Lurker > ZenOfThunder

From: LeonhartFour | #186
The white area under Squall's arm, the bane of KoolAid's existence

And I remember you flipped out when I rated the pic a 10/10 in your topic.

I REMEMBER THIS

this is why I love you

--
~Zen

I LOVE THIS LINK ALT thank you whoever made this


YEEEEAH CARD ART CHARIZARD. A noble defeat. People were talking about the Zard breaking the Noble Nine.


so strange. I don't think this works because of lack of space and the fact that neither of these characters is into scrapbooking.


SO GOOD


clever. don't even really mind it was a crop because of their expressions.


how meta


this is pretty cool. this has been done before, right?


the return of shy, smexy cloud


uh oh they're both glowing. that means it's either intense of the picsmith was just lazy.


MY MASTERPIECE. I love this one so much. So much tension! It was really lazy, though.


Overall, an OK contest. A lot of duds early on, but Round 2 was mostly badass and some of the freeforms were creative and mostly diverse. I wish we had an ounce of that this year...

--
~Zen

best first freeform pic ever. THAT'S MAMA LUIGI TO YOU. Great sprite thing at the bottom there. Cool divider.


MR. L was a big B8 fad at the time, and people were submitting like dozens of pics of him each round. Thank god he finally got one or there would have been L-based anarchy that didn't related to L-Block for once.


ha, needed some adjustment layers but still ha


the hell was I smokin'


what is that background? what a strange choice


I don't remember this one, it's p cool


oh god I remember this. seriously all I did was troll back then





greatest match of this contest


Ulti's weird subliminally lesbian pic. Bacon lets us use that ZSS artwork but it's technically fan art, so... yeah


this is cool, I like lines


ryu is all "THE COLORS, DUKE! THE COLORS!" or maybe he's spinning some sick beat at a turntable. I've never seen this art and we haven't seen it since.


I don't remember this. clever I guess?


not bad, needs less outer glow


the lighting/coloring is so consistent here. good job.


I'd like it more if Squall wasn't alreayd holding his weapon


somebody wanted it to look like Tifa was having the sexes with sexiroth.

pfffft like that pairing would ever happen

Red XIII/Tifa 4 lyfe


AHHHH WE HAD GENERIC CROPS WITH A BEVEL AND OUTER GLOWING NAMES BEFORE!! AHHHH


...why school


what an explosion of color

--
~Zen

Round 3 was ULTI'S ROUND. There was no guildline for Round 3 so Ulti just MADE ONE and flooded the submission form with history's first Stock Ulti Pics. Bacon liked it and made this awful TV border with the stupid lightning bolt and static and updated the form with a guideline that followed Ulti's style. Ulti lost his s*** for a week and a half.


random stray hair on that 8-bit mustache. return of "Luigi looking down in shocked surprise" from that match he had with Tifa's boobs


and this is why ganondorf will never overperform in a sprite round. also ganon was the pic used as Bacon's round 3 example.


"sprites"



"WAAAAH IT'S NOT A REAL SPRITE CHANGE IT CHANGE IT"

who cares? He wasn't gonna win and I'd rather have sprite vs sprite than sprite vs art. what are the chances the sprite artist sees it and complains or something?


a god falls

thanks to the best sprite pic EVER


""""""sprites""""""


a board 8 fad gets a day on the front page


snake you got some s*** on your face. oh my god pikachu almost broke the noble nine because of this one.


stealth smilin' squall, the triple S of leon's doom


god that's ugly

--
~Zen

pretty bland. THEY ALL WERE. This entire round was BLAND CITY. And Bacon was like "oooo I've been wanting to use that one filter and some frame I got off google images" so that's what we got. And it was weeeeird.


"HE'S LOSING BECAUSE HE GOT A BAD PIC"

yeah ok


"yo what up wit dis cat right here? he all screamin n s***"


boss looks upset that all of her character development is wasted on a cube


the return of bad SFF matches? why did this need to happen? Also a bunc of Sonic 3 & Knuckles logo pics were submitted and when Bacon didn't use them people threw huge hissy fits. Honestly, what are the chances he breaks format for that?


aaaand Ulti continues using the spheres! over and over! for a very long time!


BAD. ASS.


see above

72-76 were all winners, really.


SMACK! Kefka was a huge hit. Everyone loved this pic. Kefka over-performed and some people said it was cuz he didn't look like Lettuce for once.



UH OH THAT REALLY ISN'T ISAAC. WE GOTTA CHANGE IT CUZ IT TOTALLY COULD EFFECT THE OUTCOME OF THIS MATCH.


I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID. THIS ROUND WAS AWESOME. Seriously flip through round 2 of CBVIII if you get the chance, it's so hardkore.


this was my personal favorite. Zelda just looks so beautifully rendered and detailed and Ezio looks like such a goddamn badass.


"are... are they gonna DO IT?"

"ARE THEY GONNA DO IT RIGHT NOW?"


EVERYONE submitted this Falcon pic and everyone said it was theirs. Maybe we all shouldn't crop the same pic!


"dmc2 dante match over" is all I heard that night.

...it was kind of true.


I had been submitting this picture of Fox since like the last character battle CUZ HE IS SO BADASS HERE (we called him Bang Fox because he was so bangin') so I like lost my s*** and produced 59 variants of this pic to Bacon and he finally used it. That's a Pic record that's yet to be broken.


hate the orange


FFFFFF I'm in awe. This was the highest voted pic of the contest IIRC. I ran "rate the pic" that year. Wish I could find the scores...


love this Terra. so sweet lookin


I think this was Ulti's vincent render, and it was the only one this round to show clear anti-aliasing. Vincent has surprisingly little pre-rendered art though, so bravo for trying.


Ness vs disco ball

--
~Zen

can't get enough of that Marth. It reminds me of Furry Fox from a few pics back for some reason. High tier melee characters are fuzzy.


that vincent was the FIRST Photoshop the maker ever did. I can't remember who, but they IMed me with literally no experience and I coached them through (over aim with no visual aid) how to make a pic and then he cranked out this one but I couldn't really explain to him what anti-aliasing was but he was so happy he just submitted it anyway.


I like this one, I think it doesn't get enough respect. Good colors.


maaaan of all the things you could do with Missingno...


SECOND YEAR IN A ROW everyone submits the same Big Daddy pic and all claim it's there's when it goes up. MAYBE SOMEONE SHOULD USE A DIFFERENT PIC THEN


people were SO WORRIED when this pic came up. The return of GFNW? Peach looked so good! Gordon looked meh. I made that Gordon and it was my first try using inner shadow and it came out lousy.

--
~Zen

"EYYYY everyone said they hated this art but now that it isn't getting used people are b****ing EYYYY"


That pic of the Spy was release like a few hours before the match and I managed to crank out a render and a pic in that time. We were all MACHINES back then. What happened?

Also just cuz MC looks green and brownish doesn't mean you should make the background hard green to hard brown!


this was the year people had these ridiculous stiffies for Sora in different forms. I don't know where that came from all of a sudden. Was KHII fresh?


GRRRR GRRRR I remember everyone loved this. Goes to show that the quickest way to B8's heart is to have someone shaking their fist at someone else.


Arthas Menethil: King of Cropped Pics. The day someone renders him is the day the Frozen Throne sounds like something that I'd actually want to sit on.


People thought Duke would beat Charizard because of this pic.

The power of the greatest flag in the world, ladies and gents.


"teehee hey mr kratos"

"RAAARGHRAHTHG"


they both look homeless


WHAT A GODDAMN BADASS this was easily a top 10 pic at the time it came out. I think KP did it?


oh man that Tidus pic. No wonder he has almost no good legit victories.


they're in the SAME POSE. Difference is that whoever did Simon didn't know how to render


ZEN CAN SMELL A CROPPED PIC FROM A MILE AWAY. That's not Ridley with a pink gradient, it's RIDLEY FROM THE DOJO! HE CAME PRE-PACKAGED WITH THAT GRADIENT! CROP! CROP! 2/10!


ha


Captain Falcon DEMANDS attention here, and Wander looks like he's going to have to choke a b**** because of it


this is the match pic that created a new rule: ALWAYS check if your character is top or bottom in the match and have them face the right way accordingly.


Such a strange Fox pic. I've always wondered why this one looks so... fuzzy.


People thought this was a crop, BUT IT IS NOT! People thought I added crazy effects to Shepard, BUT I DID NOT! He just looks really demonic in that art for some reason. Also, the first pic made for this contest by any Picsmith was of Ellis for some reason, and up until they day before the match it was the ONLY pic for Ellis submitted, and then I decided to be a dick and make a new one an hour before pics went up and it got picked. The original remains lost in time...


that zero has always seemed to "herp a derp" to me. Like some high school kid was drawing cyborgs in his notebook.


always hated this Terra gradient. Good placement of the characters, though

--
~Zen

CHARACTER BATTLE VIII REFLECTIONS


This pic went up waaaay before the rest as it was an example pic, which is something Bacon never did again. I did the Link, I think. Good Thrall too; I'm astounded he made it in more than once AND got two pieces of art to boot!


Character Battle VIII: Rise of the strange gradients and anti-aliasing!


"OH MY GOD HE DOESN'T HAVE A CLASS PIC HE'S GOING OUT IN ROUND 1!!1"

also wtf is with those banners? Why did Bacon make some of them so blendy?


Wow, Sgt. Price? A dark time for GameFAQs. So dark that we needed a brightness/contrast layer for Price and nobody seemed to be able to spare him one.

Also Mega Man X slowly sliding down and to the right.


SPEED LIIIINES AND ANTI-ALIASING


"the magic eraser tool solves all my problems"

Wasn't I saying this contest's pics were better than the last? What the CHRIST am I remembering?


I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR BLENDY DRAKE. I hadn't learned of CONTRASTING COLORS yet.


Awkward Sonic vs Lightning who fell victim to "Bacon wants torso shots but he wants them to fit in a square? yeah not happening without a bunch of extra space and the character looking awkward." Also Lightning's game wasn't even out yet, lawl. GameFAQs is so hot for FF grrls


SPEED LIIINES AND ANTI-ALIASING AND BLENDING INTO A RED BACKGROUND *wiggly wiggly woo*



Around this time we started getting decent pics. It's all starting to come back to me!

Ulti makes good use of GLaDOS' spheres. Good work, Ulti! There's some innovative thinking for you.


One of the most BADASS pics vs blendy Liquid. Both were mine, people claimed sabotage, but I was just trying to use a brand new Liquid pic nobody had seen before, and I submitted a version with every color of the rainbow and Bacon picked BROWN. BROWN BLENDY LIQUID S***. NEVER submit a blendy option to Bacon because he loves them.

Altair looks SO AWESOME though dwejknbjsdvabef


Falco has a tummy ache


"I don't know how to render his bandana. OH WELL *clicks submit*"

that was me

"I don't know how to render his everything. OH WELL *clicks submit*"

that was ulti


people RAAAAGED over this Zidane pic cuz like apparently it wasn't good and KP didn't render it right? I don't see it... could have been brighter, though. Claptrap looks like ass but it was a good render.


SPEED LIIINES AND ANTI-ALIASING AND DROP SHADOW THAT'S TOO HEAVY *wooooo wiggly wigg*


god damn nkdfnkfvnqaevnf


WHY ARE THEY ALL SO AWFUhey this one is pretty good! I remember being upset at BACK PICS though. Why get upset? It's TASTEFUL.

--
~Zen

I dunno how the names on Squall/Seifer there are anti-aliasing. Like it's a text layer how could that even happen

--
~Zen

56: Squall/Seifer vs Sora/Riku

Pic 1


*sends pic to Zensgirlfriend*

Me: Is this good?
Her: Uhhh... is it yours?
Me: NO
Her: Oh, good, cuz it's not one of the better ones...

MEDIOCRITY is the name of the game today, I guess. There were some OK ones but as it dwindled down we're getting stuff like this, and it's like "I can crop some things to be the same size and add names but what is an outer stroke"

auuuugh my head is killing me and trying to read "Squall" and "Seifer" is not helping. Not to mention I'm pretty sure Riku is giving me bedroom eyes.

Overall: <( o )>/10

(it's an eyeball get it)

Pic 2


HAHAHAHA oh my god

oh man

what?

oh my god

these two must have been the only two submitted. they have to be. holy s***.

if you can't tell what's wrong with this then you haven't been keeping up

Overall: -2/10

I'm going to go reflect on former glory now, brb

--
~Zen

From: Surskit | #161
Overall: 6.5/10
Aw man, I thought it was at least better than my last one. ]: I was actually getting nice feedback this time, too!

It really isn't that bad, I just have to question some of the odd design choices.

Maybe more of a 7-7.5, I dunno, I'm sick and this medication is making my head hurt. I just can't get past the orange splats, it's so odd

--
~Zen

55: Cloud/Sephi vs Snake/Snake

Pic 1


HEY it's that one pic from the cover of TTS that I used in round 1 except I moved Snake over so it didn't look so awkward with Snake not being at Liquid's level. GUESS WHAT THIS PERSON DIDN'T DO!

GUESS WHAT THE PERSON WHO CROPPED THIS PIC DIDN'T DO!

...

GUESS WHAT THIS PERSON DIDN'T DO AT ALL!

work. Yeah, he cropped two pics, added a stylized "v." and some names with OK font and an outer glow and called it a day.

Christ, this year is bad for freeform. Props for using a tiny black stroke to separate the pics as opposed to bevel and emboss, which should probably be put on the backburner when the early rounds are done.

Overall: 4/10

Pic 2


AUUUUUUGHRBHKFBVAKFBV MY HEART

Overall: I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE/10

--
~Zen

I've come to the sad realization that this is all I'm ever going to be known for on Board 8. ZEN FOR BOARD 8 PRESIDENT 2012!

54: Alucard/Dracula vs Frog/Magus

Pic 1


Let me start by saying DAMN I never thought Alucard and Dracula would get far in a contest. We gotta nom Dracula next year!

Anyway, here is an OK pic. I guess Castlevania Judgement exists, so why not use it? I feel like if you were gonna go for that then you should take the dive and use ALL JUDGEMENT ART. With four pics it couldn't hurt, right? And we see the same bland stock Alucard/Dracula pics all the damn time. Why can't Konami give us more selection?! The pic is technically sound; I can tell that there are two people facing each other, but if you asked me to guess who they were and I hadn't heard of CV:J, I would just be like "durrr I dunno another crappy Dante reboot fighting a boss battle against a chess piece?"

Frog/Magus is more appealing, I think it catches the eye a lot more than the muted colors of the top pic (vibrance adjustment layers!!) and if the side pics were Frog and Magus looking a bit more determined (rather than Frog's stoic pouty face and Magus's TOTALLY TUBULAR DUDE face) then it would be a much stronger piece.

Overall: 6.75/10 (yeeeeah changin' the game)

Pic 2


Alright, it's the Stock Ulti compliation 2011! Get to see a round 2 Stock Ulti pic duke it out with a round 1 stock Ulti pic. Battle of the Gargantuans, this pic! I really feel like Ulti's round 2 stock pics worked better because they were like the same template vs the same template, and that sticking it against Frog and Magus against some incomprehensible background is a way to hurt it even more.

The top pic is where I'll concentrate my fire because the bottom pic is, well... You know what I'd say. The top though, like, is that Resident Evil movie font? I can't place it but it doesn't look Castlevania. Also, is that a beam Monster-Drac is firing out of his mouth, or the moon in the background? What are they standing on? What's up with Alucard's hair? And I think the border pic of Alucard has his face off center. Rule of thirds!



Always have the most eye catching part of your image in one of the intersecting areas! In this case it would have been Al's eyes. Don't underestimate the basic design principle! Every camera comes with a rule of thirds feature for a reason.

Overall: 3/10

Pic 3


Hmmm, I don't think throne Dracula should have been so centered. Again, rule of thirds, blah blah. They're the two focal points so if you RoT that s*** then you'd get them both slightly off the center. One at the top right intersecting point and one at the bottom left.

Also not getting the orange thing. I think they should have been muted a bit more because the first thing you see are two big Nickelodeon logos just WA-BAM in your face. The bookends of the CT pic are so muted that you can barely tell it's Glenn on the left. I like the middle part, though.

Overall: 6.5/10

Pic 4


ALUCARD VS DRACULA AND FROG VS MAGUS, NOW ON DIAMOND EDITION BLU-RAY AND DVD! HURRY AND PICK THEM UP TODAY BEFORE THEY GO BACK IN THE DISNEY VAULT AGAIN!

I don't get this pic

sprites in front of a vault

this isn't fallout 3

...but I can't argue that this is well designed technically and executed without any real flaws

it's so strange though

uhhhh 8/10? I'll probably change my mind after posting this

--
~Zen

I think it'd be better if you just left your comfort zone a bit more often. Just maybe for one or two pics, not all of them. Just... try something crazy. It may not get picked, people may not like it, but you'll have learned new techniques and stuff that will just make your pics better and better.

--
~Zen

Now when I'm done doing this incredible painful and tedious Photoshop final I'll talk about some old match pictures or something. Now you guys all play house or doctor or something fun like that

--
~Zen

There will be no fighting in here! It's a place of peace. Ulti, you're hardworking and make up for the general lack of enthusiasm for doing pics this contest. You should be commended, but you can't expect much praise if you produce pics the quality of today's Squall/Sora.

You guys shouldn't bash Ulti himself. The pic, fine, but no need for personal attacks. You're all good Picsmiths and we should function as some kinda of creepy cyborg Photoshop unit.

--
~Zen

2011 PICCY AWARDS


Overall Best

Overall Worst


Best of Round 1-2

Best of Round 3-4

Best of Round 5-6


Worst of Round 1-2

Worst of Round 3-4

Worst of Round 5-6


Most Visually Impressive

Most Technically Impressive

Laziest Pic

Best Individual Pic from Round 1-2 (just the half of the pic; not the full thing)

Zen's Personal Favorite Pic


Best New Picsmith

Best Returning Picsmith

Hardest Working Picsmith

Zen's Personal Favorite Picsmith

Best Supporting Picsmith



good? bad? less? more?

--
~Zen

words cannot describe

--
~Zen

buuump

--
~Zen

Also, it astounds me how little people know about Photoshop at my school. I was helping this kid (junior, like me) with his Flash final, and he was doing a website about Shigeru Miyamoto because he's a huge nerd like everyone at my school is, and he couldn't figure out how to get his icons to have a transparent background and have the same size. This is a liberal arts college, every computer has Photoshop, we're constantly taking Photoshop classes and he still doesn't know what a PNG file is or how to render something.

This astounds me. I usually don't ride the Zen High Horse but I was really distressed by this as it's a COMMON PROBLEM at my school. How do people not know some of this stuff by now? I took the same classes as them and the teachers covered it, so there shouldn't be any excuse!

So Picsmiths, consider yourselves lucky you know what a magic eraser is!

--
~Zen

53: Link/Ganondorf vs Mega Man/Wily

Pic 1


Hey, it's generation 2 of the Stock Ulti. I'm not digging the Link/Ganondorf pic, it's just some Brawl renders book-ending some TP renders. I was gonna give it an A for finally being consistent, but he used Art Link and Model Ganondorf. Close enough, I guess? Giant TP characters standing on top of a Zelda themed stage (thankfully not like Final Destination or anything) at an odd angle. It looks like Link is jumping off the side and Ganondorf is kinda leaning over the side to get a better look. I'm pretty sure the side pics are just crops, too, as all the Brawl renders had a default blue gradient background.

Mega Man/Wily is better. It's just... better. More consistent. Alright choice of art. Alright job with the names. Very... alright.

Overall: 4.5/10


Pic 2


You know how pictures that have been passed around the internet since 2001 have slowly lost their quality because they were saved as early-format JPEGs with high quality loss every time it was reposted? Yeah, that's the kinda quality I'm seeing on sections of this picture. Render quality, people! It can turn a great pic into a good pic and a good pic into a meh pic and a meh pic into a bad pic. Also, Link looks pretty poorly resized, which is a shame. I know that art is readily available all over because it leaked from Nintendo's press site last E3 and it was like 4000 pixels by 6000 or something ridiculous like that, all saved as a PNG and everything.

Well the background and names are cool, everyone is all dynamic, and the outer glow kinda works because they're IN SPAAAACE and it's got that lightness behind the names that's similar in style. It could have been real damn good, but I can't get over some of that render quality. Maybe I'm just a stickler after all these years.

Overall: 6.5/10

--
~Zen

Will rate later

--
~Zen

It's alright but why Orange?

--
~Zen

oh wow i forgot the female contest was so damn far back.

what a joke that was

good pic though

--
~Zen

it looks like Bacon's hat continues to the left. there's not much I can say about a lot of these now, they're all very bleh.



ugly TF2 one, what was I thinking? never try to cram that much in there.



too many Master Chief effects. also ugly Mass Effect pic, what was I thinking with the orange?



NINJA *scribbles*. A bunch of title screens is so boring. How did we get all excited for these pics back then?



BLUR FIGHTER II



...why green



black man getting kicked into acid. I remember Koolaid having something witty to say



KP again submitted matching pics for the two Pokemons. Two sets of matching pics; one that was rival battles, and one that was choosing a starter. WHAT DO YOU THINK BACON DECIDED TO DO HMMMMMM



There's that Vivi pic that KP loved so much, ironically not in a character battle at all! and wtf is going on in that SC pic? I guess it was trying to embody never being able to tell what's going on in a SC match in general. And Nintendogirl pointed it out already but her making that OoT pic caused a flood of people asking how to get the Triforce AGAIN so many years later.



SNAKE OFFERS YOU A CIGARETTE



if you look closely it says "Zen" and "KP" in there. If I actually knew how to blend this wouldn't look like ass



soooo good



I bet KP found out how much Squall weighs by asking Leon, who has a textbook knowledge of how much Squall weighs throughout FFVIII. Did you know he was a half pound lighter during the ballroom scene?



I like how this one doesn't depend on the characters like all the others



wow mine are the highlight cuz they're just so awful



an ugly solution to blending the logos, or a genius one?

(ugly)



yup



this was a popular style. Every match had several of these types of pics submitted. It was a fad, I think.



what the hell is this



ha ha oh man this is great. is this where the NidoranF idea came from?



MINIGAMES is a great idea. We need more thinking like this even if the end result was eh

--
~Zen

people said that the slogan (from ARMY OF DARKNESS) gave Snake an unfair advantage. Maybe? I think he was winning anyway...



this is strange. just cuz girls on facebook turn their photos black and white doesn't mean you should!



what an odd center. poor SMB3 gets all blended in!



this was a joke pic I submitted where I was like "Bacon will choose ANYTHING" and he actually chose it. The laziest pic of ALL TIME.



Hey, Seymour was in a pic before this concert! AND HE STILL LOOKED LIKE ASS!



...This looks familiar.



I told you it was a fad! A really bad one.



good idea, not sure about the execution... reminds me of those Legend of Chun Li posters everyone was making fun of



look ma I can use paint

we were doing so well, too. this one is def one of the worst.



AAAART people hated this at the time, and I don't know why. I did it by deleting a color channel. I think red? I think it looks cool. You really don't need that clear of a pic for the last round, just something that looks cool.



lol so bad. People liked this more than the one above, wtf? I got the guitar upside down by accident, too


That's it for Best Game Ever 2! Good times... I think we really outdid ourselves in the next contest, though.

--
~Zen

SCREW IT IT'S BEST GAME EVER 09 TIME



first match pic AND IT HAS MIKE TYSON also what the hell is that Space Invaders official art? Those don't look anything like the in-game aliens. the atari era was so strange.



people got SO UPSET that Mega Man got ugly box art. Well... yeah, it's Mega Man. What do you think he's gonna get? And ironically, Mega Man 9 got bad box art and people cheered.



samus u ugly. also why have a crappy contra pic like that when you can have BIG BEEFY ARNOLD AND STALLONE



I made that III in the Castlevania III logo myself and was SO PROUD cuz I used gradient overlay. Like whoa breaking out the new technology.



I don't really get that Tecmo Super Bowl pic but everyone went nuts for it. I guess it's a cult following type of thing? Also wtf SimCityTV



THIS was goddamn hilarious. Someone was making a Crystalis pic and it was their first and they were like "how do I make the logo stand out" and INSTANTLY three people posted at the same time "outer glow." Nowadays you'd get shot (by me) if you said that, but he then posted a new version with SO MUCH OUTER GLOW that it took up the entire upper half of the pic. We had to teach him how to use it properly.

also dat barf



"do me in the butt" DK. what the hell? Also we were trying to get THE ROCK in the Doom pic but Bacon wouldn't have it.



the first time I used a clipping mask (maybe?). I made it so that Link from the opening was INSIDE THE WINDFISH MOUNTAIN. ART. Nobody noticed but me and nobody cared when I went screaming through the stats topic naked shouting "LINK IS INSIDE THE MOUNTAAAAAIN". Also Phantasy Star could have used a better everything, and wtf is with the big moogle



people complained that Baraka, Johnny Cage and Kung Lao were too obscure, but honestly this is probably the only time they'll ever be on the front page. Give the guys the spotlight! When you're a picsmith you gotta look past the obvious sometimes



It says PRESS Z OR R TWICE in the Star Fox pic but honestly I have no idea what's even going on in there



WVI flipped out because Marx gives him nightmares

which is why I made this pic in the first place



KP made this pic theme that you see in the center two, and also made a Crono Trigger version and maybe a Yoshi version. But because Bacon can't give someone a whole four part pic we missed out and now it looks wrong. Thanks, Bacon. Better pics > Fairness



WORST ZELDA PIC I EVER MADE. Literally can't even LOOK at it. I had to open this up really quick, copy link location and switch over to this tab because AAAUGHGSHVBD



"why is the morrowind logo sideways waaaaah"



UGLY GTAIII FONT AAAARGHSFKVBD



too many effects on oblivion guy

--
~Zen

this wasn't even Zach, just someone in a similar costume with a similar sword. Also I need to give a lesson on the transform/warp tool sometime or something



THIS IS BADASS and I think I could do it if given the time but it'd be difficult. I randomly thought about this pic about a month ago, which shows how much it made an impression on me I guess.



This isn't the best pic but I love the idea. I tried something similar with tophats but it was too much.



people seemed to like this at the time but I don't know why they weren't tearing it up for "not being able to see them" and stuff.



weird



action figure dante



PICTURE QUALITYYYYY

also I remember the guy who did this IMing me to ask me if it was a bad idea to put Viewtiful Dante in a pic. My response?

hell no



SOOOO GOOD good job KP. I remember people whining that they were all player 1 but who cares



this one also made an impact on me and I don't know why. It looks overly complicated but it really isn't.



the board was so divided over this one; a lot of people still cite it as one of the worst but I don't think it's all that awful.



I'm so proud of this one and I don't know why. It's the cover for the gallery on the match pic site and loads of people loved it and looked at it and stuff. It's nothing special but it's really important to me for some reason.


That's it for CB7! I'll do some more sometime soon when I'm procrastinating again.

--
~Zen

People spazzed out cuz they couldn't read the Y in Ryu's name and claimed it was like R4U or something. It was just super stylized font. I think it was some unofficial SFIV font, even! Did the name being legible even matter?



MORE BLUE TEAM PICS oh my god the "just heads" thing is so dumb. Look how dumb Tidus looks. Also his hair is rendered poorly.



KP had this amazing Vivi pic he tried so hard to get accepted and that garbage got in instead. omg bacon. also I think Ryu might be fanart?



"lol"



SUB-ZERO IS A BADASS. SANDBAG NEEDS TO LEARN WHAT A GRADIENT IS.



My first freeform pic ever and it's AWFUL. Well not awful but it wasn't very good. I didn't know how to blend things right back then. Also, Altair's font is from Army of Darkness.



"lol"



"lol"



God Liquid looks so awful in every pic he's ever been in ever.



holy jesus look it's the precursor to my Pokemon pic. I was like OH MAN BEATLES TRIBUTE but nobody got it and was just all "I CAN'T SEE IT WAAAAAH." I remember how hard it was for me to achieve this effect back then and being so proud, but now I could probably do it in like 10 minutes.



what the hell was I thinking



incredible



"HA HA I'll put 13.37 as the frequency I'm so cool"

I was so not cool



This is so strange. I THINK I know how it was done but I'll be damned if I can replicate it.



I always wondered how Aga did this. I asked him on AIM if he was gonna make pics and he said "oh I forgot about that" and posted this literally an hour later. How the HELL did he do this so fast and how did he do it in general??



ha ha oh man look at that outer glow. I am such a goddamn idiot



infamous "mewtwo staring at cloud's crotch anxiously" pic. I can't get enough of this. What were they thinking?!



...why team fortress 2



I forget whose this was but they IMed me saying OH MAN I'M GONNA MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THEY'RE SKETCHED ONTO PAPER like this was an original idea that hadn't been done like 5 times already



"what" was the reaction everyone had to this pic. Another Aga mystery. He was truly the best; he had that spinoff GameFAQs site that had their own character battle and he made all the match pics, and they were INCREDIBLE. Unfortunately, he lost them all :( I wish I could find them somewhere...

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~Zen

I was posting mistakes in any pic that I remembered

I don't think anyone has left a mouse cursor in a pic before, though. we should do that sometime

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~Zen

ZEN POSTS SOME RANDOM PICS AND COMMENTS ON THEM because he likes to procrastinaaaaate



Remember this one? A great Wander pic was submitted but it was TOO CLOSE TO HIS FACE so Bacon opted to use this piece of garbage and wouldn't change it. Seriously characters with 0 chance of getting out of Round 1 should looser pic limitations.



Like five people submitted that exact generic Big Daddy pic and they all claimed it was theirs. I forget whose it was in the end, but does it matter? It's probably the most unoriginal pic you could make... Hence why like five people submitted it.



People threatened to kill me over the internet for this one. Judgment Alucard was JUST released like a week before this and when the pic went up people were like WHY IS LIGHT FROM DEATH NOTE IN ALUCARD'S PLACE? ZEEEEEN! (This was actual sabotage as I wanted Captain Falcon to win).



#1 character to get cropped pics every time: ARTHAS. The guy is always behind a stupid snowstorm or something and nobody wants to render it so Albion just takes some crappy pic and crops it in paint and Bacon accepts it.





God, if this format ever happens again WE HAVE TO COORDINATE BACKGROUND GRADIENTS. We had all these pics where 3 characters would have blue gradients and one would have red or something and it looked dumb. Or we should just make a rule that every pic should have like 2 variants with different colored gradients or something. Always submit a variation, folks. It doesn't take much longer and it could increase your chance and just make the pic look better.



Again, LET US SUBMIT FACE PICS.



I remember I submitted a picture of Jinjo upside-down and everyone loved it, then JUSTIN IMMEDIATELY WENT "HEY THAT'S COOL" AND DID THE SAME EXACT THING. People really tore into him; he was like the dumb new kid back then. Now he's rolling high with the big boys.



hahaha oh man we later found out that the pic isn't even of MacMillan, it was from some gun enthusiast magazine and it was just some guy showing off a product. Goddamn what a disaster. Not to mention his was like vomit green against three blue badasses (or at least as badass as Riku gets)



Sandbag staring at Magus' codpiece



Subby staring at Rydia's boobies. Also Auron is fanart, lawl.



jesus christ I forgot about nana. Look how centered she and Ratchet were. You gotta plan for the names, dammit!



ACTION FIGURE KRATOS



my first attempt at making Pokemon font. What a goddamn failure. Also Bacon wasn't kidding when he said he wanted face shots. Look at the Duke there holy hell.



liquid looks like liquid poop



protip: if a character spends like 98% of his time wearing a mask, do NOT use art of him maskless for your pic. Thank you.

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~Zen

FAMOUS MATCH PIC BLUNDERS:



Do you see it? It's a stray Battletoad sprite! I forgot to delete the layer when I decided not to use it. Bacon didn't notice, I guess?



LOOK AT THAT Mario's finger is yellow!!! THE MADNESS!


I'll post more if I think of any.

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~Zen

it's kinda washed out

also when I used Judgment Alucard that one time people lost their s***

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~Zen

Wow I missed that too. How does that even happen??

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~Zen

You just gotta make the crappy sprites stand out as much as you can, then. :(

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~Zen

I have no idea what's going on in the middle of that Dracula/Alucard pic. I think you need a different background or something?

Maybe just take the scene with Richter and Dracula and just put Alucard over Richter. Not sure if that'd piss off Castlevania fans, though...

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~Zen

52: Samus/Ridley vs Boss/Boss


OH LAWDY LAWDY DID NOBODY SUBMIT A USABLE PIC BUT THIS ONE?

What the hell is this? What is with the empty space between Samus and Ridley? Why such an ugly Samus costume? Why is she all COME AT ME BRO? Why is Ridley going "ewwwwww?" Why is the Boss pic just a lazy crop with no adjustments? Why a random 8 bit font for the Metroid guys? So many questions...

Overall: 2/10ish

everyone focusing on making Trainers/Fighters pics really hit this one hard, huh?

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~Zen

No new pics yet? Huh...

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~Zen

yeah it isn't a bad pic, I just don't think it fits that well

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~Zen

night time bump

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~Zen

WHY IS MARIO ALWAYS OFFERING HIS COMPETITION SHELLS

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~Zen

Pic 4


I have mixed feelings about this one. Surskit IMed me earlier today asking me for "emergency pic help" because apparently his stopped breathing and keeled over a few hours ago. He wanted me to help revive it, and the state it was in was pretty bad. There were like random pictures of them everywhere, and I told him to cut it down and I think he did a pretty good job.

It used to be that there were these unnecessary pics of the fighters that caught your eye and wouldn't let go as the Pokemon image was primarily muted, chalky Game Boy Color colors, but he tried his hardest to balance it out and made some great changes. I'm not sure if I can objectively judge this one because I've seen the original and this one is better by leaps and bounds. It's by no means perfect, or anywhere better than "pretty good," but I think it has a lot of heart and good ambition and Surskit's efforts should be applauded.

I think we all should be applauded. It's a shame when someone submits something they worked hard on and the Board pukes all over it. Granted, there are some that really deserve it, but this one is not NEARLY as bad as people are making it out to be.

All that said, there are some really questionable design choices here. Number one is the guy cheering between the portraits of Ken and Ryu. He just looks out of place, and in the version I saw that section of the pic was at the bottom, but now that it's at the top the guy is just like a floating torso. This should have been removed, I think.

Also another weird bromance pic between the two fighters, which wasn't in there last I saw it either. I saw people shouting "SABOTAGE" which is almost never the case with most pics, and definitely isn't the case here. I think we're at the stage in the contest where the rivalries should be portrayed as heated and badass and stuff, cuz nobody wants to vote for bromance for some reason.

And I don't think it's bad design but I find it weird that Charizard and Blastoise are like peering over a balcony and spying on Red and Blue, like they've got a nasty plan and in the next room is Professor Oak lying stark naked on a bed with a bunch of Jynx surrounding him. Or maybe they're about to turn around and address the audience. 'Well kids, this sure is getting hairy! Find out what happens after these commercial messages!" Again, I'm not entirely sure if this is a BAD design choice, as it doesn't blend in or dominate the focus of the image, it's just... very odd.

Overall: 6.5/10

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~Zen

51: Trainers vs Fighters


So Bacon chooses four pics for probably the most debated match of the contest. Did he choose well? Let's see...


Pic 1


I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this pic. This is excellent, and minus a few minor gripes (like Red stepping on Blue's E making it look like Bluc) it's what a match pic for a match this big should LOOK LIKE.

It's got old, it's got new, it embodies the legacy without being all showy or artsy, and it just screams LOOK AT ME! I'M INCREDIBLE. I usually don't give callouts to people who made the pics (other than stock Ulti pics) but damn, Blue_Target, you outdid yourself. Really digging it.

Overall: 9/10 (for minor blending issues but I don't really care that much)


Pic 2


Also a very good pic! It keeps it pretty basic and pretty balanced. I think I would have used a white stroke instead of a white glow for the names of the trainers, just because I think that whole image should be blocky rather than... glowy. I think the glow on the fighter's names could have used a bit of work too, but overall the pic is very nice and clean and does a great job.

Overall: 8/10


Pic 3


Holy explosion of colors, Pic-Man! My eye instantly snaps to the strange Hadoken Ken is firing. What was that? It looks like he failed to take off. It's like the energy just went "splooooooch" and like went everywhere and Ryu was about to do a Shoryuken but was like "wait ken what the hell was that" and Ken is just trying to pass it off as some cool new technique like Hercule from Dragon Ball or something. Not to mention I'm pretty sure it's a crop.

Then you get to the top and it's outer glow city! I thought Gary's fingers were Venusaur's leaves for a bit there. I dunno why. But yeah, it's like a giant colorgasm, it doesn't have much going on but at the same time it's very loud. I think Venusaur should have been cut out because nobody cares about him much, and that it should have just been like Blastoise and Charizard's upper bodies/heads faded into that cool elemental background.

A bit simpler and cleaner. Also what is Red even looking at? *goes to main page* Oh he's just checking out the latest cheats for "Kidou Senshi Gundam: Extreme VS." That's something to get excited about, I guess!

Overall: 4/10

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~Zen

It's alright. Will post reactions when I'm done working on this thing

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~Zen

OH SNAP HE DIDNT PICK MINE OR YO'S

I guess that makes sense, we did cram extra characters in there

lol pokefear time, let's rock

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~Zen

I'm pretty sure that's UDON art. They do the SF/Darkstalker comics and the SFIITurboHDRemix graphics so I'm pretty sure their art is eligible so Bacon CANT SAY NO

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~Zen

Hey Surskit I was in the shower, but good job with that match picture. I think the added purple makes the eye trail to the SF side a lot less.

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~Zen

liquify tool, use bloat and click and hold til satisfied cup size

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~Zen