs a bit of a sharpen, or because the brown could made a tiny bit more red / yellow and pop just a fraction more so his head doesn't get lost into the effects / background. Maybe both would work, but it is definitely feeling low quality and needs a bit of adjusting.

Lastly, just a commendation on the use C4Ds in the background, very good choices of C4Ds, those two little prongs coming out either side, particularly the one on the right feel a bit awkward. Could be rotated a bit so they are more compact with the other C4Ds, but otherwise not too bad. The colouring though you need to watch our for. You've got too much black in the centre, it would definitely draw less attention if it was more blue than black, but also that really bright teal bit to the left of the black needs a bit of darkening up. Just because you've got all warm colours, and then that is really cold up there.

Definitely a great tag though, your best, and I'd recommend continuing with this sort of solid C4D style more!

Spoiler:

It's sort of all been said about this one, soccer ball is distracting, you've lost a lot of quality from textures in some areas, text shouldn't be directly over the body of the stock, but otherwise, I just wanted to tell you this is another great tag of yours. Besides those little things, the colours, use of effects and particularly C4Ds is all wonderful! So just be wary of stock choices and how you are going to work with the aspects of it, don't be afraid to cut and remove elements of a stock, and duplicate the stock to fill up more background and things like that so it works better for you.
Honestly, I can see what you went for with the soccer ball, I can tell it wasn't just there and you didn't know how to remove it, but I don't feel like it works, only because it is too big. That sort of really obvious, extreme foreground elements isn't anything new, but it can be hard to pull off convincingly.

Keep it up! :D

 

[Alternative]

Gotta stop ignoring this. :/

To everyone, I did read the comments, or I tried to (it's late) and there were some points which I got out of it and I liked it and I have no idea what I'm saying right now because I'm rambling. Also one thing I wanted to point out:

Just a minor thing, to the right of the guy, in between his arm, and then to the right of his arm, there is a solid line of a lighter beige. Not sure if this is something left over from another layer or what, but it looks dodgy. Just needs some soft erasing to blend it in so you can't see it.

That was because what I grabbed was a stock on a white background and I thought I could work with it and that just happened. I should really fix it, and that tag altogether, since it is my favourite tag of them all. Even if I kinda put a C4D which was meant to be in front of the focal behind a C4D which is meant to be behind it. :P

I haven't been able to churn much out lately, because of no motivation to do so or anything. I'm trying though. I gotta stalk more of Massimo's graphics and maybe deviantart some more for inspiration.

 

[tente2]

Just stopping by to give a few comments. I'm not very knowledgable in the subject, but there were a few little issues I noticed. (Well, one, the other two are already mentioned and I just agree with them.)

I haven't been able to churn much out lately, because of no motivation to do so or anything. I'm trying though. I gotta stalk more of Massimo's graphics and maybe deviantart some more for inspiration.

This is new right? Not the "line of beige" one? Anyway, the skin tone on her right arm (our right, Lady Gaga's left) looks kind of wierd in comparison to her face skin tone. Maybe it was makeup, maybe the orginal photo had flash or something, but it doesn't look natural. Other than that, good, except for this one:

​

As mentioned, the effects just look really random and all over the place.

I also agree with the soccer ball thing.

Other than that, great!

 

[abnegation]

Spoiler:

Good to see you back dude! So I'll give you some crit on you latest.

Overall, your composition is decent here, but I think what you struggled with is colour, in all honesty. When making a tag, you need to think a little bit about your palette of colours, and in your case you would have needed to apply them in adjustments since your effects are all different colours. So to avoid giving yourself too much when you go into colour adjustments, you should try and select C4D's and textures that are much the same colour and that compliment each other in that regard. That would have helped his piece a bit more. But you definitely need some adjustments overall. Colour balance, selective colour or even gradient maps if that's what you're used to. The colours are just a little dull, for example, you should have made those reds more vibrant.

You should avoid blurring your C4D's and such, so much. It takes away from the clarity of the piece and what you need mostly is just that. The blending seems decent, but you could have done a little more to give it some flow. The tag seems to lack atmosphere. The background is also quite contrasting to the rest. It does lack a lot of depth, as the depth of the tag falls short as soon as you look at it.

Take things from there and you could improve this quite a bit. Just a few quick comments, but keep it up!

 

[MAMOM]

Your typography is nice, keep it up.

awkwardness%20%282%29.png is really nice in particular.


I like you're style, would you be up for a battle?

 

[Alternative]

Your typography is nice, keep it up.

awkwardness%20%282%29.png is really nice in particular.


I like you're style, would you be up for a battle?

Battles seem nice, so I would be up for that. Maybe some time soon? :3

As for Gavin, focus on colour, and don't blur C4D's too much, got it. :D

This one I tried to focus more on C4D usage which I did blur to try and create some depth, but not too much as it obstructs the piece. I'm quite fond of the piece in general, and the text myslelf. :D

 

[Alternative]

Something totally different, and a scratch piece. ^_^ Not intended to be a signature, but I guess it could be one if you wanted it to be one. :)

 

[moments.]

gagaa.png
This is getting better, but for me, this has some of the same things that needed fixing as some of your other pieces, but less so. What I mean is, you are taking the comments on board, but still not enough. Specifically I guess is the C4Ds, for my money, still much too blurry. Like it creates good depth, but just too much than is necessary, and you lose a lot of the details in the C4Ds. Speaking of the C4Ds, I feel that they aren't creating enough sense of flow. The C4Ds behind her for instance, I would rotate counter clockwise so they form more of a "bottom right to top left" sort of flow, which would help a lot.

Colours are ok, nothing special, and I think that's where it could've shone as a piece. You've got a bubbly sort of stock, and then you've got some greens and blues in the C4Ds, but they aren't popping. I feel more saturation, and less warm tones (not completely, just notch them down a bit) would help bring some more eye candy to the tag. It isn't monotonous, but it is borderline.

Text is good, but I would've gone a bit higher so as to bring it closer to her face as a focal. In that little gap between her hair and shoulder would be a nice little nook to tuck it in! C:

orbs.png
I love this style so much...
Firstly, the composition is not bad, but it is a little too spaced out and has almost two focal points (each orb) which don't compliment each other like they could. The main thing is that they are too far away from each other with nothing joining them. If you had a more detailed background, even just like a space type background, few stars, particles and stuff, it might tie it all together a little stronger just by having bits in between the orbs. Otherwise, they could've just been moved a bit closer.

Some minor things, the text I am not feeling at all, sitting kind of awkwardly there. I feel it would look better with no text whatsoever, but if you can rejig it, maybe so it isn't overlapping with any of the orbs, it might sit nicer.
I've mentioned the background, I really do think it would help the piece, not just the two focal thing if it had more details. A lot of the pieces I've seen in this style have a blue or purple sort of background with some space, stars, nebula etc. This might be a reason to avoid doing so, given so many use it, but it definitely works regardless. Just room for thought.

Lastly, quality is a little low from over sharpening it seems. the orbs themselves have a bit of pixelation, especially the edges of each circle. That big orb at the bottom I'd say has too many light 'dots', and could go with a strong light source in the concentrated area in the bottom right.

Also, one little thing I saw, borrow orb, you've got some soft brushing or something like that which is cut off just before the bottom of the canvas (bottom left corner, and then bottom right near the end of the orb). Just looks a little bit untidy.

Sorry if that was not nice ratings or too harsh or anything. Been a while since I gave a proper rate, losing my touch. xP

 

[Alternative]

Nah it's fine as a rate. I agree with you on all the orb stuff, but it's more of an experimental piece rather than something I would usually do. I tried to play around with a tutorial and that was my result. Some of the outcomes I saw were much better than what I had done.

I was focusing on trying to get some lighting out on this one, but it was kinda diffused with saturation and lots of photo filters so it didn't turn out too well.

Purely experimental smudge work. I saw someone's art which was on a white canvas, which is what I was most inspired about. I had also been reading up on smudging lately and how to make it work so I thought I'd try it out. As my first proper smudge tag I think it turned out really well. :D