The Back Room

[archimage_a]

The music on that video is SO unfitting.

It's the ending theme. The music for the series is pretty generally recognized as good, no J-pop or anything.

 

Also, for an outwardly girly anime, it really isn't. In the original TV broadcast, that ending wasn't shown until the third episode, where one of the characters is killed (which really just doesn't happen in the genre). In the final episode, one character uses the equivalent of over $18,000,000 of military ordnance, not counting thousands of miscellaneous explosives. It also takes on Lovecraftian overtones at some points, and repeatedly references the story of Faust.

tl;dr : Some ate a yellow, orange and black crayon, then threw up on a sheet of paper, and sold it for a lot of money.

 

 

 

 

On an unrelated note, anyone got Hearts of Iron 3? I wanna play a game.

[archimage_a]

 

People who fight against the big corporations really don't do themselves any favours by being horribly inaccurate in their experiments...

 

 

'Here is an example of several cooked foods decomposing in a semi-airtight envrionment, with no acid, over a period of weeks' as though that somehow mirrors the 24/48 hour process that the stomach goes through...

 

Or

 

'We suspended a chicken's egg in cola for one year' As though people regularly run huge baths of cola, don't have any sort of regenatively ability and spend years doing absolutely nothing. (Well the last one is semi-true, but I ask how many of those people spend a year in a Cola Bath?)

 

So yeah, this is why vegetarianism and such has never gripped me...their arguments are so worthless.

[Earth]

Soda is fine so long as you don't have too much of it, like everything in this world.

[The_Mather1]

Surprised by the lack of preservatives in those burgers. Aren't they supposedly able to last for years?

Anyways, what can you expect from french fries? They're covered in salt, the same stuff which was used to store meat in for centuries.

[Earth]

MATHER. BRO FOR LIFE. THANK YOU.

 

(Helped me with a difficult problem real quick. Thanks man.)

 

also archi, considering he's to one who's been screwing around with this for half an hour.

 

 

[The_Mather1]

No problem.

[Leiana]

Please...Someone...ANYONE MAKE THIS LOOK BETTER!

I tried to make this:

[hide=Fantasy Crystal Cavern (Drawing 1Class)][/hide]

Into this:

[hide=Fantasy Crystal Cavern (Photoshoped)][/hide]

AND FAILED!

 

Please, if anyone can make this better, or give me steps on how to make this better, I'll be very very VERY GRATEFUL for the help!

[archimage_a]

Scan it and open it in Photoshop/GIMP.

Add a transparent layer.

Copy over the outlines.

Delete the scanned background image.

Fiddle with the picture.

[Leiana]

...But thats what I pretty much did the first time...

[archimage_a]

But the pictures don't really look similar....The bottom one lacks all the detail that makes you think 'Its underwater/reflection'...Your one just goes 'Can't be bothered, its underwater'

[Leiana]

I suck at this...

[Corvus]

Well, with the Digital one, one thing would be to attempt to add texture to the stuff, as Everything is perfectly flat with a matte finish, with the exception of the water which is almost perfectly reflective with both invisible and perfectly opaque waves. additionally, the reflections of the crystals would not be just mirrored, as you have a different effective viewing point (you would see them from an angle what would place you under the water). for the drawn picture your issue is that your background seems to just be a fade into fog rather than something to work with the image.

 

Edit: I am not an artist even remotely, so I am very unqualified to tell you how to do this sort of stuff (besides: Working in layers and making use of transparency is extremely helpful), but there are all sorts of art tutorials around the internet if you need them.

[Earth]

Wow. That was nuts. Trying to get every file into this bloody game is difficult.

[The_Mather1]

IMO you're going at it the wrong way. You're starting it as if the finished picture is going to look realistic, something it never will. Hence why the picture looks incomplete. If you're going to make it simple, do so from the start.

Here's a quick example I've made by just tracing outlines with the line tool and going from there:

 

It's less detailed than yours, but it seems more complete.

 

 

Your style would fit right into a flash animation though, because of how objects there are drawn individually.

[archimage_a]

I would disagree with Mather. You can draw it to a 'finished' standard...you just need to put alot of detail in.

You can simplify the hell out of it, like Mather has, but really, anyone can do that. (That said Mather is right that it looks more real than yours)..

[Alg]

I would disagree with Mather. You can draw it to a 'finished' standard...you just need to put alot of detail in.

You can simplify the hell out of it, like Mather has, but really, anyone can do that. (That said Mather is right that it looks more real than yours)..

Seems to be about technique, like Wyvern pointed out earlier.

Simplicity is a good thing sometimes. Too complicated, and it's just a mess.

 

DS is terrible for posting with -.-

[Resistance]

I'm not sure if this was what you were looking for but I gave it a go anyway.

 

1.) Insert a new layer.

2.) Cover in light blue colour

3.) Add crude details on (get a size 30 circular brush and just smear a darker colour onto the crystals)

4.) Gaussian blur how you feel appropriate, not too much that the colour has averaged out, not too little that the colours don't blend.

5.) Change opacity to what you feel looks best, in this case 33%

 

 

 

I should have used darker, bolder colours at the bottom but forgot.

[Alg]

Now that I'm on an actual browser and can look more closely:

It really is just the water that you need to work on for the digital one (And the background, sort of). The hand-drawn one is good, and Nef had the right idea in just adding color to it.

 

Generally, if you're doing a reflection, it should be darker and/or lower contrast, and maybe a bit less detailed. The way the reflection is now, water just doesn't work like that. I don't actually know how to draw water, so can't help there.

[archimage_a]

[hide]

[/hide]

 

I have terribly colour sense...also less than willing to spend a few hours on it. However all the 'stuff' is there.

Oh, and the rock glows...for no discernable reason....

 

Advice:

Stick stuff into different layers.

The crystals can be in one, their reflection in another, and the water in another again.

 

I much prefer this one:

[hide][/hide]

[The_Mather1]

You can also do this:

 

Here I've made no change to the drawing itself at all apart from translating grayscale to alpha. All the coloring was added to a background layer.

This gives off more of an artistic wibe, rather than seeming like a representation of something.

[archimage_a]

Only issue there (I love the picture) is that it isn't really creating something new. (Yes we have all copied the top one, but we were redrawing it which is apparently good practice)

[The_Mather1]

I don't think the purpose is to redraw it as much as it is to color it and/or make it computer friendly.

[archimage_a]

If her purpose was that she would be much better off going here:

http://forum.tip.it/forum/15-the-gallery/

 

If she is asking for friendly assistance to improve her own skills without leaving her comfort zone, then fair enough, we should endevour to help her if we can...

Otherwise she should go to the correct forum...as has been noted several times already (in relation to other things).

[Leiana]

Wow...I really like all of these actually...

 

But I'm not ever going to ask for people to redo my artwork again. Suggestions fine, but no more redos...

 

Thanks again everyone.

 

 

 

Now just to solve the Short Story crisis (fresh out of ideas for a project) and start reading A Farewell to Arms and All Quiet on the Western Front

[The_Mather1]

And there's the ALU done. Next will be the CPU I guess...

 

EDIT: I've now got what appears to be a full-blown CPU that does... something...