Now, now, everyone could use some constructive criticism.
I happen to agree with the dude. Green isn't really Riley's color if you ask me, despite what WWE seems to be trying to push. The layout of the sig is also off. There aren't massive chunks of dead space but I think the overall layout could be shuffled somehow to use your sig's real estate more effectively. It's like all the small pieces of dead space (for example everything to the right of the text) add up to create a really unbalanced sig.
The background is really nice, though. Great pattern, very interesting to look at. However, the image and text really aren't working for me. I think the text could either be taller and blockier if you want to keep it diagonal, or you could just turn it horizontal and add an additional blended image of Riley in the background.
Also, a personal thing, I really don't like tiny banners. I understand conserving your space but when you shrink the render it looks like you made a bigger banner and then shrunk it down. Unnatural. Also, that banner size just screams tutorial.
As a background it's great, but as a banner it's really just not clicking.
Thank you. This is way easier to understand than "it's confusing". I'm not trying to troll, or be a dick, or even start a beef with FutureShock, but when I post something, and I get criticized, I like to know what, specifically, doesn't work. The original criticisms I got were either vague or contradicting, so I felt the need to defend myself.
When I made the sig I basically did it with Riley's tron in mind. Like I said in my OP, I was trying to make the big 3D green letters work but it just didn't, so I improvised with more subtle text. The only reason I wanted to get the big 3D letters to work is because they're on his tron and that was the theme I was going for.
I agree with you on the dead space, and I tried to compensate with that with the vertical green bars in the upper right. I thought it worked pretty well, and goes with the square-filled background. Maybe they don't stand out enough? Or maybe they just don't work and I should try something else there. What do you think?
The background was kind of my personal experiment here...I wanted to use the square wave (I never see that, like, ever) exclusively for a BG. I think it worked about as well as a square wave can. As far as the text goes, it was tough to work in because I don't think there's a font blocky enough to actually FIT into the BG, so I tried to make it blend more with the liquified part than the squares. Oh, and I've been using 350x150 as a standard sig size for a long time now...every now and then I go with 400x200 or 300x125, but I always find myself reverting back to 350x150. I have noticed that a lot of the sigs on this forum tend to be bigger (standard sotw size is 400x200?) but most of the gfx forums I've been to tend to use the shorter sigs and most of those blow me away, so I got into the habit of using the smaller sizes.
Green against blue is not something that should be done lightly.
Honestly, I didn't think I was doing it lightly. I intentionally lowered Riley's saturation so that it wouldn't be so hard on the eyes. The WWE needs to get him a new vest if they're going to keep his entrance as a green theme, ya know?
I mean, this si a decent enough signature but the fact you have completely slammed someone who came into your thread to give you his thoughts makes me want to slap you upside the head with Milenko's cock. People have every right to post in here. Like it or not. If you don't want people's thoughts, then don't post it. Simple.
I DO want peoples' thoughts. What I don't want is arbitrary, vague criticism that seems more like just criticizing for the sake of criticism than actually trying to help me to get better. I've never claimed to be the best GFXer in the world, and honestly, I never said I'm the best GFXer on this site, I just said that I haven't
seen any work that's better than mine. And honestly, I HAVE seen at least one sig that's better than mine. The Zack Ryder + Cody Rhodes sig that BadApple is rocking is better than a lot of my work. But, BadApple didn't make that sig himself. See my point?
As for the signature again, it is mediocre, to be honest. The text is nice but could have done with losing some of it's opacity in my opinion. Your render of Riley is just far too bright. The sharpness plastered all over it actually make my eyes hurt trying to focus on it. Don't you see that? The fist is almost disappearing into the background but that likely just comes down to how it is placed more than anything.
4/10
Erm...I kind of already lowered the font's opacity. And as far as the sig being so sharp that it is painful to the eyes, actually, no, I don't see that. When I look at my sig, I notice Riley's face, then my eyes are drawn towards the wave in the middle-bottom of the sig, which leads me up to the font. I see that it's high contrast and sharp, but it doesn't hurt my eyes; it reminds me of HDTV. And yes, I did sharpen it, but believe it or not I also faded the sharpen so it wasn't AS sharp. I appreciate your input, but I don't see this as a 4/10. 6/10, I'd accept that, because admittedly, this isn't my best work; I never said it was. I said it was WAY better than my last Riley sig, and I stand by that. But I'd love to see a better sig than this that uses a freaking square wave as the primary source of a background. It isn't easy to work with, and that was my entire reason for making this sig in the first place.
Oh! And if you are still deciding about whether to join WZCW, you should know that they don't taker to kindly to people who think that they are better than others. Food for thought.
I don't think I'm better than others in general. I can't think I'm better than somebody that I don't know. I can't think I'm worse than somebody that I don't know. I don't know anybody on this forum; I don't pay that much attention to the username above the posts as I do the posts themselves when I'm reading the forums. But if it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna join WZCW. I've tried RPGs before and I am always really into it at first, but I always run out of steam really quickly. There's only so much you can say before it gets repetitive.
For you to hit back on Futureshock, a new guy that we should be welcoming with open arms, is pretty low.
I didn't even realize that Futureshock was new. Regardless, he still has way more posts than me. Isn't post count the substitute for age on forums? XD
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you've buried him for having his. You get damn near racist at the end. If you had some brains you'd see that he is in Portugal and so whatever he writes has to be translated into English for us. Some of it gets lost in translation.
How did I bury him? I didn't understand his criticism. And apparently I don't have brains because I didn't know that he was from Portugal, I didn't know that his posts had to get translated. I just said it; I don't really read anything aside from the post itself. That little bar above every post with a slightly darker background color is just background noise when I'm on this forum. Maybe I should start paying more attention, because I'm starting to catch more flack for that than anything in this thread. <_<
The first Riley sig, while technically pretty good, is damn-near painful to look at. I can see there are a lot of subtleties that make it a good sig, but it's just not something that's nice to look at. I think if you made your squares a blue they would suit Riley a lot more.
This is the kind of criticism that I wanted. Obviously I don't like reading that something I made is "damn-near painful to look at", but that tells me to cool it on the saturation, sharpness and contrast. As far as the square color, like I said earlier in this post, I was trying to interpret his tron into the sig...apparently the WWE has terrible taste in color coordination.
As much as I can appreciate the first one, I dislike the second one. It seems way too over-worked. I too see no reason for there to be Mr. Anderson in there. The background and colour scheme again aren't pretty to look at. It's halfway between shit-brown and beige. What I do like is the text and smudging around the main render.
I'm not a big fan of the second one myself, and I made the damn thing.
Anderson is in there because I made this the day I found out that Riley was on NXT. I saw him as a combination of Miz+Anderson...if you watch his NXT "Get to Know" tape, he acts a LOT like Anderson.
I think your best work has been in the various competitions in the main art section.
Thanks. I think the only competition I've done is the most recent sotw, but if that's a hit then I'm happy.
You can bad rep me and bitch & moan all you want, but I'm not coming back here so it will be for nil. For you to crush someone's opinion, an opinion that is unanimous, is sad. What a sore loser. You've lost the respect of me and anyone else that stumbles across this thread.
I don't bad rep anybody. I hope you do come back to this thread, if for no other reason to know that I never meant to bash FutureShock for critiquing me, I just wanted to know what was bad about my sig and he wasn't giving it to me directly...or...as I know now...whatever he uses to translate from Portuguese to english wasn't giving it to me directly. :8
It seems like you're trying too hard, simpler is better most of the time.
You're probably right. Actually, I'm almost certain that you're right. I was forcing myself to make that sig because I wanted to use a square wave for a background. Even earlier today I felt myself wanting to follow through with an idea that just plain didn't turn out well in PS. I deleted today's shitty project without saving it, so I'm making progress.
That being said, you could easily build on what you know and become a very competent sig maker, if you start taking criticism a bit better. You can't ask for feedback and then shit on the people helping you. I mean, Jesus, did you expect everybody to stroke your ego for you? People won't lie to you. FutureShockWWE went out of his way to help you out and you shat on him. Next time, don't ask for help. Simple as that. If you're going to be a massive dick just keep it to yourself... Or, better yet, take your head out of your ass and take it like a fucking man.
Why is everybody acting like I took a huge dump on FutureShock? I didn't personally insult him, I didn't even attack his work that much. I gave him a personal critique on all of the work he's posted to illustrate the point that I'm trying to be different than everybody else on this site. Every time I go to a wrestling forum with a GFX section, all I see is sigs with a brushed background, a blended action-pose render of the wrestler, a full-color render of the wrestler, usually on the other side (or in the center), and font. That is what 99% of the sigs that I see on wrestling forums look like to me. That's what most of his sigs looked like to me. I guess I did kind of target him a bit too specifically, but it's frustrating seeing everybody with the same bloody style and they all get praised for it, and then when I come in with what I think is a neat, different style that breaks away from the norm, I get ripped for it. He said it was confusing and didn't make sense, so I assumed that he meant that because it wasn't a prototypical Pro Wrestling sig. It's easy to fall into a trend and not even realize that you can't get out of it; I've done it before. There was a point in time that I thought every sig ever made was complete shit unless it was a pure photomanip because anything else was just too easy to juxtapose onto a 400x200 pixel rectangle. I was wrong then and I see that now, but back then I was set in my ways. I've experienced it so automatically I feel like a lot of other people experience or have experienced it as well.
you implied that you are the best artist here. Now, if you truly feel that way, that's fine. Your vision may be a little obstructed, but that's fine. However, do not conduct yourself in an arrogant manner.
I don't KNOW if I'm the best artist here. I've been through a few gfx showcase topics and I haven't been impressed; that's just me. When you see the work that they do on sites like NSL it tends to jade you a bit. There could be a bunch of absolutely amazing GFX artists on this site that would blow me away, and I would definitely succumb to that if I'd see it, but the fact of the matter is I haven't seen them yet. Yet being the key word, because I'm not one to go digging pages and pages in the Digital Arts forum just to find something better than what's on the first page.
It was also absurd to make this thread and not take legitimate criticism. Instead you want to act like you're a superior graphic artist than everybody.
Understand that art is subjective. I personally agree with every criticism presented in this thread, but the real problem is not with your graphic ability, it's with your annoying arrogance.
Art is subjective, yes. So is everything that isn't created by math or physics. Wrestling is subjective, but there is still a general consensus that CM Punk is a better wrestler than David Otunga.
Everybody that's criticizing me, I obviously came off as a huge douche bag, but despite that, you all actually put me in a better mood. ^_^
