All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2008-2011

[kakashi919]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

ah i hate when pc cuts off for no reason and you lose all progress...and can never get back the same results. hope you finish in time and submit something great

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Ouch that hurts, my sympathies. It's why I'm like spamming Shift-Ctrl-S (as I don't trust any program to save my stuff when I don't see it saving it! So I always use "Saving as" instead of only "save" :P) after every third brush stroke. Somehow I grew kinda fanatic over ensuring to have everything saved

Yeah it seems that the submissions are gone or invisible right now. But when I first tried to access Mangahelpers today, I couldn't reach the page but was displayed an error. Maybe something crashed and parts of the gallery aren't back yet.

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I can't see one of the fire sig submissions anymore since yesterday.
Fire - Lets Burn by BAN_KAI - the image doesn't show up in the thread.

 

[~Coffee~]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

strange.... is everyone seeing that black background in my submission? not seeing it on the details page

Ya, That would be because the previews of it(and others) are now in JPEG format so the transparency is gone..

Yeah I can see it as well, but it wasn't there earlier. I also can't see Roflkopt3r's entry at all anymore. Mabye there is maintenance being done, or there is some kind of glitch? I'm sure the mods will fix it.

I'm working on my reflection sig, version 4.0 1st version failed, the 2nd didn't save when laptop crashed, 3rd tried an animation and didn't like it, fourth has some potential....I hope

That happened a while ago, I thought I mentioned it?

and after Photoshop CS2 when you had to animate with ImageReady the animations got horrible in PS....

 

[DeBaron8]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

The submissions page seems to be working correctly again.

Here is what I have thus far, still a work in progress. It is like version 5.0.

I can't decide what render to use in the foreground and what size to make the photo in the middle. I may make this image only part of the sig and have a second larger render on the left, because the right side render is LQ.

I went for a larger photo of team 7 this time, because I felt that on a sig the smaller photo and reflection would be too hard to see, and since reflection is the theme, I thought it should be a focal point. Although this creates a problem because the sizes of the different elements don't quite match.

Any advice, comments or critics would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

I sent a pm to Tsukisama and it seems he fixed the broken thumbnails in both threads, thanks for that by the way

That black background indeed is a problem as the original borders only become visible after clicking the link within gallery. I think there's no way to avoid that I guess.
Out of the three "states" thumbnail-galleryimage-original data, the first two are flawed by beeing transformed into jpg. I guess the first step (thumbnail) would be repairable with a slight change:
instead of using img-tags around:
"http://static.mangahelpers.com/gallery-previews/12747" which seems to be the gallery preview image, use it for the original image source:
"http://media.mangahelpers.com/download/gallery-images/1a1eb570a8ac848b121f75d213f95710/4c9bc215/12747/Reflection%20sig.png"

This might result in an error but could work just as well.

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Wow I like that image of baron alot
I think the size of the photo is chosen very well already, and the affects on it look awesome!
Still, I wonder about perspectives a little. The ledge might be leaning a little strongly and maybe it would be more suitable to have Sasuke's back view a little more horizontal. Might be just an impression though, better wait for other opinions mine can be way off sometimes

(no edit in this forum is killing me, I always edit my posts at least once even when it's a one-liner )

 

[Bugzee]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Glad to see that the errors have been fixed. All three "reflection"-themed sigs are looking good. I have no cool ideas whatsoever atm...


I wonder if I'm going to miss this deadline as well...

 

[kakashi919]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

@Debaron
I think that it looks awesome.Though imo that border kind of spoils it for me.

 

[DeBaron8]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Thanks for the feedback Kakashi and Roflkopt3r.

@Kakashi - Any specific recommendations for improving or changing the border? I always struggle to decide what kind to make. I actually thought this one didn't look too bad.

 

[Shinsatsu]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

@ DeBaron8:
Great concept. Extremely well thought idea. You have done a great job so far. Here's what I think:
- You should work a little more on the blurring / sharpening. Just look for a picture with a similar perspective. It will help you figure out the ideal position of the blur effect.
- The second problem is that the colors of the picture Sasuke is looking at, should be the ones who affect his reflection. I mean that the picture should be alot more visible than Sasuke's face.
- The border is bad. Never use this kind of borders in a signature :S a simple one could do the trick. Just a normal 1px black border if nothing else came to your mind.
- The lighting is great
- Try to apply a photo filter or something to blend the parts together.

I think that you have the best idea so far. It needs just a little more effort and you may get yourself an additional vote <----

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

- The second problem is that the colors of the picture Sasuke is looking at, should be the ones who affect his reflection. I mean that the picture should be alot more visible than Sasuke's face.

Hmm I'm really not so sure about it. Yeah the picture isn't visible alot but the whole image focusses on it and it's immideately clear that there is something, so it forces the observer to focus on it. And afterwards, it's easy to recognize the photo.
It might be worth a try to attempt changing it a little but I really wouldn't totally scrap the current version. I think it's very good and I'm not sure if it could really be improved alot. Your other points might be right but I'm a little in doubt about this one.
However, trying out some different versions can't be bad. I might be totally wrong here.

 

[Shinsatsu]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Hmm I'm really not so sure about it. Yeah the picture isn't visible alot but the whole image focusses on it and it's immideately clear that there is something, so it forces the observer to focus on it. And afterwards, it's easy to recognize the photo.
It might be worth a try to attempt changing it a little but I really wouldn't totally scrap the current version. I think it's very good and I'm not sure if it could really be improved alot. Your other points might be right but I'm a little in doubt about this one.
However, trying out some different versions can't be bad. I might be totally wrong here.

Changing it is not hard since the reflection itself is seperated in a single layer. We can easily change its opacity and fill. However, I believe that the reflection should be harder to see than the actual picture. The observer may see the picture first and then realize that Sasuke's face is visible on the glass. (it's not a mirror, it's glass and glass reflection is really weak )

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Changing it is not hard since the reflection itself is seperated in a single layer. We can easily change its opacity and fill. However, I believe that the reflection should be harder to see than the actual picture. The observer may see the picture first and then realize that Sasuke's face is visible on the glass. (it's not a mirror, it's glass and glass reflection is really weak )

Physically you might be right, although even glass reflections can be kinda strong under certain light I think. But the general ideas both are interesting:
-Seeing the image first, then realising that Sasuke's reflection in it
-Seeing Sasuke's reflection first, then that it's inside a photo of team 7
I think the idea is more important than optical laws here, and I like the current (second) one
Though, as you said, it's certainly a good thing that it's possible to create a huge amount of variations to find

 

[kakashi919]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

I agree with Shin Akuma though... the picture of team kakashi should be more visible than sasuke's actual reflection. Seeing the picture more clearly would show a deeper meaning of the reflection theme imo. A blend of actual reflection and reflecting on the past. I also was gonna do a sig with this same photo, but I was gonna use a render of Shippuuden Sasuke.

About the border, Shin is right also, a simple 1px black border would work. Well those are my thoughts on the sig. Good job

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Guh... That black background is so ugly behind my sig lol.

 

[DeBaron8]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate such useful constructive criticism. I agree with all the above comments. I also couldn't really decide how much of a reflection to do, so I tried to make it a bit weaker. Almost so the picture and Sasuke's face are close to being equally visible. I think it already looks better.

@ DeBaron8:
Great concept. Extremely well thought idea. You have done a great job so far. Here's what I think:
- You should work a little more on the blurring / sharpening. Just look for a picture with a similar perspective. It will help you figure out the ideal position of the blur effect.

I'm not sure if I understand what this means. Could you please elaborate/explain?

I think that you have the best idea so far. It needs just a little more effort and you may get yourself an additional vote <----

Thanks so much Shin! I'm honored that an artist as talented as you thinks my work has potential.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

I agree with Shin Akuma though... the picture of team kakashi should be more visible than sasuke's actual reflection. Seeing the picture more clearly would show a deeper meaning of the reflection theme imo. A blend of actual reflection and reflecting on the past.

I might totally come to a deadlock with this point of mine, but I still think that the current version is at least as viable as your idea
So, let me try to put my thoughts into words once more:
-Either the photo or the reflection becomes the first thing visible, depending on the optical design. The less obvious thing becomes the second thing the observer notices. If Sasuke's reflection is stronger, the observer first sees the reflection and then the photo, and vice versa.
-I'm prone to rate the second thing to be seen higher than the obvious. It's the same like a reasoning text to me: The strongest points should be at the end to have the largest impact. And: The more subtle detail always seems more important than the superficial appearance, making the part beeing noticed secondly more important.

For this image, it there would be two ways of thoughts according to this:
-The observer sees the photo, and then Sasuke beeing reflected in it.
-The observer sees Sasuke's reflection, and then what he's reflected in
So, in a way putting the reflection as the obvious, superficial part really makes the reflection itself less important. But by putting it first, the "idea" behind the reflection, that it's a reflection of himself in team 7, becomes more important. And I think that's more meaningful in a way.

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Yeah I see I'm totally getting carried away by small details. I think that as the effect looks very fine anyways, the best optical look might be more important than such trifold thoughts

 

[~Coffee~]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Any advice, comments or critics would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I got lazy in reading the other replies so sorry if I repeat something~

- Reflection looks slightly too large.
- Maybe more of a perspective angle on the reflection.
- And the white on sasukes head doesnt feel right either.

 

[DeBaron8]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Here is the updated version, I'm afraid it doesn't look much different than the last one. I just played around with some overlays and filters, and the reflection is not as strong so you can see the picture better. I also added some text, which is likely a mistake, but I have a text fetish. Thanks again for all the advice! I tried to follow it to the best of my abilities. Hope you like it.

 

[Roflkopt3r]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

I hold on to my previous opinion, having a strong reflection of Sasuke was a good idea to begin with. I really think that the reflection like it was in the first version was pretty perfect already and better than the second version of it.
But I like the new darker background, dark surroundings suit the atmosphere in my mind

 

[kakashi919]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

I think the border is too big still. Should try a smaller border.

 

[Shinsatsu]

Re: All Purpose Sig Contest Discussion Thread 2010

Good work DeBaron8.
I agree with Kakashi on the border thing. Also, try and use a better font that can blend in... the one you're using now stands out and it's kinda sharp more than it should be. (The 'reflection' text is good since you blurred it a bit).