Pyrophobic

Woo, that's very pretty! Yeah, I think the images merge really well into the background, though the features are such that they aren't lost completely, and the way the title fits in is excellent. It doesn't look overlayed, as it were, in the slightest! The white outlines of the font used for your original text also go brilliantly with the title and make it stand out. I can't really think of anything to criticise there. Soften the text so that it fits in with the smoothness of the rest of the banner, perhaps - though I'm not sure that wouldn't kill the contrast. No - I love it as it is. It looks very professional and well thought out. Well done!

I like the way you've obscured parts of the image and added the linear texture to it. However, the text in places is hard to read - all I can decipher is "To seek Re Purpose". I don't know given the obscuring blotches that the mystery is supposed to be intentional, but otherwise it might be good to use a slightly lighter font. Not too gaudy a colour though, because I think the gloominess of the banner is one of its best features. Heh, I wish I got ideas that quickly.

Woo, I like, I like! It's got a really nice feathery texture to it which works particularly well towards the edges of the curved parts - it looks a lot like short plush fur in parts, which contrasts brilliantly with the smooth blending of it in the twirl. It's great the way the colours merge in particular. Nice, cool, ice-cream kinda' feel you got going on there. It feels a lot like a background for something, so were you intending to lay anything over it? For some reason I can see a pink and blue dolphin leaping out of it - as if the colours are contained in and reflecting from a big tidal wave. *shakes head* Sorry, I won't get carried away... It's really pretty. ^^

Those are some great banners. Okay, systematically ... Digimon banner: that's a great font you've used - it fits in with the stark cartoon outlines and flat colours. The transparent single-colour copies are also a very snazzy touch. The one thing I would say is that the marbled background works nicely enough around her right arm up until the shoulder, and then the yellow swirl comes in and it doesn't look quite so nice. The light grey strip running up from her back also stumped me a bit, but overall it's a fantastic banner. The Pippin banner: It's so cute! I love the blind effect you've used and the edges you've added around the image in the centre. Great choice of font - it gives the banner real punch (hey, it certainly leapt out at me the first time I came across one of K.K.C.'s posts). The Necro banner: Beautiful and dark, with just the tiniest touch of Giger smoothness. It's great - you can just spend ages staring at it and notices new things because the darkness simultaneously says so little and says so much. The best thing is that the shapes are completely open to individual interpretation. As for a quote - well, I've been living out of my great great uncle's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam for everything life-and-death related, assuming you're going down the necro vein ... how about this (I warn you, these things usually only really have flare as rhyming couplets) - "One Moment in Annihilation's Waste, One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste" (XXXVIII) Might not be that suitable - only you know the true intention behind the banner. Anyways, great work!

I can't see the big over-the-line muck-ups myself, so you must have managed them pretty well. I love the grasp of tone and the colouring - very nice. His eyes are well done - but really creepy without pupils! [Heh, I haven't ever seen this character, so I wouldn't know whether or not he had pupils, of course.] I like the creases around the neck and shoulders, but the line where the two sides of his waitcoat is too vertically straight around the stomach to fit their bulge. I have to agree that at some points, like the black lines extending from the eyes, the shoulders and hairline, is a little too asymmetrical, but generally I think the picture is very strong. The shadows are believeably captured, and I really like how you've done his gold jewellery. I look forward to more, and well done!

Ah, okay - heh, sorry to scare you. ^^' I usually miss most things, so I thought I'd be super-sensitive for a change. Anyways, I'll pop up another picture (pfft, it looks like I just churn these out sometimes - heh, I really don't...) I don't know how much explanation I should give for this image without sounding as if I'm seriously plugging. It's just, a picture without a story can seem strange sometimes, particularly when it's one of mine. I guess I just don't tell the story INSIDE the picture, although this image, like the first, was some offshoot design art I did for a novel project. I mentioned something earlier about writing about cloning. The title of that project is "Limbo Men" (no sniggering at the back there - I know it sounds sad at first...), and it basically exists within my favourite genre of dystopian science fiction. The story is set, to detail it in a nutshell, in a future where immortality may be achieved by transplanting the mental processes (that is, memories, thoughts, personality, tendencies) of a dying human being into another physical body constructed from their tissue (i.e. a cloned shell of them) in order to allow that human to continue his or her existence. The desired result of this is to keep a constant, optimum population in those nations capable of purchasing and maintaining the required technology which does not devour all resources but keeps the nation's economy and society in operation. There are plenty of implications (e.g. sudden, quick and accidental deaths) that would stilt this process, but these are discussed in the story itself. The picture discusses the actual point of the story, when several random people start to experience sensations in between the two bodies as their mental processes cross over (usually this process, known as Transfer, occurs simply as a case of 'go to sleep and wake up again in a brand new living body', without any "bad dreams" in the middle). The spatio-temporal happenings of this in-between period are termed the experiences of 'limbo', and are very distressing for those who are affected by them. The plot basically involves a policeman getting to the bottom of the mystery of the 'limbo men'. Blargh, I tried to make that brief. It seems riddled with gaps and holes, but I have done my best to fill them in the book. The picture is rather abstract, with two white masses at either side representing the nice, beautiful existence that the living bodies experience either side of Transfer. The black structure with all the detail is the 'limbo' period that only a fraction see - yes, that is supposed to be a stretched human body in the very middle, inside of which is a figure facing away from us praying (the soles of his feet are highlighted slightly), which the novel accounts for. But really, make of it what you will. I don't think it's as good as my CD cover, but then it was never supposed to be complicated - I'll be doing some more complex artwork for a sequence of the novel soon which I could post up here. Again, thank-you all so much for your comments (and Eclectic, you can be my 'yes-man' whenever you like ^^) - they are well appreciated and I've already acted upon them. Please feel free to continue your critiques. ^_^

Wow! That's absolutely fantastic! Really spectral, and you can almost feel the heat of it (cliched as that may sound). I particularly like the drapes of weed over the tree branches - really fine linework there. It looks like something out of a Tim Burton feature. ^^ What's going to be in the foreground, incidentally?

Wow, that IS much better! The nose looks good and more built up than last time, and you've retained that fantastic grasp of shading that you have. I really like the way you've render the neck sinews in particular. I don't know whether the original drawing accounts for one, but does he have eyelids drawn in? Yes, I think it looks far more complete with a background. It gives a good light sense of perspective (especially since you haven't used firm lines to define the backdrop - gives it a misty feel). I'd be interested to see how you deal with another medium like coloured chalk or paint that might give flatter planes of colour and tone. Just a little suggestion for diversifying your art there, no need to heed it completely...

Wow, that's great! It's really abstract and sharp - I don't know what it looks like to other people, but the two foreground shapes kinda' look like little demon heads with plucky ickle horns. The background's good, too. It's not too complex to completely overwhelm the foreground, but it's still nice and intricate. The colours also suit one another very well. I also love the "echoing" shadow of the text ... how did you manage it so that the grey text was translucent? Or is it just that the font has lots of holes in it or something? I personally like the avatar - the colours are the same, and after all, it has a similar border. ^_^ Well done!

They pack a lot of punch colour-wise since you've rendered them so vigorously - that's worked particularly well on the hair of the foreground person in the second image. You probably do need to sharpen up on manga forms by practicising with others' drawings first and seeing how they accomplish things like the nose and proportion (I drew along with one of my friends who is brilliant at manga, then about a year later - *laughs* - I had to retrain my hand because I decided I didn't like the style anymore ... anyways...). I think you are going down the right path, though. I agree with the 'fro comment - hair doesn't elevate that much over the crown of the head in a ponytail. I think what struck me the most were the crazy clavicles - they're more even and symmetrical - but your symmetry in general is rather good. Nice grasp of shape on the figure in the background in the second picture, though. I do see much potential in this.

*laughs* Aw, the Calumon one's great. I'm not quite at ease with the dark grey version in the foreground, but I figured that the original shot was in the shadows or something. Yeah, I like the texture you've used on the first one too. The colours go extremely well together - it has a very dream-like quality of which the comparatively harsh texture makes you sit up and look. The second one - a nice idea with the cross, but I'd also say that the text is too blue to stand out. I don't think white would be successful, but you need something lighter ... okay, so perhaps a blue tint of some sort, like a cyan. Hrm, then again that could be too gaudy. Oh, I don't know. I'm not good with colours. I have to say I simply adore the Guilmon banner - few people use the edgeless effect, so it's really novel - like a piece torn from a patchwork quilt that you've just thrown down - it's like a jigsaw piece. Again, excellent grasp of harmonious colours and a nice pattern (sort of like a circuit board, suitably enough) - I like the blur you've done too on the top left corner. I see what Lady Katana's saying about the contrast between the motion in the backdrop and the stationary Guilmon. Hrm, I'm not really sure where I stand with that one, but I do think the overall composition is nice. Well done!

I like the way the colours work together, and you've got a good constant power behind the text colour that is very hard to achieve to my knowledge. The juxtaposition of the images is suitable, since if the embracing standing couple were on the left, it wouldn't really have the sense of progress that it does here. That's great - it's like the banner tells a story according to the text. The one thing I'm not comfortable with is the blending of purple into blue - it isn't that smooth. I'd continue the gradient transition towards the left a little more so that it's less sharp and sudden. Otherwise, brilliant!

Yeah, the first banner has a nice, clear impact. I'm not so sure about adding the emerald - it adds a cluttered weightiness to the foot of the banner somehow. It suits Knuckles' action line perfectly, but the way it contrasts with Tikal's spines' forward lean is a bit clashy - that's why it seems cluttered. Maybe you could think of a short sample of text to include, shrink the emerald and lay the text over it somewhere. I'd want to keep the space from the first banner and use it like you do in your green signature banner - I think that's very successful. Well done with what you've done so far - nice placid blue! ^_^

Thanks for the comment. I originally did the white unicorn's tail and mane and so forth in a very flaring red that stood out dramatically from the shorter body fur. I then introduced contrast to enhance that factor and inversed the image's colours to see what would happen. [QUOTE]Also, I think the name 'Derivative' would be a good name for the band. Or the Album.[/QUOTE] 'Derivative' being a synonym for unoriginal. I'm not sure whether to laugh or be rather offended. I agree with you on the positioning - I'll add a little black margin to the bottom. I'm actually rubbish with computer art programmes. Most things I get out of them have happened purely out of luck. I think my frustration with the silly things is why I always go on about the tragedy of people leaving pen and paper behind entirely. Everyone nowadays uses Photoshop, and whilst it looks nicer, you seldom get the sense that the person physically engages as you might with, say, charcoal. But art programmes are very nice - particularly if you know how to work them.

^_^ Thank-you very very much for all the comments! They are much appreciated. Heh, I quite realise I haven't perfected my use of contrast - I thought a dark look suited the design and my intentions regarding it best. Actually, Baron Samedi (incidentally, great name), the frills were deliberately but not very well scrubbed out because they had the most dreadful white edges. Normally I would have removed them with an airbrush effect, but my hand was too tired for precise work. They were only a test - really supposed to be sensory hairs - because what scares me personally the most about insects is all their spindly appendages, and the sense that they aren't really a solid mass, but something carried along by these fragile limbs - it's as if the physics humans recognise and define don't really apply to them. I appreciate that I didn't give lots of backstory, and that that which I did must have sounded astoundingly tacky, like some old B-movie from the 50s. To elaborate a tiny bit more, the giant mosquitoes idea really came from reading some articles about GM anti-malaria mosquitoes. In fact, most of my stories come from science journal and paper articles. I'd read also of mixing species' genes, like pigs' DNA with jellyfishes', etc. - so I wondered what it might be like to formulate a large laboratory-located organism which just churned out billions of mosquitoes designed to replace the malaria-carriers, sort of like a huge machine, only an insect. Since insect exoskeletons can only be so big before the entire creature literally collapses in on itself, I had to detail a mixture of mosquito genes with the robust inner structural genes of, say, a mammal. That mucked with the anti-malarial eggs produced, and also, following your usual SF nuclear conflict, which insects and small organisms usually seem to survive, allowed for mutations until the offspring of the big 'mother' organism increased in size. It's very far-fetched, which explains why I don't try to deconstruct it and don't see much future in the scientific potential of the project, but I like the design and where the story, post-mosquito mutation, goes. Eck, that must have been a boring and stupid paragraph. Anyways, I'll post a new picture now - one with significantly less backstory. This image was a simple consequence of playing about with a watercolour pencil sketch of the "rampant" herald unicorn used in Great Britain's Coat of Arms which was originally simply to illustrate a particular interpretation of George Stubbs' "Whistlejacket". I can't draw horses, so I was pretty pleased with the result, and decided to mess around with it on Paintshop Pro 6. I'd done several mock-ups for entirely fictional CD covers before this, but what I got when I inverted the image and applied 'rotating mirror' was the sort of thing I'd like to see on a shelf in something like the Heavy Metal rack of HMV. Since all albums need a title, I just called the image (after entitling it "Doubletempest" as a working label) "...And Doubt". It really reflects something I was writing at the time and still am about cloning. You can replicate something, immortalise it, yet one has to look at the replica at some point and ask if it's the same thing. It might look the same, think the same, chemically be the same, but it occupies a completely different spatio-temporal location. All we ever can be about such things is [I]doubtful[/I]. That, and unicorns are very pretty. Particularly neon blue ones. I'm ever so grateful for your comments - please continue to post them! Thank-you!

*laughs* I haven't been keeping up with the 10'000 member thread, but I think you have a fantastic chance of winning it. The sharp tones are brilliant and really eyecatching, and you certainly have a very good grasp at using colour successfully and powerfully. I don't think her eyes look so strange. Isolated like that, you wonder where the red light is that's reflecting in them - I'm not sure I'm convinced that it's emanating from her clothes. Pfft, doesn't matter though. It's fantastic. From the third to the first - well, okay, I think Megaman may well be one of the dumbest looking video-game characters ever created, but that doesn't affect how much I admire this banner. Again, great grasp of colours - the icy blues and black give it a real snap. I also like the way you've bisected the text and inserted the Japanese like that. It's fine to leave some of it blank - busy banners usually don't work to the best effect. Yeah, the frosting effect around Megaman himself is great. How did you do it? Just a scattery white line? And the second banner - the butterfly's a cute little touch, and it's nice how you play with the text. Well done! ^_^

Waggh! Huge, huge image! The impact'd probably be better if you shrunk it to about twenty or less per cent of its current size. I really love it though - the dragon's adorable and the girl's head is brilliantly drawn. I can't check the proportions because it's enormous, but it looks fine to me in that respect, save for the way her spine seems to tail away inwards, but that could be to do with the action line. It'd look fantastic coloured in - all spangly and festive! ^_^ Well done!

Hrm, creepy. The colours used are really ghostly and drab - almost monochromatic. Perhaps it would be fun to play with the contrast in that respect. The pixelation of the ghostly image is very disturbing compared to the smoothness of the two girls to the right - the fact that part of the door comes right across the ghost's face is strangely unsettling. The one problem I have is the text. The red chroma used is a bit too drab to stand out from the image, so I'd brighten it up and soften the edges so that it isn't too sharp. It's a bit unfortunate that it overlaps grey and dark-brown - maybe if you made it smaller and changed the arrangement of the two words slightly, it'd fit completely onto one texture (i.e. the grey wall). The other text problem is the black writing down the bottom, which is almost impossible to read - it definitely needs to be made lighter and maybe popped up in the dark area above the ghost's head. Hope that helps, and the banner certainly has promise. ^^

D'aww, I love that little puffy chibi creature! It looks just like a koala - with a smaller nose, I grant you, but koala-ish all the same. I absolutely adore the font you've used - what is it? And how did you achieve that nice orange glow? [Heh, many, many a question...] It's nicely minimalist. As for the second one - good use of harmonious colours. All these banners have a very earthy theme. That said, the gentle background really makes his red hair and the linear detail on his collar stand out well. Harmony and contrast - hrm, clever... And the third - strangely enough, the first time I saw that, I just thought "Oww!" I think it's the sharpness of the colours - it looks like her hair is crawling into the flesh of her eyes.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Shizoku [/i] [B]The first one is cool, only problem i have with it is the purple stuff looks like it's kindof overlaping the girl. [/B][/QUOTE] Yeah, it sorta' creates a rather sharp contrast with the image you've used in the foreground - whilst purple and orange make nice nearly-but-not-quite complementary colours, the pixelated look doesn't set off the smooth tonal blending too well. It's a very nice foreground image you got there, though, and I really like what you've done with it in your avatar - very sharp! I love the borders too - pretty orientalness ^^. Very good job with the second one - the blue looks great in the fragmented pattern you've arranged it in. The bright chromas used certainly compliment the cute image. Well done!

Tsktsk, doodling in chemistry, eh? Heh, I don't suppose I can really talk - my friend and I drew up a cast of thousands in the back of my physics book a couple of years back. Anyways, I actually think it works very well for a sketch done in the middle of class. I like the way you do the hair almost like sharp feathers - very nice. The detail on the clothing, particularly in terms of the bordering and laces, is great too - ballpoint works brilliantly when it comes to minute details. The sword is fantastic (did you seriously do that in pencils or was it rendered on the computer?) I agree with Maladjusted on the changes in direction - particularly on the purple skirt. I'd be interested to see how you might work with coloured chalks - not only, when blended, can you achieve solid planes with them, but they would also enhance the motion somewhat and continue the flow of the hair. They'd be particularly good on the sweep of those large sleeves, I'd imagine. As for two other things - well, firstly I wonder if, despite the boot, the definition of where the knee is could be made a little clearer? Otherwise it risks looking as if the thighs go on for too long. Secondly, the left hand looks a touch odd since the fingers that bend back look a little as if they've come out of nowhere. As such, I'd add a little more depth to the hand in that you either tilt it up so the palm is slightly visible or slightly down so that the knuckles and the fingers that extend from them are clearer. Other than that, it's a fantastic image. The elaboration on the background is something I wish I could achieve for once in one of my pictures (the stairs on the foremost hut are creepily sturdy-looking... ^_^ - good job!), and I think you've sussed the form of the body and the symmetry of the face brilliantly. Well done, and I hope you post more pictures up soon!

I like the background you have at the moment a lot. It does convey the electrical nature of the future that sci-fi peeps always perceive, so I think it does the job well enough. Kinda' looks like stalactites, so it could be natural forms painted in an artificial manner. Clever. Incidentally, how did you create the background? Onto the figure - I see what you mean about the hands. Compared to the head they are really quite small. Try drawing them approximately as long from the base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger as the head is tall, and about as wide as half a face. Approximately, of course. I'd also shorten the neck and thicken it a little, expand outwards around the ribs and shorten the thighs a bit. As regards shading I'd make the dent down through the navel less obvious by going over it with the shaded skin tone you've used (that line isn't really that prominent), add a bit more shading around the nose so that it doesn't just appear to jut out and on the right arm to show the shadow of the chest. Eck, that sounded like a list of criticisms - it wasn't supposed to - they're just a few suggestions. ^^' As for what I really like in the figure, I think you've done a good job on glossing up the hair. I also like her clothes (though I'd draw the left leg of the shorts down a touch so that it appears the same length as the right leg), particularly the waist coat and the movement you've conveyed in it. The shading on those areas is especially successful, I think. Best of all are her eyes - the highlights on them are very good, and she has the nice triangular eyelash croppings that people keep telling me I should have. ^_^ I definitely think that with a teeny bit more work this will look great - hey, I really like it as it is anyway. I wouldn't change the background just yet - I like that a lot.

Hehe, they're pretty cool. I particularly like the second one, actually. It might just be my tacky connection, but I don't think the animation goes too fast. It might look good with the background from the first banner, now that the text will stand out better - I like the contrast between the cartoon figure and the photographic background, actually. It's just that I personally have this inexplicable revulsion when it comes to big white spaces. *squee!* I like Lupes - I actually think the mutants more often than not look far better than the default versions, particularly the mutant Lupe, but meh, that's just my taste.

Thanks for commenting. ^_^ I think a lot of people don't really like my work because it's not really manga - if anything, I'm more into western comic book-style graphics, but manga's pretty too. I just don't try to draw it, that's all... ^^' Yeah, I'm not great with computers. I'll try upping the contrast, but at the same time I still want it to look gloomy and dark. Ah, bingo. The resemblance to Aliens is pretty obvious. It's because I've been looking at a lot of H.R. Giger at the moment and reading the Aliens graphic novels. I really love the look of Giger's designs (however creepy/dodgy they can get). That's probably where I got the elongated head from and those jaws - although I think the head shape was there before I started looking into Aliens. The maximilli (teeth) looked awful before I decided to sharpen them, though, so the influence has done me some good.

Hrm, I haven't posted here for ages, so I guess I'll try again with another thread of much derided artwork (I can't draw manga, okay? Is that really so wrong!?) which I tried my best at making sparkly. My CG skills have advanced slightly, but I only ever use them to add a few slight finishing touches to the pictures I do by hand. Just so you know, I'm not a Photoshop genius ^_^' *wishes she was*. Well, introductory spiel over - my first picture (hopefully not my only one...) is some artwork I did for one of my novels about ... heh, it sounds corny ... giant mosquitoes. I swear it isn't just braindead horror. After several sketchy developments, I got to this look and I think it's the one I'll stick with. The below image was executed in a 6B pencil before being colourised a rather fetching blue and given a few highlights in Paintshop Pro 6. Please comment! I'd be ever so grateful if you did! ^_^