ChristopherRobin

BAHHH as soon as I get a post to finally work (i'm not caring for the new forums so far >.>) I hit update and see it's all been decided already.
Now I wonder if I should've said anything at all :-(

I was gonna give props to The Foo (that is your best work yet imho), Crestent (for showing such improvement and trying some new directions) and Aprosaath (great piece and followed this months H-->V or V-->H theme the closest) nice work guys

P.S. where the heck is the view all pages button?? It sux having to click through individual pages when I could just open it all on one page and scroll down.

Darn wasn't following the new forums status closely enough and didnt realize they were back up already. The last few times I checked they were down so I may have missed the voting altogether. While I didn't officially state it my vote was for Lousy Day... truly great work man.

That being said I think there is something we may all be overlooking here.
From the OP
"What will get you disqualified this month? ...Any piece not showing a direct transformation from a hero to villain or villain to hero... "
By this measure at least 3 are DQ'q

Lousy Day... Qualified (by showing Scirroco (V) changing to a Hero)
Projectionist... Qualified (Bayani and LJ (H) turning to DevE a villain group)
Juggertha... DQ (chose a human (himself) turning into his main Hero)
Toxic Shia... ???? (Mako is def (V) turning catgirl... Catgirls are not heroes
strictly speaking... they can be but they can be villains too. TA?
Aprosaath... Qualified (Mr. A turning to Evil A)
The FOO... DQ (A young woman turning into a Spines/Regen)
Tacky Tricky... DQ (Stalker (V) turning wolf, the only wolves are also (V) Council)
Crestent ???? (not sure if Mideva is H or V but i'm guessing she is a H
turning V? Crestent? TA?
So three are disqualified and two need clarification/ruling by TA and we have potentially 3-5 contestants to vote for this month. Revote?

Man I hate to be the one to say something about it but no one else was stepping up so ummm... don't kill the messenger??
***/e runs for the hills***

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I swore that was her....they sound alike sometimes you know

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[color=orange] Hmm it seems you are not the only one who thinks they sound a like. A quick scan of the interweb turns up several others including lyrics sites and performance by cover artist sites who think Blondie recorded a version but going through her actual discography on official and unofficial sites shows she never actually recorded a cover of it and the link most people give to her cover (on youtube and such) is in fact the Divinyls version.
Interesting thing I was not aware of.. Blondie is still performing and has started an 09 tour with Pat Benetar!
I personally think Debbie Harry sounds nothing like Christina Amphlett but then I have a good ear for female voices...

[color=orange]Some great efforts put forth this month... sorry to hear that Tartyrsauce was self elimanated.
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Lousy_Day: Ok let me just get this out of the way right off the bat...

DUDE!!!!! HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME!!!!

Ahem, now back to my cool and impartial judging (read nitpicketdyness). This piece impressed the heck out of me both in concept and execution the light and dark motiff really works here as the even the color choices, red below (the brush strokes and direction almost suggestive of flames or damnation) and yellows, greens, white and light blues above (like redemption or salvation) while unusual really combine in a way that (along with the blackness in between ... suggestive of the void perhaps?) really brings this piece together into a cohesive whole.
What really shines here are the little touches like... gone are the dark circles normally present under his eyes, the disbanding gauntlet as his hand "breaks free" from it's bindings... also the letting go of his blood stained sword could suggest it's bloody history is no longer a part who he is becoming. Props also for the hand... it's a tough pose but you make it look easy, spot on. A viewer could easily read a lot into all these great subtle little touches while just staring at this piece.

Ok some con/crit (mwhahah cough cough ahem) if I were to suggest some things that could make this even better I would point out
1: The proportioning on the legs... his right leg (left side of the image) should appear a bit longer, as it is neared to the viewer, than his left (note: this doesn't mean the foot has to hang lower it's fine where it is just the hip to knee ratio) as it is the one further away "appears" longer making them look reversed.
2: The pommel of his sword has a falcons head with a beak that points at a right angle to the hilt... this being a minimalist style painting (few brush strokes and color/lighting to convey complex objects) a detailed head would be out of place but perhaps a highlight (above the highlight running up the hilt and a small dark gap) curving off to the left at the top would do it (much in the same way you used a single light colored brushstroke to denote his earring). This would serve to both convey at the birds head and would more clearly show off his "letting go" as where the sword ends and his hand begins is somewhat obscured in shadow and could almost be a really long handle/hilt still in his grip, hard to say (if i'm wrong and this "letting go" motiff is not what you envisioned please correct me LD).
3: His hip covering is cloth and huggs his leg line tightly but the way the apex of it in your image sits as high as the top of his belt makes it appear to be an armor plate that is floating upon his leg. I'd suggest rounding off the top of the hip guard to fall below the bottom line of his belt.
4: *Puts on magical anatomy goggles* The patch of light on his right Pectoralis Major pointing down and to the left towards his Serratus Anterior rather than up and towards his Deltoid makes his chest appear deformed on that side. A simple shadow line (the rounded "W" shape line drawn to to show a male chest) to separate the light falling across his chest from the light on the top of his ribcage would fix this, the way the topmost red "heat" line separates chest from ribs on the right (Scirocco's left) side.
*Goggles off*
These are just minor things that are easily overshadowed by the awesomeness of this piece.

Truly I could see framing work like this and shuffling around the artz already on my
wall to make room for a piece of this caliber.
Epic!

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Projectionist:
I'm really diggin (lol) this piece. More than a few of my heroes have fallen to the DevE (cursed Swarms and Cairn stones!) from time to time (before my old SG got organized and and became a DE wrecking ball ) but the mediporter was always there for the save... if it had failed, this is how I would picture the result and it creeps me out every time I look at it. Great work capturing that.
Oh and it's always cool to see known "mains" from other forumites (other than TA, seriously that man gets too many free artz )

Details that really work are... the spores floating through the air, the purple butterflies fltting about lol, the overlapping vines on the bladegrass torso and head look very convincing as well as the underside of the Deathspore (shroom) and the Lesser Devoured's tentacles/face. Very sharp.

Con/crit... the things I might point out that can be improved would be
1: The difference in hand size of the Deathspore even taking into account the one reaching towards us (creepy!) is a bit much. Since the one clawing at Bayani looks great filling the negative space I would suggest leaving it as is and making the other hand larger to compensate.
2:Lady Judgements pose (going from 1/4 to profile to 3/4)... hmm easiest way I can describe what's amiss is you can only see one boobeh but two shoulders. For the viewer to be able to see both shoulders (the tops of the V shaped black stripe on her outfit are at the shoulder points while point of the V dipps to her chest) means her torso is rotated a bit towards us so we should also see an outline of the other boob and some abs as well.
3: Bayani's thumb on the hand that dropped the capsule (meh hands are always a challenge) is rotated too far down, with the top fingers up and the thumb stretched as far as it can you should still see the side with the fingernail.
I'm liking "Teh Old Schoolz" style.
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Reviews of the others to follow as I get more time to look them over but I can already see this will be a tough month to choose just one.
I'm also trying to get more peeps into the voting too to spread the love.
P.S. Is it just me or is FOO actually in the lead?

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When I think of 'artgasm' and 'Foo' in the same sentence...Blondie starts playing in my head...I don't know why.

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"The Hunter(ess?) Gets Captured by the Game" perhaps?

or maybe it's Rapture... what are you trying to say Grey???

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hey thanks for the crit. I see what you mean about Aquarian. Frankly I know what you're saying, but I was so happy the way it came out, I was afraid to touch her... but yeah those touches would definitely help.

[/ QUOTE ] Oh man do I know that feeling I've got plenty of pictures that I know (or someone helpfully pointed out) what would make them better but I don't want to touch them in case I mess it up... doubley so because none of them are digital and pens don't come with an "Undo" button.

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As for Escapee, I really like her head, and must confess my plant-iness, is not what it should be... hate drawing fauna. I did try more leaf lines, but it started to get to heavy, and dark. I felt her expression made up for her lack of foliage. Someone more plantier than me will have to draw her more convincing...

[/ QUOTE ] Yeah I hear ya... too much detail can be just as bad as not enough. That was just me thinking aloud... it's easily identifiable what hairstyle it is. Oh and by no means am I a master of flora (Fauna is the animal stuff right?) but I do have a Plant/Thermal maybe I should take a crack at it when I get some time. That's the bad part of drawing other peoples stuff isn't it... you have to draw stuff you would never touch if left to your own devices... of course on the plus side you get to draw stuff you would never touch...

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Hochroter changed completely during the coloring of Aquarian, on my blog you can see the happier white face she had. I was really enamored of her redesign, something HD pointed out that she had a new look... so it was revision time on the spot, and a few layer later, she was a glowing blue ball...

[/ QUOTE ] Ok cool I'll check it out

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All in all, I had a lot of fun with this group piece, but it's something I wouldn't want to do often. You can never please everyone, because really they will all want to be the focus, and group pieces are code for change that, change this and don't sleep...

[/ QUOTE ] Quoted for Truthiness

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I will condsider adding those retouches. I think they will help make it better, thank you again.

[/ QUOTE ] [color=orange] No problemo

[u]This [u] is what I'm talking about... just a quickie sketch but you get the idea

Still haven't seen an update to your DA page... when is the sale starting?

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Since today is officially SDCC, I was thinking of offering up an "artist alley" type sketch... the kind you get for leaving your reference, and after the end of the day, you get a head shot or a bust, or more.

I've been coloring in Painter for a few days, and am really happy with some of the results.

Especially today's sketch...

So I'm thinking, this would be a drop off kind of thing for ahem, an unmentionable sum... soon to be posted on DA. Let's just say it's less than half of my Summer sale... wink wink nudge nudge...

So let me know what you think, and I will start next week. Any questions?

LJ

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Wow I like how that group piece "Taste the rainbow" came out Bobby.
I especially like Aquarian Draconum (red wings) even though she has the least amount of color she still manages to "pop" out and grab attention great work on the face, General Knowledge, really like his expression as well and the pose with hands on hips is commanding also his jacket with the diagonal creases and folds going across the vertical seam is well executed, and Savannah, like pretty much everything on her.

Worth mentioning too is that you nailed the look of several trademark pieces of the CC most notably Jesters mask (spot on likeness) and collar (using few lines but still looks accurate). Nice!

Some con/crit (puts on nitpicking hat ) for ya would be for AD she needs some shadows on her wings where her hair touches (and along the shoulder/arm) to push them further into the background as they seem to be attached to her hair rather than behind it. Her head wings could use a bit of shadowing too at the base for the same reason.
On Escapee her hair could use a bit more detail to really show the "plantness" (tm) of it. More shadows that outline the leaves or maybe a very light crosshatching of lines to suggest the leaf "veins." And lastly the one that stood out most to me is Ken the Dragon's head and the way it's turned so very far to a profile that it looks 2D. It needs to show some of the "far side" of the snout ridges and brow ridges or alternatively you could open the mouth a bit more and show the far side teeth even if its just the front fangs or chin spikes it would give the illusion of depth (sadly all of my art is real world and not digital but maybe I can sketch something quick and snap a pic to put on photobucket to show what I'm saying since it's tricky to describe). Also his third crab arm is too big in relation to the other three.

All things considered it's a fine piece and I like it.

P.S. Side question... Did Hochroter go evil on us or something? Every image I've seen thusfar she had white skin and wasn't radiating darkness??!! Maybe she's "Going Rogue" already! >0.o<

Art-gasm... is that what the kids are calling it these days? >.>

Gratz Projectionist and Juggertha on the double immunity great work.

Great idea TA I was going to say something like this as well
what with the "Going Rogue" expansion coming soon. Can't
wait to see what the final 9 come up with, good luck!

And the problem with this would be???

Wow tough vote this month. Hmmmm after studying each image the one that leaves the most lasting impression on me as a movie poster is the little kids reaction in Juggertha's piece. I would totally have that "Kid-In-Awe" reaction if I knew a CoH movie was coming... hold up it's not till 2010???? WTFUWT grrrr!
Yeah Juggy gets my vote this month. Awesome job man.

Lousy Day - Loved the textures and the font for the word Positron but the helmet looks nothing like posi to me. Wrong shape, the visor shouldn't dip down at the sides (it's straight across), the receivers are too thick and the base where they attach to the helm should be more squared, and the "lighted veins" happen at the cheek, jaw and cranium... pretty much everywhere except the mouth area where it's lit in his poster... is this artistic license? Is there perhaps an earlier version of Posi's helm I'm unaware of? You definately nailed the "teaser poster" aspect though.

Juggertha - While someone else pointed out already it's basically the coh logo I still love the look of this piece and the dramatic angle of the little kid looking up at it is so convincing I can almost hear the kid say WOAHHHSWEEEET! Great Work Juggy

Tricky Tacky - Simple, stark and very high contrast this one really pops out at ya. Nice!

Toxic Shia - Ahhahahah Fusionette the Movie lol! Ok you gotta love a girl who fights crime, throws bolts of energy from her hands, has blue hair aaand can kick it old school with Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)... Brilliant!

Crestent - Love the concept and i'm dying to know what GW just did (or is about to do) that she is shushing me about so great job grabbing the viewers attention and drawing me in. The image itself needs a few finishing touches it appears... a little rushed.

Tatrysauce - Funny idea and a few have mentioned it reminds them of a certain type of classic movie poster but I've not seen one like that so I cant say for sure. Chuckle worthy though.

Projectionist - This one to me does the best job of "looking" like a movie poster right down the the font size and all caps for the actors names in the footer text... nicely done. The only thing is detracting from it is the likeness to either Sister Psyche as she is portrayed in the comics (or in my head for that matter) or any resemblance to Eliza Dushku just isn't there for me. Zena the warrior princess as GW though... that my friend is pure genius!

Foo - Great concept, I would totally see a movie about the origin of GW. I'm not sure what the significance of the red lettering under the title is though but if you remove it then the title would blend into the background... too much use of black and purple perhaps? If I were to suggest something maybe make the lettering itself red with a white shadow to make it stand out more and do away with the marking under the lettering. The likeness is a bit off on the face too.

Aprosaath - Hah this one made me laugh several times I kept finding more things to like the more I studied it. Go hug kiss skulls LOL. Great look for the Bone Daddy and Longbow too I almost chose this outright but then I remebered we are supposed to be choosing which would make the best movie poster not favorite image and this does kinda remind me of a story more than a movie poster... you should totally have stolen the style of small text from bottom of Projectionist piece and you'd have it.

Juggy gets my vote this time but great work all around and I can't wait to see next months results... whatever happened to Alex btw anyone know??? Sucks not getting to see his entrant.

Text Parameters

Server: Any (liberty for example)
Zone: Any
Character name: Any (Chloe Macomber)
Time: Any
Location: Any
Mission: Any
Mission Contact: Any
Bug Description: Many of the text parameters are broken. Before i13 went live I saw it on test (but not on live) and reported it. Nothing was done to correct it and now it is broken on Live and Test. Specifically you can no longer change the color of your text using the sliders. No matter what you change it too in your options window it will still be black text on a white background. No manual setting or binds using the commands/args :color :bgcolor :scale work either. It will say the command rather than execute it i.e. if i type "say <scale 2.75><bgcolor red><color white> Hello Ms. Liberty" It should put a large red bubble with white text over my head that says "Hello Ms.Liberty"
instead it puts a white bubble with black text over my head that says "<scale 2.75><bgcolor red><color white> Hello Ms. Liberty" it is therefore ignoring the commands to modify the text.

In short both the sliders and the manual commands are failing to modify the text.

Great job on the scoop guys. The comic was funny precisely becase we've all seen it (anyone got a small yellow?... or 2 small reds?... anyone?) and I love the costume based artwork that is posted (Frozen Viper is exceptionally well done) every week. Must admit i'm getting pretty hooked on the Redeemers too... it kinda snuck up on me but at some point I remember actually watching for when the scoop went live and zipping down to read it first before going back to the start of the soop and working my way down throught the rest. Way to go Mr. Grey keep it coming!

Big Upz to Sexy Jay! That Valkyrie set looks very cool and I can't wait to start incorporating it into my costumes. Must admit i'm a bit shocked that they have been sitting on such awesomeness for so long (a year?!?!! how dare they! )
Hmmm... makes me wonder what other cool costume stuffs are ready but waiting to be released?

Two things that I would love to see, more than butcapes (seriously does anyone really want
those or is this some forumite inside joke?), are

#1 More different kinds of armour (think "Knights in Shinning") as in Ringmail, Scalemail (I notice a variation of scale it's part of the Valkyrie set w00t!) Platemail, Woven, Leather, Dragon etc. and

#2 High neck collars (think vampire) for capes or as a shoulder piece. I'm aware that SoA kinda, sorta have one kind of high collar but I play blue side and so I am more than likely never going to have a 50 villain and so will never have access to it. Up until now i've been using the "ghost" face mask because it's the closest thing there is but how about some real collars us non-VEATs can use? They don't have to be shiny or have cuts in them, but at least one needs to be tall (up to cheekbone area) and open in front. Even just one plain cloth high collar would be fine (ability to have a different inside/outside color like capes do would be most welcome... like red inside around the face but black outside as seen from behind).

Awesome idea Lemur Lad to have wacky pictures from the game featured, man do I some bizarro pics to submit for this (remembers floating idly near the top of Atlas, just after aquiring hover, and pausing to work on a bind only to have the Zepplin sneak up and impale me from behind... "hmm what was the syntx for that pow...huuuuurrrrkkk!" ).

Having played this game for 4 years+ (aside from the short "break" I took when the i5 dropped) one thing I've never tried, for one reason or another, is base design. Some of the cool bases I've seen in the scoop have gotten me curious to give it a try so one thing I would like to see is an article for a begining base designer, some do's and dont's, tips, common mistakes to avoid, etc. Yes I know there are other resources available but I read the scoop more frequently than I do the forums.

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OK I have to give the autor of the comic a Thank you. That was so funny I actually LOL'ed in real life.


and FPAARN

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OMG I soooooo agree with that comic! i have been petitoning and adding it to the end of all of my bug reports and crash notes and forum posting (under multiple names/accounts) for years about SB!
It needs a way for the receiver to deny the run speed aspect.
A simple option in the menu "deny run speed boosts" would fix it for everyone. Like SB the way it is (i.e. stone tanks and crazy ppl )? leave the option off and nothing changes. Been waiting FOR-EV-AH for a way to stop people from giving it to you flip it to enabled... ahhh finally no more SB. Then Kins will be loved again and can sb everyone to their hearts content and never have to hear NO SB FOR MEH! again.

You Lattice offcially win the internets for writing that comic!.... please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of said internets

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Hmm. Some animation-prodigy needs to do the Thriller dance on this CrypticAR rig thing. Then we can finally give the Banished Pantheon something to do in Dark Astoria.

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You mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XVdxOkKqbo
(not done with coh but still very cool)