Lurker > Agent M

Bump because I want to read the rest of this

How did I end up on the leaderboard after I lost a 90% bet lol.

Looks like I'm too average to qualify for either top honours or contest turkeys! Too bad, because I managed to get all 12 of my submissions accepted, if only for the fact that barely anybody was submitting anything! Won't happen in any other contest.

But really, the Chrono Trigger/Vampires one was awful with the metal background. So was Ninjas/MMX with those fascinating red/blue corners and blurry characters.

Um, seems like that 9th picture was taken down or something?

Link/Ganondorf with 40.5%

Mario/Bowser with 15%

Edit: (FINALS)

Yeah I wasn't sure if I'd be able to follow through on it because you need such specific types of pictures. I mean really, where are you going to find Ganondorf dancing?

MMX and Zero have a decent amount of art so it's a bit easier.

Well uh, this my attempt at being humourous and slightly more creative than usual.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/finalmatchversion2.png/

Ganondorf in the koopa clown car is beyond amazing.

MAX on Mario/Bowser > 36%

Man, I really thought the FF7 duo had a decent shot to make it close. What an abysmal showing. I never considered that I might make it onto the leaderboard by simply NOT betting!

MAX on the trainers > 46%

So, this is me trying to be all cute and artsy with a no-text picture. I basically never do this, so be kind to me!

The idea is that these characters have already been "defeated", so now they are ghostly figures in a dream-like world with some old photos slapped on to enforce the theme. This also gives me an excuse to use outer glow and transparency again.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/543/bonusmatch.png/

Does it work without text? Is the background too overwhelming? Are you thinking "the rest of cloud's body should be there if it's supposed to be a photo?"

Cloud Strife vs. Sephiroth with 56.5%

Link vs. Ganondorf with 61.5%

Yeah the magic wand thing sucks for hair and anything that's the same colour as the background. Like Mario's gloves on a white background.

In the FF7/FF8 picture I made, I gave Sephiroth a haircut but I guess nobody noticed haha. I'll usually manually erase all the pixels around something tricky like that. Swords are usually pretty easy to erase around because they're straight.

Again with the tiny pics having bad quality! I don't know how that happens. What program are you using, Picsmith? Tiny Skyward Sword Link looks really good when he's tiny, though.

Paint Shop Pro X2, which I don't think is as comprehensive as photoshop, but it's probably a lot easier to use and works fine for making pictures like this. However, the more a picture has to be shrunk, the worse it ends up looking. Sharpen works sometimes if it's blurry but the tiny pics I used were hard to make look any better.

90% on Cloud/Sephiroth

Hey those metroid/pokemon pictures didn't get rated did they.



Despite the fact that you purposely crammed everything in here that you could, it actually kinda works. That Link text is totally camouflaged though haha.

I can barely see Link in that Christmas one.

I churned out another formulaic picture for the clash of the titans:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/semifinal2.png/

Basically all of my pics feature questionable image quality and random backgrounds, btw.

Mario vs. Bowser with 70.5%
Red vs. Blue with 7.5%

Link vs. Ganondorf with 60%
Cloud vs. Sephiroth with 27.5%

Mario vs. Bowser with 54.5%

Link vs. Ganondorf with with 52.75%

I like the idea, the text is a little hard to read (even though it's supposed to be that way).

It's biased towards Mario/Bowser with the castle theme, and Mario/Bowser probably have to be switched to be in the right order.

I'm no good with joke or themed pics, so I whipped up some standard fare like I usually do...

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/semifinal1.png/

In #6 is that an action figure Seifer.

Also, Pokemon Trainer Blue has almost nothing for artwork. Even Alucard has way more than this.

8.7/10

The tribal saving was pretty bad, but I love a good sci-fi atmosphere. I remember this game having a cool soundtrack.

75% on Cloud/Sephiroth > 72.5%

Good approach here! I like seeing something different. I think that it needs to be more consistent on what you focus on; the bubble or the background. Good choice of pics, good execution. Overall: 8.5/10

It sounds silly, but I think the picture looked weird when I covered up the background faces with the bubbles. I wanted both visible, but I know what you mean about the bubbles being too off centre.

Anyways, this next picture took more work than the others so far. Cloud and Seifer look kind of crappy but I needed those poses to get the right effect here.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/ff7ff8.png/

Hey I used some different pics!

Small Alucard is from....dawn of sorrow or something
Small Dracula is from Dracula X Chronicles

I know I used the SotN art for the billionth time as the background, but most of his other variations look REALLY different, so I was unsure if it was acceptable to use.

50% on Link/Ganondorf > 75%

Link Vs. Ganondorf with 75%

Cloud Vs. Sephiroth with 75%

Well this is all official art so should be fine - I kind of recycled the style here just because it was generally well received.

The small mug shots are kind of random and don't match too well.... might change some of them if I have time.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/85/linkdorfdraculalucard.png/

Ok cool. Dracula must have to be restricted to games where he fights Alucard (why else would the same pic be literally used over and over....)?

Ok I need help again.

Alucard seems to have quite a bit of art from games other than SotN. Is any of this fair game? For some reason he has black hair in these, I don't know the storyline so yeah....

For example, is this useable?

Mario VS Bowser with 81.5%

Pokemon Trainers with 21.25%
Samus Aran/Ridley with 33.33%

Link/Ganondorf with 84.5%

Cloud/Sephiroth with 70.15%

Pic 3


Bowser looks fine but the other three look kinda blurry. What happened there? Anyway, this is a pretty cool pic. I like the heavy shadows, it makes it pretty stylized; you usually don't see much drop shadow on sprites. I like the multicolored boxes behind the portraits (ALSO BOWER'S PORTRAIT BORDER LOOKS DIFFERENT AND IT BOTHERS ME) and the layout is nice and the pics in the center are dynamic. It looks like there's a spot for names but it was abandoned, which is fine. Also using a white color overlay to fade the middle backgrounds is pretty classic; KP and I used to do that all the time. Good times, man.

Overall: 8/10

I was planning to get some better artwork but then I didn't have time.... meh..

I don't know what happened to Bowser's border but it wouldn't go away, it was really odd.

I abuse transparent backgrounds almost as much as outer glow, but it usually helps to contrast with the main artwork.

I thought Mario's background was biased because it's instantly recognizable, whereas the other background is a center square image on the level select in Mega Man X :/

I'll take an 8 though, I basically improvise everything with no technical skill whatsoever!

Ok, thanks a lot for helping me out there. I added the link just in case.

Here's the picture anyways.... http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/707/trainersmetroid.png/

No confusing "VS" this time.

Ridley is kind of awkward when it comes to mug shots.

Can anyone tell me if this art is official? I've never played Pokemon, so I kind of have a hard time knowing what art I can use.

$2000 on Samus/Ridley > 40%

Heh, looks like the text in my picture was edited out before being used. I've tried the non-text route and it always feels like it's missing something. But I think it looks good without text too.

$1000 on Squall/Seifer > 57%

It's awesome but it doesn't really show the proper rivalries so.... the fire and ice one with MMX/Zero/Sub/Scorp didn't get accepted.

Here's my rough copy for Mario/Bowser/MMX/Zero. I'm wondering if the VS in the middle makes it look like heroes vs villains....

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/860/mariobowsermmxzero.png/

Wow, I'm on the leaderboard with only 11k? Well then. Guess I need to start betting really wisely from now on.

Yeah I figured portrait art was going to return... and I remembered a comment about someone wanting CT sprites the focus, so I went for that.

This has to be the worst contest for pics... geez, next round the exact same Solid/Liquid pic was used for both pics! And that was used already in round 1!

When I first started making pics I took it as a challenge to make something good enough to be displayed on the front page of gamefaqs. And if I did get one accepted it was a huge deal and made me really happy. I mean, I basically just went into the photo editor with minimal knowledge of how to use it and messed around until I figured some of it out.

The first picture I created for a contest was this one - http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=7&pos=30

I spent a lot of time on that (even though it's just a bunch of cropped pictures on a background). Cloud looks anorexic. Random fact: It's also 1 of 2 pics where Agahnim makes an appearance.
.
Now, the pool is so dry that any usable pic will be accepted. But at least I won't waste hours of time for nothing now, haha.

Squall Leonhart vs. Seifer Almasy with 60.5%

Mario vs. Bowser with 69.25%

Pokemon Trainer Red vs. Pokemon Trainer Blue with 56.5%

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

That's hilarious that your first impression was 8/10. I thought it was so random/bad it wouldn't get chosen. I mean, a lot of my pictures are styled in ways/have backgrounds that have nothing to do with the characters - see Link/Dorf/MM/Wily on some planet and MMX/Zero/Sub/Scorp in a desert. But it still seemed too random. I just hated how all 4 of these characters basically have a single mug shot each - same pictures repeated every round is boring. I've been kinda lazy though because I don't have enough free time to put a lot of effort in.

I forgot that weekend pictures have to be submitted in advance, but I didn't have time anyways to make 3 pics in one night. :/

33% on Alucard vs Dracula > 53%

Hey, you didn't point out that Ganondorf only has one foot!

I forgot to try and fix it/hide it behind Link. His hand and elbow got chopped off too, tried to fix those best I could.

Yeah, I was lazy and used that crappy quality Dr. Wily because I wasn't getting any other versions of that pose on google search.

CHANGE

Link/Ganondorf with 72.15%

$1000 on Link/Ganondorf > 74%

I usually submit pics in the final rounds, but since there's such a drought right now I figure I'll try and make a bunch for the rest of round 3.

Oh, and here's what I submitted for the next match.



I was debating making it without any text for a change, but it always feels too simple/empty...

Edit: Maybe I should make Mega Man face the other way? It looks like he's attacking Link, so there's not much to indicate a rivalry. when flipped, the heroes are positioned similar, much like the villains in the background.

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

That's probably one of the ugliest pics I've ever made. I went for villains just to get some different characters in a match pic. Too bad Seymour has barely any art and his hair is a nightmare to work around.

That's not even the worst part about making that pic though. Getting a picture of Tabuu was.

I also should have given up on the logos, the FFX one makes my eyes bleed.

For some reason a lot of my bad pics were accepted and a lot of the better quality pictures were denied. Although some of them had obvious action figures :/

Here's a picture that didn't get used, same style, not nearly as ugly (well the black and white corners are ugly).



But now I'm looking at Solid Snake..... looks kind of like an action figure, did I even know? I don't remember!

I just wanted to say that I REALLY wanted to put more work into that picture I submitted. I wanted to at least put close ups in the corners or something. I browsed through the other topic and didn't notice anyone showing off pictures for that match (maybe I was blind?), so I tried to put something together in a couple hours. I've always had a problem with shrinking large images and making them look not terrible. I haven't used the photo editor in quite awhile, couldn't even remember how I cut out angled sections of pictures to put in the corner anyways.

I also submitted a number of pictures in previous contests using the same style - I don't think anyone else used it before? Just in response to the "style" comment in the last topic.

6.5 is generous to be honest, it's not among my best efforts that's for sure. I'd say like a 3/10.