The Graphics Rating Thread [READ THE FIRST POST. D:<]

[parallelzero]

@Akari: I really like the background on the Lelouch banner. Though, I don't know how to word it properly, so I'll say it looks a little "@.@". It's just... I dunno, for me it takes quite a bit of focus of the render because the background is so engaging. XD

As for the first one, how old is it? Like before or after you decided to change styles? It just really reminds me of your old one, but it might have been made then... XD

Yay for mixed feelings about a banner. =x

EDIT: I'm on a roll tonight. I'm pretty happy with this one. Featuring Celsius as seen in Tales of Symphonia.

 

[evilcheese]

@anim - holy shizzle that first one looks awsome man. maybe its just the render that attracts me oh well. ill rate your second one. i like that little clipping mask thing there thats pretty neat. but i dont like how on one side its smudgy but the other side is just plain. and maybe put a clipping mask on that white box in the corner.

needed a braek from c4ds i dont like my coloring any sugggestions?

 

[Loki]

Evilcheese: Good, you realized. xD You do need to step away from overusing your c4d's, but there's two major problems in the banner you just posted:

1. Clipping Mask
2. Lighting

1. You might want to pay attention to your clipping masks. You never want to make them too big, otherwise they'll distract from the focal. Also, I find that I almost always disagree with you when you suggest someone put a clipping mask, but that might just be a personal opinion, but I do think you need to add a little more work and experience with clipping masks to your palette before suggesting other people use it- because it's easy for a clipping mask to hide and smooth over everything, thus defeating the purpose of putting anything there in the first place. xD;

2. The lighting is completely un-believable. You'll want to look at the shadow's on your render before just randomly sticking a light source anywhere you want. If you look at the render you've got, the light is coming from from behind her than above her.

Also, I'm not sure about how that brush/thing covers the very end of her chin. xD Just a small irritating detail. Again, your text needs work. For putting text somewhere circular, you should use the text warp tool and arc it, so that if follows the bend of the circle. ;D The extra text, 'evil' on the left, is also kind of uneeded. The border is cool though, and though the colors are a bit too 'yellow' and the banner could definitely use an underwater or cooling photo filter, it's overall not too bad a shot for a new style.

 

[Azonic]

eviltoast: I actually like the coloring on that one. :o I'm just confused about the two faces in there. The lighting is terrible though. 0_oWhy do you have the word "evil" written on the bottom left? Yeah, the text needs some work. You should change your username, the cheese part takes away the mysteriousness of the banner XD 7/10~

 

[Aizuke]

Reply to Animadversion; It was just before the current theme, I missed my style so yeah. :<

Now ratings..

Animadversion; I like the effects of the DMC one, but some brushing or texture on Nero's face is bothering me. D; And the second one is good, cept it kind of fades out, near her "regions" XD; And the smudging on her face makes it look a bit dirty.

evilcheese; It seems a bit oversharpened to me, and I'm not really a fan of big clipping masks. And like Loki said, the lighting is situated badly. :x

clade.; TidusxYuna. <3 The colours are good, but the render sticks out too much. And I don't really like the scanline brushes at the bottom.. ^^;

 

[parallelzero]

Replyish post to Akari. You don't need to rate the banner below if you post after me, I'm just showing my edits. XD

I took me a minute, but I finally figured out what you were talking about. i wasn't sure what your complaint about the bewbs were though, so I turned down the blending there.

That should be right.

 

[Aizuke]

Animadversion; Yup, that looks great now. ^^ It did before anyways, I'm just weird at pointing stuff out like that.. D:

---

Graphics slump. D; I think I over did it with the effects..

Featuring Shana from Shakugan no Shana.

 

[Twinx]

Animad: It's beautiful, though the background looks kinda plain on the upper left side.
Also I noticed that you used the same text alignment as your other banner...

Akari: Everyone seems to like that render, it's probably the 3rd time I see that same render hehe..
Anyway, the fiery effects in the background goes very well with your render and I love the text blended in the back, that was an awesome touch.
Though I'm not sure what those "arrows" on the left represent..
One thing that's bugging me though is the colors.. they're kinda hard on the eyes, but that's more of a personal opinion...

--------------------------------------------------
So this is my current signature: It's.... different from what I usually do...I guess I'm trying something new.

Edit: The background is made by Kyomu from Deviant Art. LINK
And those are two different renders...

 

[Renyui!]

DarkChild: Hmm, it doesn't look like you did much, but i have'nt senn the render, so i cant tell, but its simple, effective,soft and nice :D
Raaaaaaaate my banners (i'm really liking Gwadient Maps!)

 

[Aizuke]

DarkChild; Wow, that's really creative. ^^ I like it. Simplicity is awesome. <3 And the blending is really good. You'd actually think the renders were actually part of the picture.

Poke'd; Does it say Strife on the first one? Because that gundam is actually called Strike.. I think... o.O *is shot*

Anywho.. The first one has okay good blending, it makes it look like the gundam is coming out of fire, but I don't like how it's orange then it has blue sides. And the writing is hard to read. As for the second one, I've seen that render so many times.. XD But it's really bright. Yellow coloured tags are really hard to do, because yellow is quite a bright colour.

---

Featuring Allen Walker from D.Gray-Man. <3

Yeah, it's a tad bit bright. :<

 

[Loki]

Akari: His name is Miharu, and he's from Nabari no Ou. ;D But yeah, the crying thing isn't an issue, actually that's good, in my opinion, but I erased it out for ya anyway. xDD

Anyway, in regards to your D.Gray-man banner, first things first: Yes, it is quite bright, and if you turned down the light, I'm sure the focal would be much easier to get to. xD You might want to lower the opacity on the text too, and maybe next time choose a word that's easier to wrap one's head around instead of buffoonery.  Text flow is important. ^^ The rest of it looks really cool, and I really like it, the blending is nice and if there wasn't any text, the depth would be great too.

The white dots at the bottom left corner need to go way down in opacity, because they stick out way too much as they are. The dots on the right are a really nice touch, but it'd be even better if I could see the without having to look for it. xD So the number one thing I'd suggest is maybe burning the sides, or just turning down the brightness. It's so bright and contrasted as it is that Allen looks almost oversharpened. ^^;

-----------------

This is the fifth, and most likely, last version of this banner. I got most of my original advice from my Graphics Guru, and this is the latest product, going by your guys' comments.

I chose to forgo the fractal that simulates light rays, even though that was to make it seem like he was falling back and being caught by the light. I decided that it impeded on the flow too much, and made it kind of messy. I didn't get rid of the criss-crossing lines in the back however, because I like them. xD; So I replaced the light rays with just more white soft-brushing and lowered the opacity on that, and added a photofilter to help the white look more natural.

Does it look better?

​

And then I fixed the Badou one as well, turned down the opacity on the red overlay, fixed some things on his left shoulder, fixed his yellow hand, and got rid of the 'Badou' text in the upper right hand corner. :3

​

 

[Unforgettable]

THey are both really well done. And yes, they both look better. Without the text and the yellow hand on the second one, it is amazing. I really like it. But I think it may still be over crowded, but that is what gives it it's charm...
The first one if perfect in my opinion. I don't know of nothing else you could do to improve it.

But... this is coming from a beginner... so.. it doesn't really count. ^^;

This is one of mu first attempts at grunge:

 

[Aizuke]

Loki; Yup, the first one looks fine now. XD Flows perfectly. And your second one is awesome, but I'm not too fond of the light texture thingies on his shirt, but does add a good effect to it. ^^;

YunaDances; You shouldn't really erase out the render's outline and make it a lower opacity because the background doesn't suit the render much, I guess it's because the render lacks blending. Try and work with colours that match the render, the blue is too bright compared to the colour of his shirt and hair. And yellow is such a bright colour, so it's best to try and not work with it. ^^;;

---

Okay did some adjustments to my Allen banner. :<

Doesn't seem right to me.. I suck at lighting.. :x

 

[Azonic]

@YunaDances: The background seems to attract more attention than the render. It should be the other way around. Yeah, the background is way too contrast-ish. I don't really think the background suits the render much. The render looks like it should have more of a sleek and shiny look rather than a grundge look for the background. The colors hardly match at all. The colors from render to background differ greatly. A plain black doesn't seem like it would fit on this render. Not many things were done besides the soft-edge brush to blend the render in. So all in all, the background is far too distracting. The render always should stand out from the background. It needs a border too. I really dislike this one. 4/10~

@Akari: Shouldn't his face get the most lighting? It looks like the light is going off to the side. XD Otherwise, niice. :D

 

[Hazuki]

Nobody's above me and I can't see Akari-chan's stuff. >:

I did this during teaching my class, I might add some more stuff later.

 

[Motsuko Live]

@ Hazuki:

I don't like this one so much. It seems almost a little bit too plain. I like how you used the texture, I just don't like the texture itself. Maybe some text would be nice, too.
I have a thousand words running through my head for this banner, and some text would really add a feeling to it.
Anyways, good job "teach"!
7/10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is my third and final entry for SOTW. I haven't submitted anything yet, but I think this is the best out of the three I've made. I took the advice I received from you guys and payed more attention to the placement of the SOTW text. I also add my own text to it.

Anyways, like I said in an earlier post, I'm trying to pick-up a new style. Please rate! ^^;

Thanks;
Motsuko

 

[Unforgettable]

I like this one. But I think that the text should be more...pretty... I guess...
And the gird squares in the right hand corner throws me off... I don't really like them. 7//10

Ok, so I really like this pic, and I took my time to render it so I wanted to use it as a theme... Tell me which position of the render you like more and what you think of it... I only put a border on one of them so far.

 

[Twinx]

@Motsuko :O It's so prettyfull!
Colors : are very harmonious and warm.. but I'm not sure whether it fits the render since they all look afraid.. but then again it's a love theme... so keep it.

Background: I couldn't help but notice that the background looks like it's motion blurred. If that's what you did, try using displacement layers to add more detail to your background. (learned that from Shiranui's tutorial) And ya loose the grid.

Text placement: I'm not sure about where you placed the text... It's right over the light source.
Try placing it near the render on the right.
SOTW is fine I guess :/

Overall 8/10
Good job ^^

@Yuna: This is a great improvement from the first version. Yay for progess ^^

Render: It's not a very good cut.. since at some places you cut out the black outline and at other places it's gone. Decide on which do you want and stick with that.
Hey I'm no better at rendering but just some friendly advice =)

Text: So you went with no text? That's usually ok if your banner is too busy, but in this case, it's a simple banner, so you should put some text.

Scanlines: BE GONE SCANLINES hehehe. No seriously, those scalines are too much.. if you still want to keep them put them on 10-20% opacity but no more so they don't stand out so much..

Background: I honestly don't know what works in the vector world.. Can't rate this.. But I can say that this time, the colors match with the render. Good job with that..

Anyway, 7/10 for progress ^^ It still needs some work though..
I like the second placement btw..

---------------------------------------------
My turn xD
Please rate this:

Made with textures for Hazuki's class..

 

[Hazuki]

DarkChild: Well you got a nice result from the class, which is a very good thing. ^^ Um I would suggest to make the render stand out and some lightining effects so there's more contrast on the main point, which should be the render. If there's no main point, then what's the point? XP Overall, nice job, looking forward for more. ^^

I told you I would do some more! =O

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Version 4

 

[Perfectionist]

Hazuki
I like version 4 the best because it is brighter and the colours stand out more. But that is coming from a colour fanatic. =)
I think the text in the top right "Music and Soul" is a bit hard to read in some areas. Maybe play around with the colours or the positioning 'til it is easier to read.
All in all it is a great banner. 8.5/10

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now for my nooby vector skills.
First real vector banner and edited from last time I posted the incomplete version.

Yet to stick a border on it, but what do you think?