SlickRiptide

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The way I would handle that is just have a higher layer with a copy of the hand/forearm. That way, you wouldn't have to cut that shape out of every lower torso piece you add. You just place them on a lower layer than the arm but above the main "doll"

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Yeah, Rowrsie said she has the Photoshop files with all the layers intact, so it's not really a problem.

So, I was just remembering the poses? That's some comfort then. Instead of a Rod Stewart, I just pulled a George Harrison. Ha ha!

It was funny, because I can't remember the last time you used the old avatar, and I didn't even really associate the name and the new avatar with the old one. It took a couple of viewings, followed by "I've seen this before...", followed by "Doh!".

I'm going to take a look at it in the morning. The colors look like they may have been turned into web-safe colors, or maybe a perceptual pallete that's getting dithered, on the last optimization pass I did.

Oh, and if you like Vlad, I'd recommend that you check out the Vlad Taltos by Shardglass original that my avatar is built from. It's an amazing picture. I was very happy that she gave me permission to use it.

Okay, I feel like an idiot now, but what the heck. I had some time on my hands so I tossed together an animated avatar based on the screenshots in the Crey Threat Database and Virtueverse.

I was looking at Ms. Afterburner afterwards and had this deja vu moment where I realized that I'd practically reconstructed your old avatar down to the fonts and colors.

At least now I know why those choices seemed so logical.

I could be misunderstanding, but I think Shrike's problem with the wallpaper is more that she wants some sort of artsy-looking collage or combination of elements from several pictures rather than just taking a single picture and messing with it's proportions.

What version of Photoshop have you got, Shrike? The animated avatars are really fairly simple as long as you understand the basic principles.

Given that super-heroines don't grow hooves every day, I'd have to go more with Dali on an acid trip, myself.

*edit*

Since I couldn't think of any Dali's that used a similar style, I did some googling and pretty much found out that he was mainly the antithesis of that sort of look. So much for that!

I guess Van Gogh on one of his less lucid days is really what we're looking at there, but you have to wonder where his head was at to see Graviton Girl that way...

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But with the detail of the lich's helm, the moon framing its head and the scenery reaching up to box his upper torso - I think it would be kind of hard to mistake what the intended focus of the work is.



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That's good to know. Despite the name of the piece, I found myself constantly being drawn to the lich rather than the sword-bearer in the foreground. The definition in his armor and his face in comparison to the surroundings, the sheen of the metal helm, and the fact that he's clearly in the process of drawing that big evil sword on his belt made him the center of the focus for my viewings of the piece. I really wanted to see him finish unsheathing that sword.

I liked the contrast of the sharply defined central figures versus the less-defined terrain. It didn't feel flat to me, it felt "fuzzy" and it reinforced that the light and focus were on the two central figures.

Course, as I've said before, I'm no artist. I just know what I like. *heh*

So, when you're drawing with your eyes open, how long does a piece like this typically take from start to finish? What difference would it make if the story was four panels featuring both characters in a variety of poses?

I enjoy this kind of picture because it's so clearly telling a story as opposed to simply showcasing a character. I'd be curious about reading that comic

I can imagine doing a kind of tryptich in which the left picture is a 3-4 panel story of Dark Frost's story and the right is a similar picture of Frost Magus' story, with the panel borders "flowing" towards the meeting in the middle.

Excellent work. When's the web-comic going on line?

A superhero without a bio is just a guy walking down the street with a natty fashion sense.

If you don't have a bio, nobody has any way of judging who you are or what you're supposed to be. Every superhero has a story. The bio is supposed to summarize the story. Whether you RP your story is irrelevant to the story itself.

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Here she is:
Lady Goldfish



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Clever use of the force bubble! Who needs to breathe when you take your atmosphere with you?

Is the guy in the shades supposed to be stealing from the flea market table? I ask because the gizmos on the table all seem to be facing away from him, as if he's behind the table rather than in front of it.

Seems like another calendar in the works.

The Artiste was saving the past along with Imperious and pals when he finally leveled 50. There was so much action happening at the time that it never occurred to me to take a screenshot. As far as that goes, people were leveling left and right, so it didn't even seem all that special. *heh*

Lesson learned - Double XP = Task force time.

Anyway, his moment was spending a quiet moment over in Galaxy City, swapping a few war stories with Michael White and reminiscing about four years of fighting the good fight.

Interesting take on how a magician fights. Makes me wish once again that game powers reflected origins, so that a magicians powers would all look like, say, the Rune of Warding.

I'm going to admit that I had to look twice at it. My initial impression, without having read anything about the scene, was that the CoT magi were doing one of their spirit possession rituals on Doc Aether. I had to take a good look at the larger-sized version to see the fear and consternation at the root of their reactions to Doc's spell; i.e., the arm postures were defensive, not offensive.

The electricity around the eyes was a nice touch, showing just how invasive Doc's electricity cage is.

I'd hang that print on my wall. Nice work by hollybell.

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Probably not what you're looking for, but I always thought this screenie conveyed speed.

Thorax

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"The button said 'Hyperspace'. Did I err?"

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Thought I'd give it a shot. The character looks pretty good, but I don't know if he reads as a speedster.

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This is good. It's got all of the elements I would have considered for it, combined in interesting ways. I like the symmetry and the way that you used the starshot as the focal point of the design. I was looking at the top photos thinking "All he needs to complete that is a pic with Dash running", and then I scrolled down and there it was. *heh*

Representing "speed" as a costume element as opposed to a character concept is a difficult one. What do you do besides give yourself a bunch of lightning bolts or other iconic "flash" patterns?

I think this one may be won on name originality more than anything!

I mean, the iconic speedster has already been done.

Now if only there was a visual sound for that old Steve Austin bionic noise!

Okay, I won't pretend that this is any kind of winning entry (the unconventional color combo wasn't "all that" after all) but putting it together was fun.

F-F-F-F-LASH Pyre!

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Comrade Hero was born in the 1970's.

Graviton Girl was born around the 1910's.

Bit of an age difference there

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Don't knock a May-December romance! Seems to work okay for Justin Sinclair!

Does Graviton Girl show her age? If she's not obviously wrinkled, stooped, and covered in liver spots, well, the question of whether Comrade Hero or anyone else might hit on her is a bit moot. It might influence how she'd respond to such flirtation.

BTW, I'll amend my earlier analysis to say that rough 1 actually DOESN'T work if hitting on or even flirting with Graviton Girl is what's portrayed. From her posture, she's not even remotely interested. It works much better if they're both in free flight around each other, IMO, rather than directly interacting.

Non-artist opinion - The original draft is the best and most dramatic. The "knee in the chest" thing is a lack of perspective. Presumably, the finished piece will have enough depth that this isn't going to occur to anyone who isn't looking for it. The only "odd" thing about it is the position of Comrade Hero's arms, but I'd again attribute that to the lack of detail - there's not enough visual context to judge why he's doing that.

The curious thing about that draft is the juxtaposition of the passive and active. Graviton Girls body is thrown forward; she's exerting herself. The opposing positions of her limbs accentuate this posture - She's tearing up the air with her flight; maybe she's only just now leaped skyward.

Comrade Hero, by contrast, is coasting freely along. He's reclined, relaxed, smoothly gliding through the sky, and maybe even non-chalantly performing acrobatics around Graviton Girl in her flight.

If they were swimmers, she'd be breathlessly breast-stroking to the finish while he casually backstrokes effortlessly alongside. This is particularly interesting given that the Male essence is typically the active one while the female is the passive.

It's like a monad. If you can somehow complete that analogy by adding the core of action at the center of Comrade Hero's passivity and likewise display the calm elegance, the contradictory peace she achieves from the joy flying that lies at the center of Graviton Girl's frenzied ownership of the sky, you'd have a smashing good picture there.

So, yeah. Call me Mr. Armchair Art Critic.

*heh* I was actually making a smart-[censored] comment about your deadline. Hint - It's not june.

So, in keeping with the theme, your character has to be able to power the cosmic treadmill in order to qualify?

350 gold for full color? What server might you be playing on? I don't play any more but I can arrange through one of those "scroll of resurrection" deals to get access to the gold on my WoW toons.

*edit* Silly me! Reading FTW!

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But this person, AFTER the work was done, said I couldn't post it, even if I paid for the work and have rights to the character being portrayed in the work.

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Having rights to the character portrayed does NOT automatically afford you the rights to the portrayal. Here again, some artists will spell this out and others will rely on commonly understood copyright law.