Syk3

Clearly the first thing you notice about these banners is how grany they are. I understand that you can't really do anything about that, but even so...it's a little distracting in some cases. In the second set, though, you're able to create the feeling that the granyness is actually an option on your part rather than a requirement, and you're able to pull it off. Needless to say, I prefer those to the first set of banners. I think that the banners in your first post need a lot of work, which you can incorporate in future banners. In the Yoshi one and the second one, you should learn that you really shouldn't simply cut and paste entire images onto a banner, as they rarely turn out good, and the Yoshi one probably should have a border to outline the boundaries of just where the white goes. The Trigun one, as you've probably noticed, should be cut out a lot more, and the background colors of these should be given some thought. I'm not much of a fan of the text in all of them either. I think it's safe to say that it's time for a new computer and a new graphics program. It's already rather hard to critique your image keeping your limitations in mind, but it's interesting to comment that while using only one image seems plain, that seems to be the best thing that you can pull off.

Well, mystikal, I've really never had the chance to comment on any of your pieces in the past, but I've seen some and I'm very impressed. You do great cg work, and I'm sure you'd be able to get a good job by doing something like that one day. ^_^ I really like this particular piece a lot, it just looks like it could be right out of an anime, heh. Easily the thing that makes you stand out as an artist is your use of shaddows and fading, because it makes everything appear as 3-dimensional, such as the kanji strip on the top of her head, which actually looks like it is folding forward. There are, of course, a few things that you can improve on, most of which are near the bottom of the image. The dress imparticular, there are a few misplaced colors in the bottom center, and the bottom right corner of it doesn't make the dress appear as a thin sheet. I've also noticed that with some of your pieces, such as this one, the feet are a little...well, stubbed. They feel like they could either be made a little longer, or a little thinner. Other than that, great job. ^_^ I'm anxious to see more from you in the future.

Well, there are two things wrong with this picture. First and foremost, we have a seperate forum for dicussing anime, and you can use the literature forum to talk about manga. This forum, Otaku Lounge, is for discussing general topics like you see around you. The only reason that it's called 'Otaku' is because the name of the forums is OtakuBoards, and the site is theOtaku, if you get what I'm saying. [color=teal]*[/color]Also, it is sort of an unwritten rule that you shouldn't base an entire discussion around links to other websites. It could easily lead to people simply posting links as opposed to real discussion, or people posting just to advertise their own personal site; while you are allowed to post links that contribute to the discussion, the link should go along with the thread, not [i]be[/i] the thread. You seem like a very intelligent person, so I'm glad we could get these two topics out of the way before you did anything in the future. I'll be happy to PM you a good anime site that sells the stuff for dirt cheap. Welcome to OtakuBoards, and enjoy your stay. ^_^ Topic closed. [color=teal]*Edited. -Syk3[/color]

Hehe, as I told you before, you were too kind in your last post. So yeah, the updated banner. Today is August 12th, and here it is, as promised. ^_^ [img]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?postid=461605[/img]

When I get on, I ususally do a few things inparticular nowadays, and while it seems like a chore, I get a kick out of it. I'd get on my 56k internet, get on AIM, then get on Internet Explorer. My home page is currently set on my myOtaku page, so I check to see if there are more comments on my blog posts, whether more people signed my guestbook, and what place I'm in ranking-wise. Then I check my email, followed by checking to see if the Rurouni Kenshin box set has come in yet, and then I go off to OtakuBoards to take care of my moderating buisness. After that, though, I'm free to do what I want. I ususally take that time to post on OB randomly, and talk to people on AIM. ^_^

Well, if I was going to mention any bad teachers, I would have to be crazy not to bring up Ms. Johnson, my Biology teacher in 9th grade. *insert shudder and loud scream* I cannot stress enough how horrible this teacher was, and how much I feel that she should be fired or something. Basically, she based all of her actual teaching on the book that she gave us, whereas she would have us read a lot of chapters from the book, and simply go over it in class. So if you didn't read it, or didn't understand it in the first place, you're screwed. She was also very hard to understand, and very bad at typing. This teacher would always talk very slowly so that you could hardly comprehend what she says, and then speed it up near the end so that you still couldn't understand her. "Ooookkaaaaaayyyy claaasssssss, ooooopppeeeenn yooooouuurrr booooooooksssss topage56." Then, as I said, when she would go to type something, she would use one finger and hit a key every 5 seconds or something. When someone would raise their hand to answer a question, she would either ignore you, not give you a straight answer, or aparently forget what she had done once she calls on you to ask your question. o__o; She was always randomly moving people around for talking, even sometimes when they wern't talking, but she could never get them away from someone who would start talking to the person who was moved about what a bad teacher she was anyway, lol. Then she'd move PAIRS to the back of the room. What is this madness, I ask you? But wait, there's more! She's so lazy, she'd literally take a warm-up overhead, cross off where it said "Warm-Up" as well as the date and stuff, and give it as a quiz or something. ~_~' One time she even gave us a crossword puzzle with all of the choices and numbers in ORDER. Ms. Johnson was ALWAYS loosing papers and stuff, so you could never guaruntee your work when you turned it in, and then she would find it when your halfway done copying your friend's homework because you are so sure you had done it once before anyway. We have a feeling she was loosing more than that...:rolleyes: Half the time she didn't know what she was doing, and she was boring as heck and looked like a frog. oO; This one time, she was doing this one project with the class on something that involved mulitpled choice answers. So for every answer, she'd say something like "A as in apples", "B as in ball", etc. Anyway, she'd always say the same examples over and over again, and when you'd get something wrong, she wouldn't even say that you're wrong, she'd just be like, "Ooookkaaayyyy, Saradoyouhaveananswer?" On a side note, she'd always try to say big words and stuff but would mess up horribly. Yes, so as I was saying, one time I got this answer wrong, and it turns out that it was actually "B", right. So she goes "Oookaaayyy, it's B as in ball." And I go, "Pfft. B as in *****", but rather quietly, though loud enough to stir up some laughter. =p This one time, I walked into her classroom and she was doing an experiment in the back of the room, almost right behind me, since I'm in the back anyway. You'll like this. So she has two these two beakers with clear liquids in them; one was in her hand, and one was on a hot plate. She goes to mix them, and at first it seems like she is slowly pouring the liquid from the one in her hand into the one on the hot plate when Ms. Johnson suddenly pours it in [i]really fast[/i] (nervousness?). The beaker on the hot plate completely shatters, the liquid goes everywhere, and without turning off the hot plate, she goes right along and tried scooping the glass off the hot plate with an eye dropper and a paper towel. ~_~' "Ohhhh, weeelllll, thhhhaaaattt's juuuuuust whhhaaaaattt happenswithsomeexperiments." Yeah, if you can't tell, I really hated that teacher and truely feel that she should no longer be allowed to teach. The following year, she was put in a trailer, so that was sort of funny, and the people in my Chemistry class who had her would always make fun of the way she teached. This one time, we actually did this explosion sort of experiment outside (we'd never do cool experiments like this in her class), and the smoke went into her trailer through the open windows.

Believe it or not, for those who remember him it was [i]Shift[/i] who originally came up with this user name. My other names here were Gohan and Solid Snake, and while they were original versions of the names, they wern't really very unique. I was looking for something short and sweet that I could use for people to distinguish me among others, or something. So, I was talking with buddy Shift, and we were coming up with different names, such as Alt (as in the key on the keyboard, lol). I said some stupid name that I don't even rememeber, and I said "Syke, just kidding." I had been using the term a lot, but had never thought about it before, and he said, "Syke!!! You can use that name!" So now you know -- it's not SKY, it's Syke, as in the term meaning just kidding. Psyche > Syke > Syk3. I had different versions of the name as well. When I was about to change my user name, I had the impression that we had agreed on sYk3 (the '3' in place of the 'e' just to sound l337ish, and then make it seem like every other letter was capilotized), but he recommended just to have it as 'Syk3', which I have to admit, did sound more proffesional despite how crazy the name really was. It's short, simple, easy to remember, and unique.

I play soccer and basketball the most, but I prefer soccer. I can play a bunch of different sports, but those are the only ones that I play on a team for, though I havn't been on a team for basketball in a couple years. So yeah, soccer is my favorite sport to play, whereas I ususally play right or center forward. I'm not too big a fan of running, so center is out of the question, and I like to be up there to score or set up the goals anyway, so that's why I like be a forward. I've been playing it for a while, since I was 6 or something, and I've played on everything from a full-sized pitch, to indoor, to the league that I'm in now that plays 6 players on a short field. It's very strange, yes, but I don't have to run a lot, lol. I have tried out for travel teams in the past; I was was in a "classic" league once that stays on the same field the whole season, but the competition is a lot higher, and I was on a travel team for a bit until I realized that I wasn't [i]that[/i] dedicated to the sport, and that I had other things to deal with. I've also tried out for my school team a couple times, but when I saw just how much running it involved in just how much heat, I was kind of glad that I didn't make it anyway, lol. ...yeah. Sorry about bringing out my life story like that and all, but it reiterates this point I have on playing soccer. =p I'd also like to add that I'm not a big fan of watching sports, even if I like playing them.

My school's colors are red, white and blue, and our mascot is (go figure) the Patriots. The Northern High School Patriots, yup. *realizes that's all you need to say to have a liable post* o.o' Anyway, it's funny that you should bring up the issue on school colors, as we have a new high school being built right by my house, and they recently sent a letter out with possible choices for school colors and mascots, and wanted us to choose one. Actually, they wanted us to choose our top 5, but yeah. I'm not too sure about some of their choices, but I remember them having a series of colors for the Huntungtown Hawks, Heat, Hound Dogs (dark and light brown, yuck!), and Hurricanes. I chose Heat with red, yellow, and black (like a flame, har har har) as first, and then it went down. I'm still deciding on whether or not I should go to the school, or stay with my old one.

Ahh, Outlaw Star. It is indeed a very good anime, not my favorite of course, but deffinitly a solid buy (from experience). I'd put it right behind Evangelion on my list of favorite animes, and would recommend it to people who like Cowboy Bebop and Trigun. It is a very nice blend of adventure, action, and comedy genres, and I've enjoyed it a lot. [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by OtakuSennen [/i] [B]But be warned: There is one episode that was not aired on US television due to seeing.. A lot of things.... X_X And Melfina (a bio-mechanical android) doesn't have any clothing on sometimes.. Let's just say that that along with some more thematic elements makes this much more of a rated-R series if you're buying the DVDs.[/B][/QUOTE] Episode #23: Hot Springs Tenrei. Yes, I'm watching that right now. Anyway, the point isn't to show that I know a lot about Outlaw Star or something, but the entire reason that they didn't show it on CN is because of the mature themes, due to a few parts, but they are entirely covered up on my DVDs save for maybe a quick moment of the cat woman, whatever her name is. They never show Melfina without her clothes on anyway, so I diagree about that R rating, but perhaps a PG-13 for suggestive themes, lol. [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by MillionKnives88 [/i] [B]Outlaw Star is a very good Anime. [/B][/QUOTE] [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by kumo [/i] [B]cue dirty music [/B][/QUOTE] These posts are certainly not allowed. OtakuBoards expects you to put in a lot more effort than that, and I think you should both read [url=http://www.theotaku.com/rules.shtml]the rules[/url] before you post again. Both of those posts were deleted.

Sorry about not bringing this to the attention of the boards earlier; me going in the first place was sort of a last minute thing anyway, and I was hoping that someone would have already made this topic. I guess that just means that very few people from these boards actually went, despite the large ammount of people there. I knew that not that many people lived in Maryland, but this is rediculous. o.o' Anyway, the convention was a lot of fun. There were quite a few people who cosplayed as their favorite anime, gaming, or movies characters (I even saw someone with a Ghostbuster costume), but only about 30% of those people were really able to pull it off and look good in their costumes. I saw this one Samus Aran suit...man, that was REALLY good; it looked perfect on her, and it was as if she bought the actual helmet and stuff. Overall, though, it showed me just how silly these anime characters would look in real life, lol. There were clearly different parts of the convention that you could visit, most of which I was able to see, but there were a few that I never got around to going into, mainly because I was only there for one day. There was, of course, the Dealer's Room, where you could purchase so many different things, such as anime movies and series (obviously, though also extremely over priced), manga, How to Draw books, T-Shifts, katanas, ninja stars, wallscrolls and posters, anime guides, cards, original animation cels, and more. It was a very large room and I've never seen anything like it before. The only thing I bought, though, is what I had left over after I ate and payed the entrance fee and stuff, which was a 13 dollar TokyoPop anime guide of the first 5 episodes of Cowboy Bebop. It is my favorite anime, and this guide included 3 of my favorite episodes, so why not? The Dealer's Room was pretty much where you would buy your souveniors and such, and everywhere else was simply for information and enjoyment. Some other things they had were rooms that showed the first few episodes of a given anime, live-action anime movies, anime music videos, previews of random animes coming to the states, concerts, maskerades, and press conferance-type situations where a company such as Bandai would give out information about upcoming animes and answer questions from the crowd. I went and saw most of those, but things like the concert and maskarade were on the top floor and I never got around to going up there. Let me once again reiterate just how many people were there. I was lucky enough to have my friend's cel phone number and get in touch with him to walk around with his group, but my other friend who was there and did not have a cel phone (or at least one that I knew of), was able to elude us the entire [b]eleven hours[/b] that I was there. Not on purpose, of course, but [i]dang[/i]. So yeah, I had a lot of fun at Otakon, and I'm hoping to be able to go again next year, this time actually setting up a meeting place for my friends, lol.

Wow, very nice as always with your banner, Mei! The pictures are all of rather good quality and aren't degrading, you have a nice border, and the font as well as the color are very well done, as you got the color out of another part of the banner. The point is illustrated beautifly, and you did an overall great job. You're my Rinoa, Mei. ^_^ *huggles you tightly*

If you want people to be your friends, make a friend list in your signature or something, then post a lot of intelligent things. Just try to be a friendly person, and be paccient. Maybe someone will eventually PM you because they found that you and them shared a common interest, through your posts. In any case, this certainly isn't something that you have to go make a topic about, as it doesn't lead to any discussion whatsoever. ^_^ Remember, people want friends who always obey the OB rules.

*looks around* I hope this lack of posts in the subject doesn't mean that so few people are actually going. o_O Yeah, anyway, if you're wondering what Otakon is, it's an anime convention held annually in the Baltimore Convention Center, in Maryland. If you're familiar with Anime Expo (I understand that there was quite a popular topic on it a while back), then this is obviously supposed to be similar to that, except for the fact that it's not located in Califronia. I'm not too sure on what exactly they do there, seeing as I've never been to an anime convention before, but it sounds very exciting, and I'm noting that the first thing many people say about it is how it will be so tempting to spend lots of dough on anime.

Hehehe, I love it Shy, aboslute brilliance! The whole banner and avatar combo, as well as the theme that resides in both are so simple and eye pleasing that it suits you perfectly. ^_^ I love the way you make all of your themes so simplistic and don't fill up your sig with mindless stuff.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Queen Asuka [/i] [B][color=hotpink][size=1]We are closer than anyone else on the Otaku can be with one another. Sure, Syk and Mei may claim to have this undying love for one another, they are only 14 or so. It would be amazing if they stayed together. I remember the "undying love" I had for someone when I was that age. Lasted about a year and then was gone.[/b][/color][/size][/QUOTE] Yes, this is exactly what Roxie and I were talking about. For your relationship, it's more of a freindship thing, as you say. After all, you do have a boyfriend in real life. In this sense, I can see how you'd look at our, well, romantic relationship as comical and unstable (both of which I can assure you are completely false). There are different degrees of online marriges, and ours are aparently different from each other. One is to cement a friendship (such as yours, and Lady Asphyxia's), and the other is to cement a love interest (such as mine, and Ravenstorture's).

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Shinji-Kun [/i] [B]OMG. I had the best driving teacher ever. I mean, this guy would crack on anyone driving around us. But we had to watch this really awful video called "The No Zone" and I wanted to hang myself during that thing. [/B][/QUOTE] LOL!!!!! "It's the No Zone!" *does a dance* Oh man, I was cracking up through that entire video, lol. In any case, my Drivers Ed class was alright, but I got kind of tired coming back from school then sitting in another classroom for 3 hours. My classroom teacher was alright; he told it like it was and made the class interesting, but sometimes it would get boring after he talked for a while, or after we watched a movie for too long, but everything gets boring after too long (well, not my Mei-koi. ^_^). Anyway, one embarassing moment I had during the class was when he asked me why they have a Zero Tolerance policy on underage drinking and driving. I responded "Er...because, it would be illegal to drink anyway?" "HAHAHA!! Wrong! It's because you can't drink until you're 21." O_o;;

A member list is a very good idea. I was thinking about that earlier.. Anyone like to take a guess as to what my username is? =p *points to OB name* Yeah...I like to use this name for basically everything, because of how original it is for me. ^_^ In any case, I was out of town when myOtaku first launched, so I had Shy sign me up and verify my email for me. He filled in some things, some of which I edited a little bit, but things such as the goals (^_~) I kept. I really like myOtaku because it's sort of like a blog, but with more features, and it ties into the theOtaku community, so it's really more than I could have asked for. ^_^ There are a few gliches, but nothing that Adam can't iron out when he gets back from his trip. [url=http://www.myotaku.com/users/syk3/][color=red]myOtaku.com: Syk3[/color][/url] Go now!! oO; *is number 7 on popularity list*

*huggles his Mei-koi* Before I get to the point, I'd like to thank all of you for your kind comments. ^_^; To answer your first question, no, we have yet to meet, but we are indeed planning on doing it. It's one thing to fall into the off chance that you and an Otaku friend happen to be in the same place and are able to meet (even if it was Shy, that was awsome!), but it's quite another to try to meet a [i]particular person[/i], especially one that lives halfway across the country. However, my parents do want to take a trip to meet some of our friends who recently moved to her state, but we'll still be about two hours below where she lives. How to deal with this issue, you ask? Well, one way we can do it is by convincing my parents of things that are interesting to see up there, but a much more concievable way would be to drive up there myself, as I will have my liscense by then. We decided to get married in an online chat, when I asked her only semi-seriously, even though I kind of liked her. Anakin was on this role thing about wanting to get married, and when he asked me, I hid behind Mei in a way and asked her to marry me. I never exactly got a straight answer (~_^) but later in the chat, it became more clear that she had accepted. Only shortly after that we started talking on AIM and finding out more that we had in common with each other, and as time went on, our love grew into what it is today; whereas we are married online, but in reality are trying to continue something of a long-distance relationship. So yeah, a couple of day later, we made a date and time for our marrige in an online chat which was absolutely HUGE, and had Charles as a minister. We really went all out. ^_^ I think it's safe to say that Mei and I are my favorite couple. I know it seems kind of selfish to say that...but I really see the chemistry between us, rather than people who have IRL boyfriends and girlfriends and are just getting married online for the heck of it and to, as Roxie said, cement a friendship. After us, however, I'm putting Piro and Asuka, just because they have had the longest running marraige and seem like a good couple, though oddly I've never seen them together... So yeah. Despite what people say about internet relationships, and how they need to actually see someone and feel them to know that they're real, I know from experience that you can meet a great person online and hold a steady relationship. Though, honestly, if we could have this in real life it would be a dream come true. ^_^ *huggles and kisses Mei-koi some more* NOTE: I don't remember going all out on a post like this one in a LONG time. o.o'

~_~' I'm not sure how much discussion you're expecting to get from this, but I forsee a yes or no answer that could lead to massive flaming from people trying to defend their opinions. This also could fall under the category of "Favorites threads", of which Shy has clearly made a point to stop as of late. Try to get a discussion going on a point in the series itself that instigates an intelligent topic. ~_^ Topic closed.

I believe that birthdays feel less special once you grow out of having a birthday party and inviting all of your friends. You rememeber that excitement that you used to feel getting all of those presents and such from your friends, but now that it's gone, you notice the sort of emptyness behind it and realize that the hype behind it isn't as big. That's how I felt at least; after my 13th birthday party, no one made a big deal out of it anymore, so I didn't think of it as important. It is also true, however, that some birthdays are more significant than others in the sense that the things that you are allowed to do is much more broad. Such birthdays include 16 (a lot of jobs and such), 17 (don't forget about R-rated films, heh), 18, and 21. The hype returns for these birthdays depending on whether or not you decide that the things that become legal are things that you are interested in doing. I do know exactly what you mean though, heh; birthdays just seem not as exciting as they used to.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Naru [/i] [B]those are awesome! Good job! [/B][/QUOTE] Naru, I've been noticing a lot of slacking posts like this one lately, and I wanted to tell you this before it became a force of habbit. Saying that something looks nice and cool isn't cutting it; in this forum, you have to comment a lot more about what is good about the artwork, what is bad, and what the artist can do to improve their ability. Thanks! -Syk

[color=teal]Due to the high amount of threads that have been coming up lately dealing with this issue, I figure that I should make a sticky about it for members who are new to making banners. No one can tell you exactly [i]how[/i] to make a banner, but we can help to get you on the right path. Before you go off and make something super fantastic, however, you're going to have to have a decent program to start you off. MS Paint usually doesn't cut it, while it has worked for some people in certain situations, so I recommend getting a graphic editing program such as Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. I use Photoshop 7, myself. Good ones such as these may run a little pricey, however. But slow down there. The program never creates the talent, and to be good at making banners requires lots and lots of hard work, practice, and patience. You can do a number of methods to achieve this. Simply playing around and messing with the program is probably the best in the way of learning exactly what everything does, and you gain knowledge of a lot of interesting tricks that you can use in banners. It is also a good idea to search for tutorials on the internet -- following the directions, and then going off on your own path and experimenting on techniques. The final big thing that I recommend is getting a look at banners that people are using around the forums. Try to copy them in a sense to get a feel of what those people did to create it, and you'll have a better idea of the options you have. So yeah. A lot of time goes into making a banner, and it gets so complicated and diverse that we cannot explain how to step by step. Good luck, future banner makers of the internet! May the graphics be with you! ~_^ (Yes, I know it's corny. -.-) -Syk3[/color]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Akki Koroshiya [/i] [B]whats up with the.........thing?is it a shaved cat or a chiwawa? [/B][/QUOTE] I'm thinking it's a cat, due to the fact that this is based of cAttitude, heh. Not bad, though the cat is freaky. cAttitude touches us all in one way or another. oO;

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Stuart [/i] [B]Ok, I saw these patrick pics and I just had to do somthing with them, I couldnt make a very good banner with them So I made avatars instead :p Well hope ya like them :) [img]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=445299[/img] [/B][/QUOTE] YES!!! REPRESENT!!! *ahem* I can make such a good Patrick impression..But anyway, yes, about the avatars themselves, I'm obviously a little biased when I say that I love them all. ~_^ They are all captured very nicely, though a few are darker than they should be. You are quickly becoming among the best banner makers OtakuBoards has to offer, heh. Great job! [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by loyal2death [/i] [B]Wow, great job Stuart. You are a great banner/avatar maker. Keep up the great work. :) [/B][/QUOTE] Welcome to the boards. ^_^ Generally, in the Art forum and basically everywhere else, we'd appreciate if you put more into your posts. In this case, saying that you like something isn't acceptable; it would be better if you said what you liked about each peice of work so that the person can know what he did well, and what he can improve on. Thanks!