bluehawaii19 - Very nice merging of pics, especially the way you added the waves around the lady's feet. The concept is very good too, though I must admit that I couldn't see the bottle at first, since the shape is a bit obscured by the waves. The text area is quite dark at the top (due to the rocks in the background), but lighter further down. This contrast can make for some visibility problems with text, and also limits your colour/brightness options. In this case a bright white seems to be your best (or only?) option, but it looks good!
Darklegendary - I like the way you angled the picture, it really adds some movement and interest to the blog. Lovely purple shades, and nice clean text area too ^_^ The only slight thing I noticed was the way the italic text you've chosen is angled to the right... Since the girl on the left side angled to the left, and the text on the right side angled the opposite way, they seem to detract attention from the centre of the blog, making it feel a bit off-kilter. A non-italic text would give it a stronger and more balanced feel, I think!
Starchaser - What a cool looking picture! The area where the two sets of buildings overlap looks amazing, with all those lights. I really like the way you've used those three contrasting fonts for the text, it's very effective. The only problem that I can see is with the text area... the bright lights mean that a lighter colour doesn't show up on it very well at all, but the darker shadows of the cars make it difficult to read dark colours. The light overlay is a good way to neutralise the colours, but decreasing the contrast in that area would help make the text stand out more.
watericeage - The colour tint looks nice (very nice shade of orange!), but I feel that maybe it would have been nice to see a bit more of your own "mark" on this blog. Maybe a slightly textured border of some sort? It might have also looked cool if the strand of hair (that is currently behind the text area) could have been brought in front of the text area, to add a bit more "Ooh!"ness. Overall, looks good though... I like different shades of orange in the text.
moogie - Ooh, using the white text as a border is a very interesting idea... very cool effect there ^_^ The grey scale looks nice, as does the grid pattern. The "l" of the main text is going over the girl's head a little, which is a pity. If it was only on the wall, it could be taken for part of the picture, which would be cool (to use that word again). The font and colour fit in really well.
Scholastic - Hmm, I like the way there isn't a definite "box" for the text area, but you've used the squares that are already there to define one. The picture looks cool inverted like that, it's got a bit of a chalk-on-blackboard feel going there. The orange and grey dotted border is very nice, but although I like the way you've put the extra diagonal-striped border along the top and bottom, I find the white a bit too bright. It draws the eyes a lot! So saying, I also thought it would've been nice if the main text were a bit brighter, since it is a bit subdued at the moment.
Shadowfare - Lovely picture, I like the way you've increased the contrast to bright out the colours, and the slight blur (?) is rather nice too. I feel this blog could use an extra... something, though. Maybe a diagonal gradient to the text area's overlay colour might have looked nice (if that makes sense!)? It would have softened the transition between the pink-ish sky and red textarea, and also the squareness of that border. The text looks a little squished up there, too, between the borders of the text area and the main blog.
Dawn2 - Wow, that's... tiny! It's very cute, but I'd imagine there'd be some problems with trying to fit much text in there. You could fit maybe 12 characters of a small font in there... but if you wanted to write more than 12 lines (12 lines x 12 chars = 144 chars) of text, you'd start needing a scrollbar on the side. This would either have to cross over the head of the lady a bit, or restrict you even more in chars per line. Anyway, enough of text talk. The background is very nice, the blue/aqua shades contrast the picture nicely. There seems to be a white triangle over the girl's shoulder on the left, though?
Amethyst - Nice colourising, and the grid looks good too... it's not too overpowering. The background behind the text area has too much contrast, though. It's very difficult to find a text colour that is readable on it. The main font choice ("dream") and colour seems perfect, though. It blends in really nicely with the picture, with the curves emulating the swirls of the girl's hair.
Kyra - I likes the rainbow border very much! Hehe. It matches really well... I'd imagine any other colour might have clashed a bit, or been a bit stark. The diagonal texture and pixelating effects are subtle, but very nice. I really like the stars, too! Maybe it would have been nice to add some more, maybe in the top right corner and through the text area?
Koku - Great job with the colours and contrast! Very bold effect, overall. I like how you kept the main character's skin tone the same as the original picture, while letting the other characters go more blue tinged. The dot pattern looks nice, especially in the text area... but it seems a little bit obvious on the boy's right hand. It is also hard to find a good readable colour of the text on the text area, as it is very bright up the top and darker at the bottom. Darkening the top of the text area slightly more would help, I think.
Sunnie - Very cute! The purple-pink shades look lovely, though I find the grid a tiny bit strong in places... mainly over her skin (face and hands). The font suits the blog well, but to be a bit picky, the "S" looks like it has fallen apart from the other letters, a little. Playing with the horizontal spacing of the letters would fix that up easily. Overall, very nice though!
Sakura - Hehe, I really like this. Lovely grungy feel to the picture, and those diagonal lines (and shapes) really draw the eye. The angled writing is a nice touch, too. The angled area kinda makes me wonder where the text area will go, though? Would it be a thin strip, going upwards from that narrowest point at the bottom, or a thicker one, from that widest point at the top? Each would create a bit of a problem with the readablity of the text, against the various background colours. Nevertheless, I love the idea... ^_^
polarbearpop - Cute... I like the Lady & the Tramp picture you chose, it's in quite a different style to, say, your "normal" Lady & the Tramp picture! The various overlaid colours contrast well with the brightly lit Eiffel Tower, though it might have been nice to see a bit more of the tower itself, somehow. I like the blob-shape of text area, it makes it very interesting... unfortunately it would be really hard to text on it, though, due to the bright colours behind it. Increasing the opacity of the text area background would help. I quite like the font, actually, I think it goes well with the style the dogs are drawn in (with the thick outlines).
hellyer - Nice and clean looking, the sky looks great! I seem to think that maybe the font or text area could have been a bit more... dynamic (by text area, I mean maybe adding a border or background pattern?). But yeah... in general looks great!
Optimus - Hehe, very cool blog. I haven't checked out the transparency on a different background, but the idea itself is a very good one! Text area positioning is nice, the borders are lovely too. A bit more space between the pixel text and the border might have been good. The border on the main text is a little thick, but it balances out the darker elements of the picture above quite nicely ^_^
Kitten Medli - Great idea with the "night time" theme! The main font looks great, very stylish, and I like how you positioned the sub text near it. The background seems slightly plain, though the stars break it up nicely. Maybe a close up of the guy's face, but flipped so that it was facing the right, might have looked good as a simple background on the left there?
Scottnak - Mm, very creepy! I like the way you changed the wolf picture quite a bit... removing the background, editing the wolf itself, adding the wispy mistness... it's really made it your own piece of artwork. Good job there ^_~ Two small criticisms: I find the red subtext a bit hard to read against the dark grey background. The wolf's back legs seem to have gotten rather skinny, too? Hehe. The red eye and scratch marks are great though.
DM - Cute, nice background texture. The scanlines, though quite a nice effect, seem to make the outlines of the girls look rather pixelly-jagged (for example, the arm of the girl on the top right), which detracts from the image quality a bit. I like how you've put the text area behind some of the picture... I think it could have looked good if it were even more so, maybe! That kind of thing really unifies the text area with the rest of the blog.
meowth1982 - Ooh... I love the lion king! Hmm, overall placement is good... I like how the text area is over Rafiki and simba. I find the the scanlines a bit distracting, though... they make the image look a bit lower quality than it was. The borders look fine, but I tend to think something thicker, more tribal and brushy (like the border around the logo in the original image) would have looked really stunning. Same for the main font, too.
xerai - Very nice looking blog, I really like the grass picture... those raindrops look great! I like the colour, placement, borderless-ness and broken-up-ness of the text area, it looks great. Nice font too. I feel you could have worked a little more with that grid pattern, though... it's picky, but it looks a little "cut off" on the bottom and right hand borders, where the border lines go halfway through the grid squares.
Alex - I really like what you did to the colours in this image, they work better than those in the original picture, I think! And good job with those fadelines, too. The font matches the HP theme really well, and stands out nicely against the sky there. The textarea seems a little busy for my taste... I think maybe if the blog were a bit wider, then the textarea could've been moved to the right a bit, creating a bit more space, as well as making it so the boy's face weren't cut in half.
Apricus - Great feel to this! Lack of inspiration? Pah =P I love the angled text, and the colour changes you've made to the picture. The swirls in the background work well, since they are large enough to be more abstract than the "usual" rendition of swirls. The small pixel text in the background looks good too, nice and subtle with its spaced out placement. Nice work!
fzun - Nice choice of image, though it's a pity you didn't add more to it, of your own touch... I remember you said you'd lost all your brushes, but you can still achieve good and interesting effects using other pictures and layering them, etc. The main font looks good, I like the way it's translucent... the text area is rather busy, though.
Neko - Wow, you did a great job with such a small image! You seem to have put a fair bit of work into cleaning it up, too.. well done with that. I like the way you placed the textarea so that the girl was pointing towards it... it really directs the eye well. Only thing I would suggest would be maybe moving the main text over to the right hand side... as it is, the blog is quite "heavy" on the left side, but without much going on on the left.
timkhj - Hehe, wow, the first very obviously non-girly blog ^_~ Nice work with the logo, and the rounded corners of the blog and text area go well with it! I think they match the big rounded "D" very nicely. The only thing I don't like quite so much is the "Drive - Drift - Dream" ... it seems a bit small and slightly squished looking, since it has to fit the width of the text area. The 3D effect on it also makes it a bit hard to read, since it's quite small... maybe putting the text down the left hand side might have worked?
paola - Whoa, gorgeous sparklyness! Very nice, and impressive since it's from scratch, too. I love the way the glow from "Gravity" merges into the text area, and I like the dashed border a lot... though it does add a bit of "busy"ness to the blog. But overall... lovely!
Hmm, it's hard to choose this time.
My votes go to: watericeage, fzun, Dawn2 and polarbearpop.
Nyum nyum nyum...
Last edited by mazil on Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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