The Sig Critique Topic

[The Kitten Burglar]

First person I showed it to (the first version) thought it was too dark, haha.

'preciate it.

 

[Yink]

First person I showed it to (the first version) thought it was too dark, haha.

'preciate it.

No problem. I don't think so really...the sig is fairly symmetric on the basis of the lighting actually. : )

 

[Doromac]

People can't take negative critique unless you are on a real art site, so lets see...

So Yink; not a lot that I don't like, but there isn't much I care for either. Nice use of contrast with the red and greyscale. Losing the border will help a lot. I like some of the smudging, but feel there is a bit too much on the right. The lighting looks like it is coming from two different sources as well.

Hey Tanner....

 

[Yink]

People can't take negative critique unless you are on a real art site, so lets see...

So Yink; not a lot that I don't like, but there isn't much I care for either. Nice use of contrast with the red and greyscale. Losing the border will help a lot. I like some of the smudging, but feel there is a bit too much on the right. The lighting looks like it is coming from two different sources as well.

Hey Tanner....

Ah um...thank you I wasn't asking for one but it always helps. As for the boarder, I always use this kind, because it implies the image stops there. The light coming out of Ness' hand is more prominent but you're right, I should tone down the left side of the sig a little.

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

Nice! I like the Ness pixel art on the left. The Ness signature is good, but I think the black stretches a little too far up to Ness. That's just me though.

 

[The Kitten Burglar]

Hey Tanner....

Hey dere.

Didn't we have a rule about turning your signatures off?

 

[Doromac]

maybe.....

 

[Fuelbi]

I uh.... made this in another forum (yes pokemon based) and I joined this group, I decided to help out by making a banner. I thought Id bring it here for critique.

Is it nice, bad, ugly? Please be nice about my review, this is my second banner Ive ever made and its a BIIIIG improvement from my first one(its many pages back if you want to check), but I can still see that it still looks amateurish, please tell me where I can improve

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

I like it. I tend to like simple sig banners. However, you spelled Magikarp wrong, and the Comic Sans font might not always be the best one to put on a banner. I really like the simple water texture, though. The Magikarp fits well with it.

Didn't we have a rule about turning your signatures off?

Yes. It's my fault, I apologize. I won't do it again.

 

[Hentekorino]

-Looks good, creeps the shxt out of me. If you added the cracks/thing from the girl's mouth then that's a +. More contrast = sxc BnW tag-
Edit: Fak really good job with making it look creepy, nice manip.

Gogo.

(yes I am Demon Kirby, hi)

Original stock must see.
Edit: JKfnjkasfgbsdgbsdgkjbdsg seeing original scared me.

 

[The Kitten Burglar]

 

[Fuelbi]

I like it. I tend to like simple sig banners. However, you spelled Magikarp wrong, and the Comic Sans font might not always be the best one to put on a banner. I really like the simple water texture, though. The Magikarp fits well with it.



Yes. It's my fault, I apologize. I won't do it again.

Hehe woops. I also mispelled the name of the club wrong as well. Something I overlooked accidentally. Thanks for the positive review

 

[PurDi]

@Roacherman
Now I'm not much of one to judge cause I'm rather new at this, but it just looks decent.
It's great if you're going for simple. But I'd change the font, as said above, comic sans is generally not a very formal font...

There's also a lot of empty space. you could just shrink the entire banner and crop off some of the excess.

Is this good? Really I'm just working on text and flow.

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

Hehe woops. I also mispelled the name of the club wrong as well. Something I overlooked accidentally. Thanks for the positive review

Lol. Mistakes happen. And you're welcome, no problem. ;p

@PurDi- Your signature flow is amazing. I really like how the colors blend into and out from the white background. The text flow is spot on to me, as well. The only thing I noticed is that if you look at the arm and follow it down, it kind of disappears. Is that another crystal in front of it?

 

[PurDi]

hmmm. Didn't notice that. I'll go see if I can fix it. I think its the blur + burn that's making it like that.

EDIT: kinda got it... as much as possible.

btw it's so oddly shaped because its now my phone background.

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

I see the hand now, it's perfect like that. Great job. It looks like a good cell phone background.

 

[Yink]

@PurDi: May I see the original image please?

 

[PurDi]

The render?

it's really big, but here it is:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelvscapcom/images/c/c6/Mvc2-blackheart.jpg

EDIT: I'll just link it instead.

 

[Yink]

The render?

it's really big, but here it is:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelvscapcom/images/c/c6/Mvc2-blackheart.jpg

EDIT: I'll just link it instead.

Thanks much, I just wanted to see what it looked like.

So, from what I see the left is very empty, but negative space can be a good thing so in this case I think that emptiness is effective and works well.

However, you really should darken the lower right corner of the creature because based on the shadows of your C4D render (I think?) the lighting makes no sense in that area. I know that sounds nit-picky but it would make it look more professional.

Lastly, add a couple more subtle effects, like small clipping masks to get a little depth. Overall though I think it looks pretty good. Well done!

 

[Sapphire Dragon]

How is my signature? I did this all by hand on a tablet laptop, so I was aiming for more of a simple one.

Edit: Still won't show, after editing 5 times >< Finally!!!

 

[★Malik★™]

CnC?

 

[PurDi]

@Sapphire Dragon
It's pretty well done for 'hand-drawn' but it could use a little depth. Some shading here and there would make it look much better. Btw what program are you using?

@Malik
It's nice but ryu (right?) is a little too blurred/faded out. And not to make you feel bad or anything, but you may want to at least try some other styles.

I hope that didn't sound like me being a jerk, it just seems like all you do is grunge brushing.

 

[gopobox]

@Sapphire Dragon
That sig is win. I know nothing about using tablets etc etc and im horrible at drawing but that sig is win.

@Malik
That's a lot better than some of the first few sigs i saw. Ryu being the focal, shouldn't be too faded. It should only be faded around possibly the edges so that it can blend in with the background better. Maybe you could add a few stock pictures and some c4ds to make the sigs look cooler. ^^. TBH I can't use c4ds for ****.

I have too much spare time T_T

 

[★Malik★™]

i suck @ C4s, by that, i mean that i don't know how to use them. ._. but i put some light around his head, maybe that's why its blurry. here's a new one.

 

[Yink]

For starters Malik, I love your real ava and sig because I LOVE that artist's work.

Second, your new sig.

I like the effects, but you might want to darken the left side, because the streak of white going from the left edge of the sig up onto the top left corner is very distracting. You want to keep a lot of the focus on Samus herself.

Secondly...that text is bad. I'm sorry I'm not trying to sound mean but text in sigs is usually bad even if pros do it sometimes. I'd remove it or find another way to make it more visable and flow with the sig.

EDIT: About C4Ds, it's actually simple once you get used to it. I'd go to deviantART and search for "C4D render pack". When you find one that looks interesting, click on "download" on the left. Basically, C4Ds are used to create depth and effects. When you open a C4D, if you use Photoshop it should just open like a normal file. You can then DRAG the C4D into your sig/ava/whatever! Resize it and rotate it as you wish.

Did that help?

 

[Fuelbi]

I mades a new banner. Again this is from another forum I mades it for, but I needs someone to critique it for me. Also if any of you can tell me where to get new brushes for GIMP, it would be great because I am running out of brushes to stay original in my banners. Please can someone do that favor for me please.

Also please, again, stay nice in the critiques, because as I said before I am just n00b in this business.

EDIT: Gah, I forgot to put the full image

Here it is:

 

[★Malik★™]

For starters Malik, I love your real ava and sig because I LOVE that artist's work.

Second, your new sig.

I like the effects, but you might want to darken the left side, because the streak of white going from the left edge of the sig up onto the top left corner is very distracting. You want to keep a lot of the focus on Samus herself.

Secondly...that text is bad. I'm sorry I'm not trying to sound mean but text in sigs is usually bad even if pros do it sometimes. I'd remove it or find another way to make it more visable and flow with the sig.

EDIT: About C4Ds, it's actually simple once you get used to it. I'd go to deviantART and search for "C4D render pack". When you find one that looks interesting, click on "download" on the left. Basically, C4Ds are used to create depth and effects. When you open a C4D, if you use Photoshop it should just open like a normal file. You can then DRAG the C4D into your sig/ava/whatever! Resize it and rotate it as you wish.

Did that help?

sorta kinda

 

[PurDi]

Roacherman,

Crop off all of that empty space on the right, it isn't doing anything for ya. Also, you could try moving the text either up or down just a hair. Dead center isn't very eye pleasing. Try to get the center line of the text on the line dividing the top or bottom third.

The red font indicates good places to put text for a simple banner (ONLY A SIMPLE BANNER!!! Anything else it would draw too much attention). The green circles represent the four main focal points you should aim to hit with whatever you're trying to bring attention to.

 

[Inyro Gatling]

Well I suppose nothing to rate?

BattleCry

Blah

Pirate

 

[Neon Ness]

@Inyro: Motion's great in the first one. Incidentally that's something I've been working on recently. I like the camera angle as well, it's really original and even sort of unusual. The colors are nice too, I think it's because most of them fall within the blue/violet/green range, so they're cohesive. It's sort of plain all in all, though. Not much has been done here that hasn't been done before...

2nd one, it looks like a work in progress (I don't mean any offense by that...). I guess I would like to see more contrast, especially after seeing the first example. Not just color contrast, but more aspects that are eye-catching. The terrain (?) on the left doesn't have much variation, but I would like to note that the sort of blur there creates some nice depth.

Third one, the only problem here is that it feels almost like two different works. The brightly lit area on the left and the dark setting on the right aren't connected and the pirate functions as a border where he is, so it's hard for me to believe that the left and right are the same location. You could make a nice angled flow from this though if you really wanted to. The character has great lighting, he just needs a better setting I think.

I also like how you didn't feel the need to force text into any of these.

 

[gopobox]

@Inryo

1st sig is nicely done with the motion blurring i like how you added the light source on the bottom and how you managed to blend in your render with the background.. Teach me how to do that T_T

2nd sig is .... look all the bits you got in there are totally different from each other. You got this strange thing coming out from the bottom right corner and then you got this creepy red thing on the side and then you got these weird triangle things next to it with a random cloud stock popping out of nowhere at the top of the sig and the orange sun on top of the render looks really strange.

3rd sig is alright but like neon ness said. The brightness between the two sides of the pirate are too different. I like that orange streak along the side of the pirate though..

My sig got missed at the top

How did i make something as girly as this?

 

[Inyro Gatling]

Gopo: For the first tag, try not to have a render that's so huge it overpowers the entire canvas. I like what I see in the background, but I want to see more of the background.

For the second tag, the minimalism is nice, and I like the rainbow along the right side - that's something I might try incorporating in a later piece. Just work on the text, try to get it to mesh a little more.


Here are another couple tags:

Both of these are more design-oriented than anything, and yes, there's not a whole world of effects in them, but I was aiming for aesthetic appeal, not OMG-that's-the-most-amazing-thing-I've-ever-seen appeal. ^.^

 

[Neon Ness]

I was aiming for aesthetic appeal, not OMG-that's-the-most-amazing-thing-I've-ever-seen appeal. ^.^

What's the difference...? Both statements reference an appreciation for something beautiful or creative. People normally say OMGthatsamazing at something aesthetically appealing...

But yeah, definitely like these more than the previous group you posted, mainly because they're so different from most pieces presented in this thread. I like how the text becomes a part of the environment in the second one. I think it could be pushed even further, though. If possible, it'd be nice if that brick wall went in front of part of the words, just so they feel even more like a part of the scene -- right now they look a little like they're floating in space; you need to ground them more. Great depth.

 

[Yink]

Gatling: I'm really not a fan of the first sig, and I can't quite put my finger on why, I apologize.

However...

Your second sig is great. The perspective is outstanding. Not to mention the text, my gosh it's so well done. Good use of blur too, makes the image seem more realistic. The second one has almost a dreamy feel to it.

Well done.

 

[Inyro Gatling]

So here's a few using IWarp (Liquify, for you PS users) as my main effect.

 

[Hentekorino]

My god i'm really loving this one, good job. :D
2nd one's a bit too messy.
3rd's alright, dunno what to say about it though. ;_;

 

[★Malik★™]

may i have some Cnc for these?

and

 

[Neon Ness]

Uh... you should probably try critiquing others' pieces before asking for any advice. Especially when posting like 5 at once...

The 2nd and 3rd are decent starts, but the clipping masks of ZSS and Pit on the right sides don't really function well. They're just sort of there, they don't look like they're a part of the sig.

Another thing, and this goes for all of those actually, try to get some more variation going. What I mean is, there's almost no change or anything eyecatching about the effects. It looks like you used the same C4D for all of them. There's no color variation either except for the last one. Basically you just need to find that one thing that will make your sigs interesting and stand apart from others, and that will be a pretty big step. It's normally not enough to just have one color and one type of effect, or else it will end up looking plain.

 

[Fuelbi]

I made this banner for I club Im holding at this pokemon forum and I want someone to critique it.

I say its a great improvement from my previous banner as I now know how to get brushes thanks to Malik

Please again constructive criticism as I still see myself as a n00b because I know this can do some improvement

Again thanks to Malik I made a few improvements upon the last sig (actually a complete overhaul) so here it is:

 

[Inyro Gatling]

Roacher: You're definitely improving. One of the big things you want to work on now is picking a good canvas size for your render, and vice versa. You have such a tiny render on such a big canvas, that the render gets lost in it. Try to keep your render about 20-30% the size of the canvas.


Okay, couple new ones: