Ovan Vs Bob

[Blueire]

http://i50.tinypic.com/255um8j.jpg
Ovantwilight

Vs.

http://i49.tinypic.com/67pcb7.jpg
Bawb

http://i48.tinypic.com/2a0nhi1.jpg


This is strictly for votes only.
any discussion should be discussed here:
http://www.rfpoa.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=58935



percentage for voting
Judges Vote: 70%
Public Vote: 30%



only the judges are allowed to post here. so keep this clean and vote for your favorite sigmaker ^^

[[GM]MetalFetus]

When did this take place?

[Blueire]

MetalFetus;813520']When did this take place?

last week i believe XD the one u changed to mario stock rofl u prolly forgot cuz u changed the original stock in that thread

[Vandread]

Before I even start, I'd just want to say that there was some confusion on my part. Blueire managed to clear that up, so I guess I can start now. Sorry for the delay, next ratings should be up quicker, like the first one.



Just as a note. I'll be approaching this from the 'good' end, instead of trying to break it apart. If I'd be serious about this I probably wouldn't really stop breaking the things apart. This is kinda a massive pain in the ass to rate for me, to be honest.



http://i50.tinypic.com/255um8j.jpg



Ovantwilight

Recreation
Well. The stock itself hasn't really gotten altered, so not much to say there. However you've gone as far as to smooth out the lighting on the stock quite a bit to produce something that's more soothing to the eye. More on this later. The stock was decently lifted from the render given though.

Blending
Right. Uhm. You've added quite the effect on the visible sword. Almost so much that you can't see it's a sword still. I'm not too sure you actually wanted to do that, since now you end up confusing the viewer on what he's actually holding.

Now to get back to the lighting I mentioned in the Recreation section - you've gone so far as to eliminate any sharpness from the image. It looks really bland, because everything's smoothed out to create this 'smoothly lightened' image. In essence, there's a big lack of depth on the image, whereas the stock has certain parts so well defined, veins on the arms and head, scratches on the metal, etc.

More or less linked to the aforementioned - you've destroyed the image to the point of it having two focals. It worked in Whulf's case, in the previous line-up, because they were rather close to one another, almost as if they formed a bridge between the two. In your case, it doesn't work since they're over half the image-width apart (face and the sword). I think this is due to how the stock is normally perceived; the regular stock's focal is more on the face of the Orc, whereas your modified version (for lack of better wording) has its focal shifted to the sword due to the energy-swirls around/over it.

Next, what's up with the left border being fully white and the right one being black? *scratch* Doesn't make any sense, it's as if you've misaligned something there. And needless to say that, the top and bottom border is of a different style altogether. Pick something and don't pick two different things - you'll just see clashes happening.

This might be me also, but I can't feel any connection between the stock-image and the background. I can't even figure out what the background is supposed to be. Looks like some kind of street-side, maybe?


Typography
Typography wise, there's some stuff to say. Starting with the text near the chains. I asked some people to take a look at it, to ensure I got this right at first. At first sight, it says OFC. It actually is ORC, but the R's right side is so faded it's just way too hard to make out (possibly even just gone).

You should've made your name curve along the shoulder-plate, it messes with the 'lines' in the flow of the artwork like this. The bottommost quote is okayish. The font though, ... I'm not sure, it's gonna be a tough one to pick a suitable font for this, so staying neutral is probably the safe way out.

Extra notes
Just a short paragraph - In general, being daring is okay, it's always nice to see a totally unexpected approach being taken to an image. It takes a fair bit of daring to modify an image and take it far, however you shouldn't go beyond what the image itself can support. The energy-swirls around the sword in this case really is too much.






Rating


6/10


http://i49.tinypic.com/67pcb7.jpg


Bob

Recreation
Looks like you hit sharpen once and used a Color Burn layer to distort the color some and bring out the darks. Gotta say - the original stock-image wasn't that awesome, and in doing so you brought out the full weakness of the image with jagged edges all over. On top of that, you showed lack of attention in lifting the stock out of the render.

Blending
Depth is present (mostly because of the background being blurred just enough), but lighting not so much in my opinion. Could've done with a bit more on the stock.

Well, there is a connection between the background and the stock, at least somewhat. But due to your laziness in lifting it from the render, it's destroyed at the same time again. Mostly around the right arm (or well, topleft part of the image), you can clearly make out the jagged edges and the lack of attention being spent to it.

Typography
Agreeing with the quote. Yes, you are lazy. That's all I'll say about the text because it's just outright boring.

Extra notes
Did you enter the competition or did Saboteur invite you and you accept? Either way, you're the one that 'actively' agreed to entering. Yet, I can't say this is up to par with what we've seen from you. It's just like you really didn't want to. You saying "Cbaworkingoniti'dratherplayagame" in the other thread... I guess you could say I had a same attitude towards it whilst trying to rate it. The lack of effort shows. You can do better and I don't think you should be satisfied with this result produced.

Rating


5/10


Conclusion
Simply because I can't resist this. In my honest opinion, both of these aren't good. Both of these have their big flaws, and that's just saying it nicely. That's the main reason why rating these has been a pain for me, and ultimately - I just kept one thing in mind, which I used to offset the ratings. Who seemed to have spent more time on this, more effort, wanted to really make something out of it?

Now, as I said both pieces aren't good - but I can't resist to try to salvage something out of it. If you merge the good parts of the two together, you should get something quite nice. You re-sharpen the stock in the first and dim the lighting down some, transplant the 2nds background over to the first, dump the borders in favor for something alike the second (or cinematic-style ones only - either way works) and patch up the texts - you'd probably be left with a signature that looks okay.

[[GM]MetalFetus]

I'm abstaining from judging for this round due to the amount of midterm studying I still need to do.

[Blueire]

ohai, sorry for the delay. just got out from teh hospital lol. but anyways i think its time for judging.
sidenote: van always posts wall of text even if it is summarized lol.

okay lets start wif ovan


http://i50.tinypic.com/255um8j.jpg
Ovantwilight

Recreation
i placed the recreation mechanics to show how much you have altered your stock. in here theres not much new or anything altered ish.

Blending
Booyah!. perfect use of lighting. it made an impression that it came from the sword which you did that swirly beam ish thing. kinda like its gonna use a skill to an opponent which is the "observer" or anyone who's looking at the sig. only one thing that ruins the whole image is your background. dunno if its too blurred or is it just too big. you couldve scaled it smaller so that we could see whats in there and semi blur it since we want to show it's depth.

atm it just seems out of place dont you think? they dont blend to each other well. some tip might be. you couldve burned the final layer so that it brings out the depth more to the focus and not to the background. BG's doesnt have to attract more than your focus therefore it shouldve been darkened(burned).

and the solution to vans' post about how bad the lighting turned out is just to sharpen it and wallah. +1 satisfied judge

Typo
you had me at zug zug* rofl. nice blending method. clipped masked? i guess. but the "ORC" reads like OFC in first view though and the only text that was out of placed in there.

.: you are indeed improving. try to cope up moar styles and blend them together. you had a good start already and i can say you did a pretty job in this sig.

7/10




http://i49.tinypic.com/67pcb7.jpg
BAWB

Recreation

Blending

Typo

no recreation, no lighting, slight depth, over sharpened colors esp the RED crispy parts. hurting to teh eyes >.<. typo choice = not very good. made it black seems too difficult to read. ¬_¬ i can even make similar sig using the ACTION button like

http://i46.tinypic.com/r0o3gl.jpg

its just too basic

.: half assed sig, only if you just gave it time.


4/10

[Blueire]

since metal withdrawn the judging we will proceed

http://i48.tinypic.com/2a0nhi1.jpg

grats to ovan for entering the second round

contoinue discussion here:
http://www.rfpoa.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=58935