Sprite Theme Contest v.3

[Sonic Boom]

Damn thought i maybe can get under the first 3 this time but this doesnt sound good :/
Anyway thank you very much for these tipps

Dude you maybe become 2nd in the people's choice award!
Cheer Up!
U did a really good job!

@snorsbet
Yeah I was wondering those things and I will improve myself for the next entry!!!
Thanks for telling me my mistakes!

[Apocalipsis]

I haven't read Snor's critics yet because I don't want to agree with him mindlessly :p

My opinion on each entry:

Prince Freeza (Click to View)

Execution: (9/10)
Proportions are correct, except maybe for his left arm wich is kinda large in comparison with his right one.
Shading is very consistent.
Pose has some really minor flaws: grip of the kunai (?) on his left hand and his right foot. Both have akward angles.
Design: (8/10)
Concept is not really original, but it works to me, the ninja guy with the ninja dog :p
Fashion on the other side is kind of complex, and there's some interesting details as the sheat on his back and dog's scarf.
Palette could be better, in my opinion. The character itself is ok, it blends nicely. But if you add the companion, there's just too many colors and both individuals don't fit together (different variations of brown + grey + red is too much).

Basically, a nice sprite in every aspect, as usual.

Me'n'Mine (Click to View)

Execution: (7/10)
There are some proportions problems there: torso is too thick/big and limbs are pretty thin/small. Head is ok.
The main char's shading is ok, you used some good combinations of sharp and smooth shapes wich gives a feeling of tight leather clothes that fit the char. The arms' shading needs higher contrast, though (like in his neck). Companion's shading, on the other hand, is bad: it's just too blurry.
Pose is ok, nothing special here.
Design: (8/10)
I really dig the concept. You did something sci-fi wich is not really a common thing in these days. The companion is kind of rushed, so that kind of lowers the final result significantly.
Fashion is good, nothing too complex but it's attractive.
Palette could have been better without the eyes-killing-green, maybe a darker green could fit better with the rest of the char's clothes. Still, black and green was a good decision.

Regardless the noticeable flaws wich lower the raw rating, you really impressed me with this one. Better than your usual works.

Whaat (Click to View)

Execution: (9/10)
Proportions are consistent.
Shading in general is good, though I suggest you to use more contrast almost in every part of the sprite except the jeans, it will give your sprites more impact on the viewer. Also, Vulture's shading is messy.
Regarding pose, the most important thing is that you made the two character interact, that gives you many extra points. Main char's legs could be better though.
Design: (7/10)
The concept makes me think he is a char who lives in a mountain/desert and control the vulture to attack. That's original.
Fashion is kind of contradictory. The head's accesories are quite unusual but his clothes are quite common. Also, they are very simple, so I don't know why you used such a big size for the sprite.
Palette has the same problem that Prince Freeza's sprite, in my opinion: too many different colors. It's less noticeable in this one, but still.

Gotta say that before the judging I didn't think I was gonna give you such high ranks, and now I think it's because your palette lacks emotion, and it hides the rest of your abilities.

Sonic Boom (Click to View)

Execution: (6/10)
Proportions seem to be right at some points and weird at other points, it's not really good but not that bad either.
Shading is also inconsistent, sometimes it's really sharp and sometimes it's quite blurry.
Pose is ok except for the fact that both right (their right) feet are badly positioned, they should be pointing at the viewer.
Design: (6/10)
The concept is really poor, because I can't disguise who is the main character and who is the companion, it's more like a pair of individual fighters who wear really seemed clothes, and not a team.
Fashion is not bad, but not really great either.
Color palette is courageous (I like that) and you didn't used very bright colors. As whole entry has two colors everything looks ok together.

You may get discouraged because of the ratings, but you're just starting as spriter, and this is a good start. Just try to get more consistent about proportions and shading, and you'll get better in no time.

Reaper (Click to View)

Execution: (8/10)
Proportions are really good.
Shading is sharp and nice.
Pose is really weird. I mean, the main character looks like he's standing stilll, but the guy's in mid air. Imo, both main char and phoenix are really rigid, and they fail at doing what you wanted them to do. A more dynamic pose could have meant a ten at execution.
Design: (7/10)
Concept is not really original, and there's hardly any distinctive in it.
Fashion is really common, doesn't make me think of a Phoenix Tamer or something. With some china outfit the char could have been really great.
Palette is good, everything blends together because you mostly used black + white + green red.

It's a good sprite but it lacks emotion... a more dynamic pose and interaction between main character and companion. Or if that's too much, then a more distinctive outfit for the main char.

Alectric (Click to View)

Execution: (7/10)
Proportions are correct I guess... except there's this thing with the legs you always do (you make them shorter), but I guess it's part of your style already.
Shading is sharp in clothes and misc thingies but surprisingly lacking detail in her skin. There's also something I would like to say here: your girl's faces hardly have any difference from your male sprites' faces, in my eyes. It's a hard thing to do at normal size but at double size you should be able to do it without problems... in my opinion you have to work on that. Also she doesn't seem to have any emotion.
Pose is ok.
Design: (8/10)
Concept is interesting, seems like a teenage witch apprentice with the black cat and such.
Fashion is kind of weird, combining those sport shoes with ancient magical staffs and capes just doesn't work in my opinion.
Color palette is good with predominant white and blackish purple.

With some minor fixings you could have won this easily, like putting the cat over her somehow, or making a more attractive face. It's a shame that the flaws makes it have such low ranks, I think you were hoping for more.

DesignHeaven (Click to View)

Execution: (8/10)
Proportions of the wolf are ok, the human has short legs.
Shading seems to lack a light source for the human. It's pretty detailed but messy at the same time, making everything a tad confusing at first glance.
Even though the position could have been better, you took the risk and made him mount the wolf, and like I said before, interacting gives you extra points in my judging.
Design: (6/10)
Not really original... I mean, Betitngoan did something like this once, too.
Fashion is really lacking here, wolf could have got some armour, for example.
Color palette has just two main colors so no problems there.

You had an unoriginal idea, and failed doing something that is kind of hard, but I have to recognize you tried to do it and that's good. I'm talking about the pet riding, btw.

Mundvoll_ (Click to View)

Execution: (9/10)
Proportions are really nice.
Shading is simple yet very clear and pleasant in my eyes.
Position is ok, nothing very special.
Design: (6/10)
I think I heard she's an already created char? Anyways you sprited a kid in LF2 and that's hard to do. Scratch that because of double size.
Cannot say much about design if it's an already created character :/

Nice realization of a nice character, but the design is not yours and it wasn't neccesary to sprite at double size.

Just a final thought: Why do you guys always do bigger resolution sprites? It's starting to bug me. Out of eight entries five are done at double size.
I know, it's easier to do sprites like that and probably funnier, but you skip the hard decision of choosing the details that will remain and wich details you have to erase to sprite everything in the LF2 standart. This hard decision also is a great pointer to tell if a sprite is good or if it isn't. This time I didn't care too much for this in the ranking, but looking back at it, I think it was a mistake...

Anyways, gonna PM Snor to decide the winners now.

[snorsorbet]

Just a final thought: Why do you guys always do bigger resolution sprites? It's starting to bug me. Out of eight entries five are done at double size.
I know, it's easier to do sprites like that and probably funnier, but you skip the hard decision of choosing the details that will remain and wich details you have to erase to sprite everything in the LF2 standart. This hard decision also is a great pointer to tell if a sprite is good or if it isn't. This time I didn't care too much for this in the ranking, but looking back at it, I think it was a mistake...

This!!! A million times, this!



Anyway, time for winner-announcing time(?) !!!!!!

#3:

A wild pose and interaction between the pet and character which, in the end, is what this single contest is about. (It's also not in a larger scale than lf2 sprites woo :o)

#2:

A dynamic pose and a strong interaction between character and pet.

#1:

A sprite of very high quality in almost every regard.

[Apocalipsis]

Obviously I agree with Snor, but I want to add something: don't get discouraged or think we were unfair for choosing these winners, what we do is decide who did a better sprite having in mind the current theme. It's possible that some sprites were "better" than the ones we choose as winner in some or lots of aspects, but the ones we choose were the best regarding the "Main character and companion" theme. Outside this contest, as generic sprites, winners would probably be different.

It's not supposed to be like this, but you can look at the poll and check differences between judges' winners and poll's winners to verify that (not supposed to be like this because everyone should do the same appreciations that Snor and I did -with personal appreciations of course-).

And looking back at it (because yesterday I had to be really harsh with the ranking and everything), everyone of you did really good sprites, specially guys who are intermediate/begginers spriters and are still learning :p

[Ariel]

wow!
thanks alot guys!!
i hated my sprite
i got only one vote (i didnt expect ill get more then a huge zero XD )
and i get to be in the 3th place
thanks AGAIN guys!!!

[lf2TimmE1]

is the new voting system stupid...yes.
the best we had was the one were we had to send our sprites to alec and he or other members posted them off without knowing who made the sprites.

[empirefantasy]

Voted for .

For me this is the best one.

Also surprised from mundvoll_ .As he is a newbie I am surprised from the hight quality and details.


Edit : also I voted for alectric

[Apocalipsis]

the best we had was the one were we had to send our sprites to alec and he or other members posted them off without knowing who made the sprites.

In my opinion that kind of voting system is not really useful, because you hardly get/give any critics at all, and you can't improve/fix flaws that way.

[Reaper]

Thing is... The people who tend to give critics will do so either way (in a more detailed manner if they are judges and not always if they are not) and the ones who don't... won't.
Of course it would be great if everyone gave points/ranks for the single sprites, providing reasons for his decision, but in the end it would probably just lead to less people taking the time to vote.
About the mysterio-system: It would have been interesting if some people had been trying to mimic the style of others, but as it was, it didn't make too much of a difference as you almost always knew who sprited what, resulting in little to no change in voting/commenting behaviour whatsoever. At least that was my impression.
I haven't been a fan of the judge-system from the beginnig on already, but so far it's working (we'll see how it goes with different judges), so I'll wait with my final judgement.

On a slightly different note, thanks to you two (apoc and snor). You've done a great job. (And I've learned that I've got to spent quite some more time on concept and composition)

[snorsorbet]

Thanks for the appreciation Reaper, I can tell you that it's really appreciated and heart warming when someone appreciates you for doing something. I appreciate that :D
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