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The Sig Critique Topic

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Neon Ness

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Doromac, yours has great use of negative space. There are a few highlights on the left that balance the dark heavy areas. So I'd say leave the right side as it is in that sense. I like the reflection thing you have going, but what if you went a little further and made it as if he was looking into an actual window, mirror, etc. instead of his reflection just floating there?

I think you should try some text out just to see how it'd look, but overall this one's looking really good. I'd say working on creating a gradual change of depth on the right side would be a good idea.
 

HentaiKing4Everr

Smash Cadet
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lulz I already talked to Player4 about his Ibuki siggy.
@Doro.........Wtf happened?
Flow []
Lighting []
Depth []
Comp []

Wtf happened?
 

satowolf

Oppa Gundam Style
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I like the one on the bottom.
Nice choice of text. It fills up the empty space.
 

A_man13

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Pretty good, player. If I had to give some advice:

-The colors need to be worked out. The C4D is bright, yet besides the text everything else is black and white. Try recoloring the C4D or the rest of the sig and the colors would flow a bit better.
-There really isn't a focal point per say. I can hardly tell where to look at on the render itself. It may help if you add something to make the signature look more focused.

Keep up the good work!

EDIT: Now that I look at it, with how that arm is moving the flow is a bit awkward. The C4D makes me think up and left, but the arm is going down and left.
 

Neon Ness

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Is there any way to sharpen/blur certain parts of Optimus Prime? Or at least raise his contrast. I can't tell his head from his elbow, he sorta looks like a mess of mechanical parts to me right now. That's my only real problem. The grayscale tones look really cool here, and that cloud form on the far left is just awesome.

I think the transition from the colored shapes to the grayscale could be a little smoother. It's kind of abrupt. I think O. Prime should be in color. But yeah, definitely an overall improvement from the first 2 versions.
 

A_man13

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I agree with Neon Ness. All you really did was dull the C4D a bit and removed some of the white space. Since I believe you want it to be black and white, then just add the gradient over it. You could also go from there and add another gradient to give everything a consistant color scheme if that is the way you wish to go. Once you are done, also make sure you sharpen Optomis prime's head and blur the rest and lower the visability of the layer to taste. Therefore it will have a good focal and consistant color scheme.
 

A_man13

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@Doromac: The sig doesn't really have a strong sense of flow going for it. I can see a couple C4Ds going in the right direction, but I still feel like the signature is going in twenty diferent directions. Make sure everything you put in the sig is going in the same direction. Besides that, pretty good. You've gotten a pretty good focal, but I'd recomend trying to fix the distortion of the arms (where it is most noticable). You shouldn't distort your render much more than you have to to get it to fit, so don't smudge or distort anything if it isn't necesary as the sprite is where the viewer looks and the flaws will be noticed pretty well. There are plenty of ways to fix it, but personally I just recopy the sprite, bring it to the top, and play with the opalcity and blending mode till everything looks good while still retaining the effects. If anything else I would change, try filling that white space to the right a bit. Text is rarely a strong excuse to full what would otherwise be blank, so if you can find something, good for you. If not, no worries. I know this is long, but I hope it helps.

I recently made a sig for the first time in ages, but unless people really want to see it I don't think it is good enough for CnC...
 

Black Waltz

Smash Champion
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Any better?
Much improved from the previous versions. Optimus seems just a little too grayscale. Needs a smidge more color. Maybe a photofilter or gradient map on very low opacity.

And also, I noticed that you saved your file as a .jpg. Don't use .jpg. Use .png.

Not feeling this one. Too empty and boring. Text is pixely, try a bolder font to match your hard contrast.
 

Player-4

See you in 25 years
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Much improved from the previous versions. Optimus seems just a little too grayscale. Needs a smidge more color. Maybe a photofilter or gradient map on very low opacity.

And also, I noticed that you saved your file as a .jpg. Don't use .jpg. Use .png.
Lol I'm surprised you noticed. I ALWAYS save my stuff in .png but for some reason my Photoshop decided it wanted to be an *** hole and not save in .png so I just saved it in .jpg this one time.:ohwell:

edit:

OK I took what you guys told me to do and tried to apply it. My final 2:



 

A_man13

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It's still very greyscale. Just adding the blue color in places does not fix the qualaty of the signature; just makes me want to see either more or less color. Either go completly greyscale or get everything to a consistant color scheme.
 

Yoon

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Doro we should talk on AIM and talk more about our GFX :)

(Edit)



My final version
Random brush spam, no real thought to the overall composition of the artwork.

Chiisu, I like the compo. Nice colors bro, but I feel as in v1 there is something missing, and the text is too much, and on v2, there is too much going on for me.

I'm doing terribly with making tags lately. I might go back to this one.

Text needs A LOT of work. Great art has great typography, great typography has great artwork. Remember that. Also, randomly placing C4D's doesn't really cut it these days. Also, don't oversharpen your C4D's.

@Doro: wtf is going on? o.o I really don't know what to look for =\



CnC
Im sure theres a things i need to work on still T_T

E1: Just noticed..depth needs work
~Diddyknight~
Text is pretty cool, flow is great. C4D placement is alright. Probably one of the better tags I've seen on SWF. The only thing I'd have to say is work on better font usage.

I don't think anything really special about yours, hentai. The text could be improved a bit. Decent compo, and simple bg. Nothin much I care about, it's something I don't mind looking at though (not in that way).

Left and right people are SOOOOOOO low quality. Too basic, work on effects. Boxes are kinda random imo.

Hmm I guess I'm doing Doromac's huh?

Well I like it, the skulls seems a little out of place to me though, like it's not blended in well. I can see the outlines of where they are cut off. Though that isn't the focus it would be nice since it's like you bothered to put them in there so people will see it, make it nicer. I've never been able to pull off any of those squares and shapes put in places, seems to work there to me but I can't say anything about them if they can be improved.

Ok I haven't been here in a long time and I haven't photoshopped anything in a long time as well. Starting to go on forums again so I thought I'd try again.

Random smudging is bad, border doesn't work. Random brush lines don't work, use a better choice of fonts. Too basic, work on effects.

Player - I think you need to work more on giving the tag a foreground, and then maybe give more vectors or c4ds in the background instead of the white.

New tag:



And for those who want to say "You didn't do anything to the original stock", here you go:
First one would've been cool if you didn't leave the two guards in the background in focus, messes up the atmosphere.

Second one looks like random colorful fractal spam, the color scheme is cool, but it still leaves more to be desired. Basically it looks unfinished. You have the overall concept there, just work on your execution.


Cornered text is ew. Render/Stock doesn't match the whole overall theme you're going for here. Textless is better. I'd say try to expand your canvas size (width) to make it a bit more appealing.

Random smudging is bad. Too monochromatic, too much random stuff going on, not real thought. Text is random as hell and I don't know why you added that line since it really doesn't do much except distract.



this isn't allowed on this site I bet...

...critique away for me anyway

Right side is a bit LQ. I think you should've been a bit more creative in your font choices for "f*ck." The MLG is fine, although the kerning on it should be decreased. The controller white space is pretty creative imo.
 

Player-4

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Cornered text is ew. Render/Stock doesn't match the whole overall theme you're going for here. Textless is better. I'd say try to expand your canvas size (width) to make it a bit more appealing.
Why did you CnC my old versions? Waste of time.
 

Player-4

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Which is your new? It says "this is my final version."
Read again, the one you quoted said "help :3"

This one says "final version" VVV

Lol I'm surprised you noticed. I ALWAYS save my stuff in .png but for some reason my Photoshop decided it wanted to be an *** hole and not save in .png so I just saved it in .jpg this one time.:ohwell:

edit:

OK I took what you guys told me to do and tried to apply it. My final 2:



 

Neon Ness

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Here are two pieces. They look the exact same but have different text. It's kind of a mess but I haven't been active a while and I'm looking to get back into graphics. Be Nice :)

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/178/soldiersig.jpg

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4235/soldiersig.png
Supposed to CnC someone else first... :l

The transparent flag looks good actually, but the marks everywhere I don't like. Mainly because they look like sprinkles, and I sort of see it as a serious piece. I think this would look good as a vector, with the marks being a darker color and having a limited scheme of 2-3 colors.

First A_man and Yoon, and now cmpr... all of the old regulars are returning for some reason. :laugh:
 

cmpr94x

Smash Lord
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Player-4, I definitely like this one better. http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b373/lostonthehighway/Prime-12.png

But the text is really distract and the whole effect is just strange. There is some random grass over yonder and the text is out of place.


Supposed to CnC someone else first... :l

The transparent flag looks good actually, but the marks everywhere I don't like. Mainly because they look like sprinkles, and I sort of see it as a serious piece. I think this would look good as a vector, with the marks being a darker color and having a limited scheme of 2-3 colors.

First A_man and Yoon, and now cmpr... all of the old regulars are returning for some reason. :laugh:
The "sprinkles" are supposed to be blood and dirt flying everywhere but I see where you are coming from. Also, could you further explain this vectoring idea?
 

Wuss

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cmpr94x: the biggest problem with those sigs, is that you lack a clearly defined focal. try to bring out something special in your render or stock with your effects, not cover it up. the text is also too hard to read.

I too have been out of the gfx loop for a long time, but recently made this out of boredom, what do you think?
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w248/frijidair/toddtoalice-1.png?t=1268256050

random idea I had.
 

cmpr94x

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@ Char, You definitely need to learn about some flow, focus, all that nonsense. Do you use GIMP or Photoshop or something else? If you're using paint I suggest an upgrade. Go to guildinn.com or gimptalk.com and look at some tutorials.

Here is a new graphic. I wanted to put text in it but I didn't know what to do. I wanted it to be focusing in on the light but I didn't really know what to do, suggestions/critique?
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/4439/bourbonstreetsig.jpg
 

cmpr94x

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I got skipped ^^^^^

Yoon, I like the colors but I think its kind of chaotic. There is flow to what I think is the render but there is also flow away from it. There are some hard edges that I think you should take care of and I don't really see a definitive light source.
 

Yoon

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I got skipped ^^^^^



Yoon, I like the colors but I think its kind of chaotic. There is flow to what I think is the render but there is also flow away from it. There are some hard edges that I think you should take care of and I don't really see a definitive light source.
Flow =/= Linear Direction. And yeah, I agree with the lightsources.
 

PurDi

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I don't really know anymore...
@cmpr
First off, it's really nice. I like how it flows and the monochrome is interesting. There's a couple spots here and there that could be touched up though. On the bottom left there's just two weird blobs... They aren't that noticeable but they kinda bother me. Also, the glare effect on the lamp post looks kinda out of place. All of the other lighting is different so it looks out of place.

@yoon
There's a LOT going on here. I like where it's going but I just can't seems to follow it. The super bright thing on the right throws me off... Is it behind the person or in front? If it's in front the lighting needed to be changed on your render. If it's behind, there needs to be a definite way to tell.

Also, the really sharp lines are A little disorienting. maybe soften some of them, right now it looks like the entire sig is in the foreground...




How's this?
I wanted to throw in some text but I just couldn't find a way to...
 

cmpr94x

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Flow =/= Linear Direction. And yeah, I agree with the lightsources.
My eyes are not being drawn very well to what I assume is the focal. That's all I'm saying.

@cmpr
First off, it's really nice. I like how it flows and the monochrome is interesting. There's a couple spots here and there that could be touched up though. On the bottom left there's just two weird blobs... They aren't that noticeable but they kinda bother me. Also, the glare effect on the lamp post looks kinda out of place. All of the other lighting is different so it looks out of place.


Also, the really sharp lines are A little disorienting. maybe soften some of them, right now it looks like the entire sig is in the foreground...

Thanks a lot, the lighting effect on the light you're talking about was from the original stock actually.



How's this?
I wanted to throw in some text but I just couldn't find a way to...
The composition could be a bit better. The splatters look interesting and for text, I'd suggest using a Japanese character or something that replaces on of the thick black lines maybe? idk text can ruin sigs beware. The bottom right has some weird lines those need to go IMO.
 

Yoon

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@cmpr
First off, it's really nice. I like how it flows and the monochrome is interesting. There's a couple spots here and there that could be touched up though. On the bottom left there's just two weird blobs... They aren't that noticeable but they kinda bother me. Also, the glare effect on the lamp post looks kinda out of place. All of the other lighting is different so it looks out of place.

@yoon
There's a LOT going on here. I like where it's going but I just can't seems to follow it. The super bright thing on the right throws me off... Is it behind the person or in front? If it's in front the lighting needed to be changed on your render. If it's behind, there needs to be a definite way to tell.

Also, the really sharp lines are A little disorienting. maybe soften some of them, right now it looks like the entire sig is in the foreground...




How's this?
I wanted to throw in some text but I just couldn't find a way to...
Looks too basic for me `-`

My eyes are not being drawn very well to what I assume is the focal. That's all I'm saying.
Yeah, that's called visual hierarchy, not flow. Just sayin' ;p
 

MojoMan

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PurDi, that sig is really conufsing. The depth and lighting are totally out of wack, and I'm just confsued at what I'm supposed to be looking at. Sorry, but i would scrap it.


relatively simple sig, just a warm up.



this is a photomanip (cracks and stuff weren't on her face already).
 

PurDi

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I don't really know anymore...
Wait, how are the depth and lighting off? The source is on the bottom right background and the shadows are all on the opposite side. As for the depth, have you ever played okami?

The only thing I see that 'could' be changed on your first one is the floating head problem. Though it kinda works here...

The second one I just don't know how to critique. It looks really nice though and kind of disturbing.
 
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