Ladeeda...Alphabetical again...
Amethyst: I'm slightly inclined to go "Ugh." You use Yoh quite a lot, almost to excess, and you started off with a rather unflattering cap of him. I think all the effects went a bit too far. The blue is VERY strong, and the grunge and diagonal screen are rather distracting. Another problem with the blue is that it's totally uniform across the picture, almost no variation of tones. You could have taken advantage of the uniformity to highlight the text, but I see you chose only to draw attention to your pixel text. There's something else that bothers me about this set, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
7/10
Apricus: Oooh, Full Moon wo Sagasyite, I want to read that. I really like the avatar, the colors are excellent, and the selective dot overlay adds interest to the undetailed areas and highlights the focal point, the daisy. Now, the sig. I'm not sure what happened here, it rather looks like you got lazy. You didn't extract the picture and make a new background, and you didn't extend the existing background. The colors really make that stand out, the original had shades of green (which are still there), and the background you made is purely yellow and white. I'm also not very fond of what you've done to the picture, the median/dust and scratches filter (?) really destroyed all the detail in her hair and the flowers, so now the selective dot overlay looks just odd. The text is also WAY too big, it's really kind of overpowering. I know I always say empty space is bad, but you could have made the text a smaller size and still been okay because of the flowered background.
7/10
bluehawaii: Hm, this is why I don't really approve of working with wallpapers. Without seeing the source picture, it would look like you'd made the colorful background yourself. Since your source started off that way, I don't really think you did anything much with this set, just added a grid overlay and text and a border.
5/10
Destiny: Very nice, everything looks fabulous. The brown and purple look suprisingly good together, and the background text catches your attention without being distracting. However, I sort of don't like the border, the dashes look odd.
9/10
DM was on fire!: Hm, very purple. What really bothers me is the cut off picture on the sig, the cut off part is quite small, and it's part of a symmetrical mask, you could have reconstructed that little bit quite easily. Also, I don't like the fonts. The picture and the purple tinting give this air of elegance, and the scribbly font really clashes with that.
7/10
Dobbitron: I saw your sig tutorial, I guess that's how you do everything. Having a uniform style is alright, but it gets monotonous. Other than that, it looks quite nice, the gold tones are very pretty. My only complaint is the fonts. The one on the sig is really...GIRLY. And the pixel fonts are blurry, this time I think it's because you forgot to uncheck anti-aliasing.
8/10
Hellyer: Uh...I don't know which word you meant, internally or eternally, but either way it's spelled wrong. At first I thought this was another cropped set, but you actually did quite a bit with the picture, it's actually pretty impressive how natural it looks. The font, though, bothers me. I can tell it's supposed to be a rather shaky mixed font, but there's only so much you can do with a preset font. The reason it looks balanced on the Evanescence CD's is because the letters are hand drawn (or at least hand-tweaked), and to get the same look with just a font, you have to hand-tweak it yourself too. The LL is particularly noticeable as odd looking.
9/10
Koku: Oooh, more Full Moon wo Sagasyite! I really like what you did with the picture, it's very...intense. The text is a little hard to read because of the background though, maybe if you clone out the daisies or blur it some.
9/10
Kyra: I know the picture started off rather horizontal, but keeping it that way looks kinda funny. The gradient on the border is a nice touch, but I think it was a little unneccesary. I really like the bubbly background, it matches very well. The display font, though, I don't like. I can see the whole bubbly random thing going on, but it's not really random looking enough. I know it's a problem with the font, but you could have tweaked it yourself to fix that.
7/10
Neko: Hur...the novelty is kinda wearing off... I never really thought the series was THAT popular. I feel like this set is WAY too cluttered with stuff, the picture really stands out, and everything else just kinda recedes into it. Nothing much else to say about it.
7/10
Neopets Addict: This set is really cute. I like the colors, they go very nicely together. Good job extracting the picture and keeping the white stroke, it still looks very smooth. The only thing I don't like about this set is the placement of the subtext, it's pretty low on the sig, and it looks odd. Other than that, this is a really nice set.
9/10
Optimus: Hnn, the image started off pretty good, I don't know why it looks so blurry on the set. I like how you displayed the subtext on the sig, it's very unusual. I actually don't particularly like the border, it's quite distracting. Also, I think the display text on the sig doesn't really match the whole theme of the set.
8/10
paola: Oooh Clamp! I love Clover, the art is especially fabulous. This set is very...girly. All the pink and gold, and the ribbons really add to it. I like the gradient overlay on the text, it catches your attention nicely. I rather don't like your choice of fonts, the pixel text is pretty hard to read, and Monika has HORRIBLY big capitals, I actually think they're quite ugly. So you could always tweak that.
8/10
polarbearpop: I think this set is rather boring. I don't think the color tinting was a good idea, it really contributes to the drabness. Unlike the others, I'm not really impressed by your extracting work, anime pictures are simple to extract, and even given that, it looks you got lazy with the edges by blurring them. I think you tried to put a mosaic tile effect on the picture, it looks more like compression artifacts. Also, there's really a lot of wasted space on this set.
6/10
quicksilvery1pore: Hnn. The picture you started off with is extremely grainy, and I don't think you did anything about it other than downscale it, and you can still see all the grain. Other than that, it looks like all you did was make a sketchy background and put text and a premade border on it.
6/10
Rikio: I agree with the others, the borders on this set are WAY too busy, particularly the top of the av and the bottom of the sig. They really don't match with the rest of the border, and it looks like you added those parts just for the sake of having cutouts all around. I really like the picture and the color scheme, they're excellent, but again with the font. Monika has horrible capital letters, you should find some way to tweak them so they look better.
8/10
Shifty: I really quite dislike the color scheme you have here. The yellow you used on the outer glow around the picture is totally out of place, it would have looked much better if it matched the outer glow on the text.
7/10
Squibble: Firstly, I think the fading display text is unneccesary. I don't really like the avatar, since it's half wasted space, you could have made the composition better.
7/10
I vote out polarbearpop and quicksilvery1pore
Last edited by
Marissa on Thu Aug 26, 2004 4:13 am, edited 6 times in total.