GW Round 1 - DigitalGeneration vs. BLT

[Dave]

Graphics Wingman - Round One

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Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen. Graphics Wingman is upon us and in one of our first round matches, we have the different words colliding as DigitalGeneration takes on BLT in a battle for graphics supremacy.

Introducing first, a team that believes it to be THEIR time... DIGITAL GENERATION!

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And their opponents, a team that always comes with a side of awesome...BLT!

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The selected category for this match-up was Icons (General). Teams have until the 12th post graphics in this thread. On the 12th of July, two graphics, one from each member must be put forward to the public vote and a winner will be decided.

Please remember that this forum is non-spam, so if you want to discuss any graphic that is posted, please ensure that you follow the spam guidelines and rules for this forum. Alternatively, post your thoughts in the Graphics Wingman Discussion Thread in the Requests sub-forum.

So, with that said, let's get it on!​

 

[DigitalNight]

ICON

Started with a black background and layered 12 separate geo-grunge themed brushes on top of one another in white. Repeated the process in black.

Next I placed in the two characters (Danica Patrick & Michael Jordan) onto the graphic and placed them as I wanted them. I duplicated the character layers, added a 10 pixel HIGH PASS filter to the top layer & blended in Overlay to give the characters more depth and detail.

Tertiary , I recolored the background to their 'most famous colors'. Green for Danica's "Go-Daddy" theme, and Michael Jordan's red Chicago Bulls color. I set the center mass between them a neutral gray color, all colors in which simply edited the color, adding nothing else to the background.

Following that process, I found a font I liked, mirror refection with a black/white gradient added an inner glow, outer glow and a tiny 1px bevel.

Finally I added a black-gray-black border around 1pixel each color.

 

[Theo Mays]

Ladies and Gents, I introduce to you the greatest WR to ever strap a chinstrap and lace up a pair of cleats in NFL history. He is Jerry Rice! Rice is widely known as the greatest WR in the history of professional football. Rice blew people away with amazing catches and playmaking ability that is rare to find in WR. From a small college in Mississippi, Rice proved doubters wrong and showed the world just truly how great he was.

I will do my best to remember how I made the sig. The font used is a simple font, Seattle Sans and the opacity is set at 30 with an outer glow. I copied the main image and put a linear light style (set at 82 opacity) to it. On the bottom image layer (set at normal) I applied some simple bush strokes, consisting mostly of blacks and reds. The rest of the image consisted of different layered backgrounds (4 in total). The bottom most image was mostly a red coat with a few black spots thrown in. Layer 2 was blacks, whites, and grays with a inner glow set. The third layer was set at exclusion and consisted of reds, golds, and blacks. The top layer is set at color dodge and was mostly red to give the right side its color. I did some smudging to the background to give that waterpaint style in the background. The brushes were mainly cloud type brushes with a few solid line brushes thrown into it. Of course to finish off the sig I placed a 1px centered border with black as the color.

 

[TLC]

My sig went to one of my favourite bands and whom I feel are big music icon's.

I'll try and remember I did but I can't promise to include everything. I first made a black background, I then pasted in my render of Kiss and resized it. I copied my original layers a few times and hid them alle except one. I then smudged all the copies except one and set it do different levels like Colour dodge, Overlay etc. I then copied my unsmudged layer and desaturated the top layer and set it to soft light. I then brushed using a white colour over the top of everything and erased from the render on a 61% opacity eraser to blend it in a tad. I then made a new layer and filled it with a dark blue colour and set it to Overlay, once again I erased from my render, I also lowered the opacity of it so not to bright and so that it wouldn't take away from render. I created a new layer once again and filled with black. I then brushed using a soft rounded brush in a white colour around my render to make it lighter and give my background more shadows. I set it to overlay and lowered opacity. I then blurred everything and erased over render. I then sharpened it and erased background. I then added my text and added a 1 px stroke to each word. The Kiss text had a Bevel and Emboss effect added. To finish off I used a 3 px black border.

 

[GenMe]

The Icon Sting.

We will start of with the size of the signature, the size of the signature is 400x200. I started of with a solid black background, than I added the Sting render and duplicated the render three time. Two of the three renders were smudge, one render was smudge in normal mode and the second render was smudge in Dodge mode. Dodge mode makes the render a lot brighter and it makes the smudged render stand out. Next I added some fractal renders to the background a swirly red fractal and put the factal in screen mode which makes it stand out, but at the same time it doesn't take nothing away from the main render. Next I added a moon, I don't know but I just thought that it will look cool. I made the corners a little dark because sting has always been a mysterious wrestler, and the black corners makes it look a little mysterious IMO. The border is just a top and bottom border and the border is solid black with 2 pixes. At last I added the font, the font is call Bleedding Cowboy and thats one of my favorite fonts.

Well there it is.

 

[Dave]

I like this one but I fel that the text is a bit too strong for my liking. The renders are really nice and I love the colouring of the signature in general. The grunge background is incredible and I like the way that the colours flow together. Great effort.

Man, that is an awesome signature!

I don't know what you were going for when you made it but this came out looking pretty damn incredible. I love the way the player seems to flow into the background and everything just clicks. The text is not protruding and I like when the opacity of text is lowered. As I said, I don't know if you were going for that merge between background and render but it has come off and I love the look of it.

Awesome work, dude.

This is good work, mate.

It is really simple but very effective and the colour, or lack thereof, is something that I really dig. I don't know what it is about this signature but something in my brain just wants me to like it and I can't help but do so. I like the coloured halo around the render as I think it makes the render stand out a little bit more. The only criticism I could make is that the text above the heads is a little out of sorts but I don't know what I would have done if I were in your position so it's not even that big of a deal.

Nice work!

Undoubtedly my favourite signature of this match. The background, the render, the colours, everything just flows together beautifully. The only thing that bugs me slightly about this graphic is the text. I just think it is a little too strong and it could have done with losing some of it's opacity but that is just a personal choice.

Awesome work, I love it!

 

[Dave]

As per usual, I will be voting on this match by rating all of the graphics and then the winner will be the team with the best overall aggregate score.

6/10

6/10

6/10

9/10

I have decided that DigitalGeneration have won this match by 15 points to 12. I really felt as though GenMe's graphic won this match. Without being nasty to the other guys, I felt that this was the graphic that won the day overall and really was the best graphic in here. Everyone's graphic was good but GenMe's was the best by far.

 

[Dr. Stinger A. Zoidberg]

I voted BLT in this one. While I liked both sigs from Digital Generation, I think BLT's sigs should have scored higher. Theyre both very good. Theo's has something about it that I like, and TLC's is very good in it's own right. I like GenMe's sig very much, but DigitalNight's just seems a little generic for me.

It was a very good effort from both teams, but I'm going with BLT.

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

I voted for BLT. I liked both of Digital Generation's Sigs but felt that Theo & TLC did a top notch job.

With Theo's, he used the red and yellow colours really well to create that smudge effect which fit well. TLC's was simple and effective. I've never been a huge fan of Kiss but they most certainly are icons and this sig highlights the theme really well I feel. There's an almost spotlight quality to it that makes them stand out.

 

[ABMorales787]

The images that you chose really blend together and look very nice. I also liked the text font. But not the size. Maybe it should've been smaller and more centered. It takes a little too much space. The background looks a little too simple.

I think its too blurry. Too much of the brush and not enough of Jerry. The text OK, but the background brings the graphic down.

This one is my favorite here. The simple black background easily matches KISS and makes them blend with the image well. The text for their names looks great, but the one wrong I see is the main text in the bottom. It should've been their logo.

I liked this one a lot as well. The font suits him well. However I don't really understand the background. Why is Sting in outerspace? A corridor in the streets, or the rafter, maybe a hallway would've been better. The image looks great, but it doesn't click in the sense, that it doesn't really make sense.




In the end, after reviewing all the work and looking at the collective quality, I have to go with... Digital Generation. Even though, both sigs lacked a few details, but in overall work, the team got my work. TLC's KISS sig really had me wowed, but Theo's may have been a little too blended. DG's work was more balanced.