Pink Poogle Toy Forum

Edited in Pixa's images. ^.^

I think DM's got shrunk by Photobucket...

It did. How did that happen? oO I'll try and get the original one, if the proof of functionality doesn't do the same.

Sometimes Photobucket will shrink the image. Happens a lot to me.
Try a site like http://www.walagata.com Should work there if photobucket keeps giving you trouble. :)

Or I can always host it on my Hostrocket account. =]

That's OK, I uploaded it to ImageShack. It's slow, but it's...taking forever to upload. XD

OK, I got it. Thanks for the offer, WIS-san. ^^

<img src="http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6939/lhrighttbwrongwall7oh.th.gif">

I'm switching to percent grades this round just because...I feel like it. My ratings may or may not continue in this fashion...

Amethyst: I'm guessing you traced the whole picture and recolored it, but some of the lines aren't very smooth in his wrist. I really don't know what to think of those dark shapes on the left side, they're a bit dense for trees, but a bit oddly shaped for mountains. I'm going to guess that they're trees, in which case they need more texture and variety. And one small note: having the entire bottom blacked out with a solid color looks rather suspicious, it's often the mark of a thief. People usually just put their signature right over the image in that area. 83%: B
DM was on fire!: This is alright I guess, I know there are some people who make custom wallpapers exactly for themselves and for no one else. Overall this is not bad, but there's a real problem with the *.gif compression and it really looks bad, particularly where you have those lighter circles. 75%: C
InsanePlushie: This is also an interesting setup, but still far too plain, inverting the colors and then tinting purple isn't much. 69%: D+
Neko: This one's not bad, but the picture's a bit too blurry for my tastes. I'm not fond of the spread out white pixels, they really look like a bunch of mistakes all over rathr than anything special. I also don't like how pixellated the wavy lines are, try thicker lines so that the filters don't distort them too much. 87%: B+
Nikita: This is a bit too plain for my tastes, interesting setup though. 68%: D+
Pixa: Cute mushroom. The red sticking out of this earth-toned picture is really too shocking. I think the text could stand to be a little thicker, since the lineart has such heavy lines, but otherwise, this is ok. 75%: C
timkhj: This is very cute and simple, but it's really TOO simple. Try incorporating more pictures or textures into the pink background. Also, the upscaling artifacts on the colored Hello Kitty are a bit distracting. 75%: C
tomatie: It looks like all you did was overlay one picture over another and run some filters... The quality of the image suffers quite a bit, this rather looks like an image printed on corrugated paper; the texture is all over the place with no highlights anywhere, and the colors are very washed out. 50%: F
WIS: This is interesting, but the technique is rather sloppy. The extraction around the large picture of the girl is very uneven, I'm guessing you used the magic wand and blurred out the rough areas. I especially don't like the area to the left where the house is, it would have been better to find a larger image rather than enlarge the small one, the quality of it is very bad. As for the picture in the middle of the field, your airbrushing to remove the bubbles is very sloppy, try using the clone stamp next time rather than one color. 60%: D-

I vote out tomatie and WIS.

By the way, I didn't magic wand her. It would be hard because the lines on her aren't 100% dark and blends in with the background sometimes. I had to cut her out manually.

Is it just me or did 5 people drop out from this round by themselves? I'm not too pleased to see that, but I guess it happens.

WIS - Personally I think you've done a good job with blending the images. I'm not too keen on the shades of blue that you have used, but I guess that's just an issue of taste, rather than graphic skills so that's nothing to worry about. However, the text you have put in the fails quite a lot, the placement is probably exactly the one where you shouldn't have put it (try to avoid getting the whole thing over the most visible image) and the font is rather dull and doesn't match the rest of the wallpaper.

tomatie - Doesn't really look like you did that much to this wallpaper in general. The overlay really just messes up the whole texture of the graphic and as a whole this doesn't please me that much aesthetically.

DM was on fire! - Quite alright I think, it's just more about minor details that bring this one down a bit. Mainly I just have to agree with Marissa on the .gif compression part, because it makes this wallpaper look a lot worse. Overall look of the wallpaper is a bit too plain. Functionality proof wouldn't have really been needed (don't worry, this isn't a judging criteria, just a pointer), it is quite obvious that the wallpaper was made for personal use and one can guess that the boxes to the right fit this user's desktop perfectly.

Amethyst - If I were you I would have definitely skipped the dotted pixel overlay, it doesn't really fit in and makes everything look sort of messy. The texts don't match the image that well either, but they still work in a way.

Neko - The image quality seems to have suffered a bit, but other than that I do like this wallpaper. Some of the sparkly effects are a bit out there, for example the stronger white dots spread all over the sides; they could have been made less strong at parts.

Nikita - I'm agreeing fully with Marissa, too plain but nice setup. To be more detailed with my own opinions I think this is good just as an image, but when it comes to it's functionality as a wallpaper I don't really agree with your own suggestion, there is a limited amount of icons I would be able to place up there until I have to start putting them over the image and then having a hard time spotting them, so to say.

Pixa - Out of all the effort you have put into this one by mixing all those images into the background I think that cute little mushroom, leaf and text gain far too much attention. You've made the background really weak and the contrast between it and the more visible part is simply too strong, something i think you should have noticed by yourself.

InsanePlushie - This might be too plain but darn it works good as a wallpaper with the setup you have of the images. Nice job.

timkhj - The way you have utilized these images and combined them in this wallpaper is way too simple, you should have really worked your way around that somehow because just pasting them there with a color overlay like that will not take you far.

My votes go to tomatie and timkhj.

Looks like I'll have to kiss this contest goodbye...
Ok, not like I didn't expect it ^^; Just a few comments on the judgings.

You both say it looks like I didn't do much to the image, but as a matter of fact I spent about 3 hours on it I didn't just overlay the images and add filters, I also moved the main image around to make the wallpaper look more interesting and dynamic, and to make the trees on the InuYasha image match the trees in the picture. I really paid attention to that. Furthermore, I played around with the colors to make the images look good together.
Well, I'm sorry it still looks like I didn't do much to it... Guess I'll have to pay more attention to that in the future!

Marissa and Silja: yes, all my wallpapers are made for personal use only. I always spend the most time on my wallpapers (one time I actually spent half a month on one)

The only way I could get it to fit on the floppy was to save it in a gif. I was going to have it in a JPG, though. But I didn't get the chance.

I want to thank the judges for the comments!

I know it seems often to other people that participants don't actually put a lot of time in the graphics they make. Most of the time this isn't true. You just can't see all the little changes they made to make things better.

One of the things I believe in is not overdoing things. A wallpaper should have space to put icons and not be overly glittery or colored brightly everywhere. You can compare it to a blog where a part has to not be bright and glittery to put text.

Anyways I appreciate the ratings. Thanks!

-bites self- Sorry, again, I'm such a lazy bum.
(no, actually I'm just really, really tired)

Hm. There are a lot less for some reason...

WIS:
Oooh I like the blue in this and how one of the image stands out while others...blend in. Even though the blue is nice, I would actually try lowering the sharpness of it to make the main picture stand out more. Right now, the main pic seems to be a little blurred 'cause of the scanlines and something over it. On whole, it's fine, just a little too busy.

Tomatie:
Y'know what, I think this has a nice motion effect to it. However, you must be careful not to overdo it! Right now, it looks incredibly busy and I'm not too sure of what to look for. You also made the whole picture a little blurry and might consider highlighting some areas. I think somewhere it says the functionality of the wallpaper...anyway, this wallpaper isn't REALLY functionable (sp?). I would actually find it a little difficult to find my icons if I don't remember where everything is. Of course, I haven't seen it work, so I'm not quite sure on that.

DM:
I like this kind of wallpaper, even if it is solely for personal use. I like how everything is cut out for icons and such. I think that the style you chose to work with this image is very suitable and very pretty! I'm not too fond of pink, but this one works fine. The font is great, but I'm not too sure if it fits the theme, but still, it's great! Well done. I also have to agree with the other two judges on the quality.

Amethyst:
Love this, very much so. Apart from the wallpaper being a little too dark (colour-wise), everything is fine. I understand that it has to be dark though. Maybe this is just me, but I think the text on the side is a little "out-of-place" and a little distracting. The text at the bottom is fine and I like the lines you added in; even if it's just a small thing, it gives a nice effect to the wallpaper. I also like the text effect; the dotted overlay may not be applicable to every part of the wallpaper though. If I were the one who made this wallpaper, I would erase out the dotted overlay on the character's face. Overall, it's a very well done wallpaper.

Neko:
-sparkly eyes- Very pretty! I like the colours and the wings and the lines. How you drew a circly thing around the feather is very effective to this wallpaper, making the feather stand out more. It's awesome, just one little thing is maybe you could tone down the low a little; it looks a little too bright for me.

Nikita:
Interesting layout of the images, I like it. You've done a good job in adjusting the smaller pictures, making them suit the whole wallpaper, very, very well done. You also managed to adjust the larger image so it doesn't look like the original one, which doesn't look too good quality-wise. I like the adjusted colours and lighting. The only thing I would comment on is the placement of the icons. I don't think many people would place their icons on top; usually on the side. Your suggestion is fine, but when coming to use the programs, the user might have to look for quite a while when on the top as it may look a little messy. Hence, this wallpaper, although very well done, isn't quite as user-friendly as others. Unless of course, the user doesn't have many icons and they can go on the side, but it'd still look busy.

Pixa:
Nice blending, but mushroom is FAR too large and it seem to stick out of the place. It also look a little random, just sticking out in the middle of the wallpaper. I think the background is too light for my liking and I would actually want to see it a little more visible. It isn't bad and I can understand how much effort it takes to blend them, but at the end you just covered it up with the brown brush(es) and the mushroom! Don't try using too many images and then wiping them out, it's just wiping out your effort. The text is fine though. On whole, even if it has a good functionality (icons at the side and yadda), but to be honest, I wouldn't pick that for my wallpaper. If it's an autumn, then make it look like autumn.

InsanePlushie:
Very nice and sound job you've done there, good functionality and good placement of images. The idea of the purple glow thing is interesting and it works on this, but personally, I think it's taking away some of the beauty from he original images, especially the three of the smaller ones. It's just a suggestion, because if you didn't do the glowy stuff, it wouldn't fit this wallpaper. I really like this wallpaper, interesting idea, good functionality, excellent job!

timkhj:
Simple yet effective, even though it's just me who can't see all the images used in this. Or maybe they're just covered. There isn't much I can say about this except that it's incredibly simple and not much has been done except for the added on effects to the main image. It's good, but there could be more to it.

I vote out tomatie and timkhj.

I won't be rating this round. Sorry!

Anyways, tomatie and timkhj cannot participate in this round. This will be the second to last round.


Requirements
-Make a livejournal icon (100x100 pixels or smaller)
- Do not use any anime/cartoon images (this includes fanart)
-You can only use ONE IMAGE (shouldn't be too hard to do)
-No blue
-There needs to be legible text on it

Also, when you post your entry here, please tell me what you would like to make for the final round of PPTTG. (Wallpaper, set, blog, etc.) Only choose one though, please.

does the anime/cartoon rule also include no neopets images?