I was in bed for the past three days so I gotta catch up with the challenges! *goes to photoshop*

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@Tur: He's Jamie Muscato, who played Joly in the Les Mis 25th Anniversary Concert. I don't know much more about him, but he's my preferred choice for Marius. And thank you!

Sorry about not getting a challenge up, I try and get it (and comments) up tomorrow when my brain is working.

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going on a journey through my old claims

Beautiful last challemge entries all, especially Tur!

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I hope the day six challenge poster I made is ok, I tried to make as much negative space as possible and I used the texture from other challenge if is not ok, let me know

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^It's lovely!

Smaug: Legend of the Seeker! But ugh, that kid was so irritating. I couldn't stand him.

Oooooh, Skitty, I love the Frodo banner. It's spiffy.

Harthad: Nice challenge banner!

Lembas, love your new stuff! And the horse blend.

TUR, YOU HAFF MEEERLIN! *huggles* D'awww, I love Colin. And Bradley.

ManEru, love your Hobbit icons! They're great!

Caunion: Your challenge banner is brilliant! I love the way you did it!

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going on a journey through my old claims

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Even In Darkness [Updating]

Ennostiel, I just LOVE your Phantom avatars. Mind if I put them in the fan section of my site? And your 11 blend. . .

Can you make that one into a wallpaper for me?

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AKA Crutchie


Click here to visit my site!

*whew* Well that's me. Can't wait to see the finale!

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I was cured all right.

Enno, beautiful icons! And I love your last challenge entry, Shadow

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Whee what a good cook off, disappointed I didn't make more, but I think I'm happy with all my creations

Fab Job everyone!!!

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That cook made me make more graphics that was possible I feel like I made huge work and I didn't even got paid!

Awesome work, everybody, its pleasure to watch your art and be in awe ^^

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Well, now that I've got my cup of espresso, it is time for me to comment and critique the graphics. Please forgive me if they end up being too harsh. I am giving my honest opinion.

@Smaug: Well, I believe you have only recently began mahttp://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/p ... =21623king graphics and while there is still a large distance to go, you've made admirable progress. You have image positioning done well and you definitely have a central consistent style to them. My suggestion is to continue experimentation as the graphics, the LOTR avatars especially, do look like carbon copies in terms of the textures and blending changes. Also try saving them as either jpeg or png as gif lowers the quality of the image. My favourite from yours has to be this one.

@Enno: Ohh I love the ballet shoes avatars! I do think they could have been a little brighter (add a little more screen) but yay ballet! In your Doctor banners, I really like the blending you have done there. I know I've said your ballet avatars needed to be brighter but some of the other graphics, I feel, are rather too bright. For example, this one is far far far too bright and I feel the need to put on sunglasses. Like I've said, it is just a few and for the most part, you have the brightness at appropriate marks. Another area that does need some sort of work is the textures. They end up obstructing or slightly distorting the graphics like here or here and it becomes very distracting. Otherwise I did enjoy your work and my favourite that hasn't already been mentioned is this one.

@Shadowcat: The blending is great, the texture use is great bar a few. The only thing I might have to say is try considering using colouring changes in the future. Favourite. Or this one.

@Harthad: Firstly, no, that isn't Tom Welling. It's Cillian Murphy. Anyway, you are starting out so I'll try to be a little nicer. Basically, yeah, you have a lot of work to do. It's a good start, don't get me wrong, but here are some areas that need some work. Blending has a decent foundation but I suggest you try cleaning the different layers with blending. Try different states of brightness and colouring to add a little variety in the graphics as I've noticed they are very monotonous. Also you do know that you've posted the same graphic twice, right? This one hereis my favourite as it is a step in a different direction from the earlier entries and I approve.

@Lembas: I rather like the bold quality in some of these graphics like this one and this one. Also the texture use in thesetwoare remarkably appealing but you do know, you spelled "pieces" wrong, right? The texturehereis done remarkably well and that has to be my favourite. One thing I have noticed is that only a few of your graphics use blending, which is a shame because you seem to have really good blending and I would like to see more like it.

@Nurr: These are rather nice. The texture use is rather well-done as well as the brightness levels and the blending. I know said your brightness levels are good and it is true for the majority of the graphics but some like this one came off a little too bright. But that's just a minor compliant. Favourite.

@Tur: For the most part, these are good graphics. There is heavy influences of dark gritty textures and dark blending and while they do work in some cases like these: onetwo but in cases like these: onetwothree, they don't quite work. It's difficult to see the subject as well as rather distracting. I think a little less "soft light" and "hard light" would go a long way in making them more visible. I have to say this oneis my favourite, mostly because the dark blending states and desaturation really works here.

@Maneth: You have rally good blending, probably better than mine I think. Especially in herewhere you seamlessly fit Bilbo and Gandalf in the lineup. However at times, the graphics get a little too bright like in here: one two. A lot of the brightness does depend on the subject and placement. [url]Here[/url], my favourite among your batch, it works.


Like I said, a lot of this is my opinion and some are what I consider as helpful hints. I really did enjoy this Cookoff.

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I was cured all right.

^ thanks for the comments I've noticed a couple of mistakes in several of my works and yes I saw 'pieces' but after the deadline had closed and I felt it would be unjust to change that and the other mistakes xD

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I will only say which ones I like most, I am not best at criticising...

Enno: this and whole series.


Shadow: I adore this and this

Har: I LOVE this!

Lembas: you are my personal hero ^^ this!


Nur: Absolutely this.

Tur: I love these two: this and this ^^

Maneth: your whole series of icons blows me away ^^

Caunion: this is beyond words ^^

Thank you all who did comment me so far. I will be improving (I hope ^^).

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the Bilbo and Gandalf fitting wasn't made by me, someone else did it, I found it and made a wall out of it I get what u mean about brightness, I like it that way even if it might seem TOO bright to use (like the All Shall Fade wall) but it seemed to fit the mood I can't see the last link haha
thanks for your comments

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I didn't make quite as much as I was hoping to this Cookoff, but that said, I'm extremely proud of the work I did. I've experimented with different kinds of blending and textures, and I must say that I've learned a lot in these two weeks. Not too happy with the coloring, though; I get stuck on that brown/pink color that I like so much and I wish I could move beyond it more. But towards the end I think I got better. /self reflection

Nurr, the challenges this year were amazing too. I loved that each one focused on a different aspect of graphic-making, and that it was obvious for each challenge what its purpose was. Very helpful, I thought.

Now for some comments. I hope these help; everyone did a wonderful job, and they should be proud. There's always room for improvement, though, right?

Smaug: Like Caunion said, you've come such a long way in a short time, and I think it even shows between the first graphics you posted and the last! You have a unique style, too, which I think is brilliant. One thing that I think might help is trying to choose pictures that are either from the same scene, or ones with similar lighting. It makes the blending look more natural and less like a bunch of pictures forced together. That said, it's remarkable how you can make pictures with wildly different lighting blend as well as you do!
Favorite: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/69/ringsk.jpg/

Ennostiel: Lovely blending going on there. The coloring looks wonderful as well. I agree, though, that the textures can be overwhelming. What I would do is try erasing the texture where it overlaps the subject's face, or painting over the texture layer with a solid color in that area. That will keep the effect of the texture, but in a way that doesn't look unnatural.
Favorite: http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i44 ... ers/10.jpg (The matching 11 and 9 ones were close seconds though! )

Harthad: Great start here, you've got a good eye for picture placement/cropping. That's half the battle right there. You're also very good at using text, which I find incredibly difficult to do well. A bit more in the way of coloring and textures would be nice; most of the images look pretty close to their original state, which is fine, but playing with colors and textures really adds a personal touch to them, as well as adding a mood to each piece.
Favorite: http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff4 ... atar17.jpg

Lembas: Well, it's waaaay too difficult to come up with criticism for you. Does "You didn't make enough" count? No? Okay. Well. More blending would definitely be great. Simplicity is wonderful, but when you're capable of making uber complex and fabulous pieces -- which you are -- why settle for simple? Excellent job though. Coloring looks great, text looks great. Keep it up.
Favorite: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a148/ ... aruman.png (Other contendors were every single piece you posted.... )

Nurrantiel: It might just be my computer, but a lot of pieces look a little too bright and saturated. I'd love to see what they look like on your screen, or on someone else's, because I can't imagine you'd purposely make them that way. Aside from that though, they look great. The cropping is wonderful and you always find unique and interesting pictures to use. Fitting text on icons and having it look good is next to impossible, but you always manage to make it look good.
Favorite: http://s954.photobucket.com/albums/ae23 ... nt=ten.jpg or http://s954.photobucket.com/albums/ae23 ... t=eric.jpg (Love that Lighten blending style )

Turwaithiel: Definitely a good basis here. The images you choose go well together in your banners, and therefore the blending looks very natural. However, I think you could work on cropping a bit more. Sometimes it's very good and captures the subject's face clearly, but sometimes they're missing part of their chin or head and a bit of cropping or re-sizing might be beneficial. It's tricky to figure this out, but keep practicing and I'm sure you'll get it eventually. Keep trying different ways of positioning images on your banners -- experiment. I'd love to see what you come up with.
Favorite: http://s267.photobucket.com/albums/ii30 ... enstar.jpg

Maneth: The bright colors really make your graphics pop, which I like; they're very unique. This can get a bit tricky with skin, though, since higher saturation can make skin look too red or too yellow. What I'd recommend, if your program allows it, is going to the Saturation menu and lowering the saturation of the reds only. This will keep the blues, greens, purples, etc. bright and noticeable, but the skin looking natural and healthy. If you want me to explain this in more detail, drop me a PM and I can give you a screencap of my program and show you what I mean, or maybe I could write up a guide to using the Saturation tool. The text looks pretty good placement-wise, but maybe go easy on the Overlay setting -- it's a bit too bright in cases. I recommend Normal set to a lower opacity, and sometimes Difference set to a very low opacity can have an interesting effect.
Favorite: http://s1020.photobucket.com/albums/af3 ... t=mtgb.png

Caunion: Everything you make has this wonderful glowy effect, which I really like; your work is clean, well-blended, the images are placed very well, and the coloring always suits the images very nicely. What I'd like to see, though -- take this as you will -- is something completely different, just for fun. All your work follows the same style; it's a great style, and I like it very much, but I'd be curious to see what would happen if you threw in a crazy texture, or tried a new style of blending, or something along those lines, just for the purpose of mixing things up. Sometimes it's fun to do that, even if the results are hideous (because 1% of the time, they actually turn out amazing).
Favorite: http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/ ... illian.png (I love the placement of the three pictures, it's quite effective)

Well done everyone. I can't wait to see what everyone does in the coming weeks, after all this practice!

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- married fingon fingolfinion 6/4/13 -
~art credit~