Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2009
OMG!!! Three signature submissions in one day!

They all look great.
Two are definite blasts from my past and use subjects I hadn't even considered when creating the topic (I love when that happens

).
Hound, the Cookie Monster signature is awesome! Awesome!

I definitely would not have thought of Cookie Monster. What inspired your choice? Were you recently watching Sesame Street or eating a bunch of cookies?
The other one is leaf desu's signature using a Pokémon. That's Zangoose from the third generation, right? I'm guessing you're a Pokémon fan, but out of curiosity, why did you select Zangoose as your muse for the signature? Is it your favorite?

I know that you wanted some commentary on your technique; so, I'll start you off with some and maybe others can chip in too.

I like how you add perspective, as though this image was taken by a camera, by blurring certain portions of the image to simulate camera focus. I think that works out very well on the left half of the picture, but on the right half, the blur becomes a bit distracting as I can't tell whether that white blur at the righmost edge of the picture is supposed to be clouds or some sort of effect from Zangoose's attack. Also, for some reason, the shading on Zangoose's extended arm seems a bit off to me. From the angle, it seems like there should be more shade (the shadow from its head) on the arm. Overall though, I think it is a wonderful submission.

Perhaps you might want to offer a brief statement of your method and direction when creating the piece. That way, you will be able to receive better critique.
By the way, Hound, I really liked the technique in your submission as well. The colors are very vivid, and the background contrasts nicely to make Cookie Monster stand out. The smoky aura helps to add depth to the image and sets a Halloween tone to this theme.
Finally, Sasori-san's submission. It looks very creepy and spooky. (I get a definite Children of the Corn vibe from that image.) I am glad you made a comment here stating that this signature wasn't supposed to be interpreted as ecchi, because that would have made this signature creepy for totally different reasons.
The image is very nicely done. Are those girls from a particular anime, or are they just generic girls? For some reason, they look like I've seen them in some anime series, but I can't seem to place my finger on it. I like the slight tinge of purple in the background, making it seem like the dawn of some phantasmogoric, spectral... ghosty thing.

With the city lights in the background, it sort of makes a statement IMO on how we, as a society, are becoming increasingly enslaved to modern technology and increasingly unnatural ourselves. Were you also going for something like that, or am I just being too deep?

By the way, what is that figure on the left? Is that a scarecrow?
I only want one the threads to be clogged up.

That thread happens to be the voting thread itself. Some ideas to decrease the clutter are to only post or comment once in the thread and disable your signatures while posting. Also try to keep on topic.
Well, this is all I have to back up my opinion. >.>
Umm... I still don't understand why expressing your comments is insufficient. Comments on the signatures is the purpose of this thread. So, there shouldn't be any need to make comments on them in the voting or submission threads.
Perhaps if you explained why you found this thread to be insufficient for whatever purpose you had in mind, we might better understand your reason for suggesting the change.