Judging Time!
Well congratulations to me on getting through my first judging without any major setbacks. We got a few cards this round, not as many as usual, but it still was a good round to get me started on this whole judging thing xD The theme was relatively open-ended, with plenty of room to work with subthemes and original ideas, so it's nice to see a large amount of variation among the cards. Overall, when given a theme like this, it's often best to stick with stereotypes or cliche's, like beautiful women and beefy muscle men, but it's always nice to see a few risks being taken. Without further adieu, let's get to judging!
quote AyraCalaenlen
A Mwhaha, the very first card I officially judge belongs to you, my friend >D Very fitting. At any rate, I'll just get right down to it. It's without question that you have an eye for these kinds of things, and it's also without question that this card is very different to the norm. Some judges would criticize you for that, but there's an elegance and beauty to it that makes the card work for the theme, and in general it looks quite nice. The template is different from the usual, and for that reason it works. Starting with the farthest left, your trainer work is very well done, and I definitely commend you on it. I tried making a character of mine out of those pixel arts, and frankly it's harder than it looks. My only concern from a spriter's standpoint would be the spotlighting on her chest, which doesn't seem to be the focal point of the light source, but that's even nitpickier than Artirtico usually goes XD I like the airy nature of the text you used to label each box, the outline of the text works very well in that light blue to soften the otherwise often blocky userbar text, so it works well. Unfortunately, the title text at the top is bulky and thick, and also very dark. Experimenting with other text types is something I've been trying lately, so I can't really mark you down for something that hardly anyone does, but perhaps you could have worked with the colours to make it a little less dark and ominous for a light and airy card. The Pokemon choices were very fitting, and it's clear you thought about the colours of the card, matching Ninetales with the blonde hair, so all-in-all it's a very well-thought-out card. There is a bit of unused space, but as I said it works to go with the airy elegance of the theme. Perhaps including an item box at the bottom instead of the "Specialty: Beauty" box would have helped filled the space and added a few more elements to the card, but as it stands it's quite a successful card.
quote JosiePika
C Alright, first things first, I'm going to tell you to scrap that template. The basic templates work well for some rounds (with themes akin to 'Old School' or 'Devamp' for example), but in pretty much any other theme, they don't work that well. The only person I feel can pull them off effectively is GE. At any rate, once you get into a new template, you'll probably find it easier to do pretty much everything. As it stands right now, there's quite a lot that this card needs, so I'll ty to get you started on some of the basics before telling you the nitty gritties of what could be more effective or work better. First things first, backgrounds are very helpful in giving a card a character and an appeal, because you can virtually use any image as a background and that will help make your card stand out from any other. Most cards use two backgrounds: One behind the Pokemon [and in most templates, trainers, items, badges, etc.] and one which fills the rest of the template's empty space. Getting the two backgrounds to work for you can be a difficult and tricky task, but it'll come with time. Next, an important thing to note is the "cuts" of the Pokemon, which basically means where you cut the Pokemon out of the box. As a general rule, you want to try to center the head/body of the Pokemon, while still managing to get most of the Pokemon within the small box. Again, it's tricky and will come with time. Your Espeon cut, for example, is effective because its head is relatively centered vertically, and you managed to get most of the Pokemon in the box in an effective way. Latias, though, is a poor cut because its head [the focal point of that particular box] is smushed up in the top left hand corner. Generally, you want it relatively centered. Some other things to just generally note: Large amounts of unused space are generally bad [though that's the fault of the template, not you], and in the box for the trainer's name, the capital letters tend to look better than the mix of capital and lowercase, and just in general the lowercase letters should be avoided. There is a lot more I could tell you about the individual flaws and mistakes here and there in your card, but I think it's best to just let you know of the basics that you can improve on before throwing advanced problems at you. I will note, though, that's it's nice to see another person with a spriting background implementing a quality recolour!
quote jjoploo
B+ I both love and dislike this card at the same time. The first thing I notice when I look at this card is the amount of extra space which goes to waste. There's really a lot you could do with the space, given the amount of information you could include about the team, the leader, their ranks, the members of the team, pretty much anything. There's a lot of vertical space above and below the picture of the team, which is where I see the most fault. I'm also not super keen on the the white effect around Hariyama's hands, and the lack of outline on Machamp, because frankly it makes it look unfinished and stands out from the other sprites you put in. However, the Pokemon choice was very effective, though Blaziken can arguably look either feminine or masculine given its hair, but it's still an easy association to 'manliness' with the Fighting Types and the overall olive-brown colour scheme. The fist you sprited looks very good, though I think the shading of each infividual finger could be better given the 'spotlight' on them, as well as on the palm. I think it might've benefited from having the nails coloured differently so it instantly looked like a hand, but it looks very good overall. I'm not super keen on the muscles you attempted to sprite at the top, as they mostly look like connected blobs, so better spriting or a different decoration might've been helpful. I really like the gradient on the text, though. I can't quite pin it but the seemingly two-tone gradient works really nicely on this card. Another thing I notice is that the large sprite of Hariyama [I'm guessing he's meant to be the leader, correct? Perhaps denoting that could help] somewhat juxtaposes the rest of the card, in that is outlines and colours look rather sleek and standoutish, while the rest of the card is relatively soft in appearance, but I can't really fault you on that. The backgrounds look great, just be careful because if you look in the top right of the 'Rank' box, it looks like the outline is a few pixels thick when it's just the end of the building in the background - be careful because little things like that can be mistaken as a mistaken outline. At any rate, the colours and Pokemon choices work really nicely in this card, though the template could be improved upon.
quote Vollando
B xD Certainly a non-traditional approach to the theme, I'm not sure it was the best idea. Everything looks pretty good, though the trainer really bothers me. Seeing as they're my specialty I'm going to be rather blunt and try to help you with those as much as I can while I'm judging. Frankly, you took a bunch of trainers and tried to combine them even though their bodies are in completely different poses, and frankly, don't do that until you're a master trainer spriter. As it stands, the legs are facing forwards, while the body is directed to the side. As a result, I really dislike the trainer, and to be honest an existing trainer would've been much more successful. Also, I'm not a fan of this template (Sorry Sam!) because it frankly has a lot going on and a lot of room for error. I dislike the amount of free space in the center of the card, especially when there is a lot going on immediately next to it with the Bag and Location box. To be honest, having the Bag rearranged to have three items vertically and removing the (seemingly pointless and bulky) Location box, you would be able to keep things nice and close together without looking busy or crowded. Other than that though, your colour choices were spot on, and the Pokemon look great - I personally believe that the Pokemon don't always need to follow the scheme of the rest of the card and this is proof where it will look good either way - and the cuts work well in my opinion. The items were also well chosen, however I dislike the Bag box altogether. With large areas of 'template' with just a large area of colour, I feel you had room to work some boxart or decoration into it, or even just making a simple gradient for the large bulky areas of coloured template, you would've given life to it and made it look less bulky and bland. I think a gradient also would've been nice in the title of the card, as at current it stands out like a sore thumb against the darker pink backgrounds. All in all it's a pretty good looking card, but maybe stick with more traditional approaches to cards if you aren't able to portray your idea as well as you hope. Also keep in mind that not every template is perfect as it is, so always be ready to jump in and make some changes.
quote FourthBeat
A- [Marked by Artirtico] Choosing to use a 'vicious' female trainer to base your theme around was a nice move in making your card stand out as being something different and coupling it with a sense of beauty allows it portray a sense of femininity well. Although Dragonair is snake-like, it is however far from vicious in personality so I do think that choosing something more 'sinisterly beautiful' would work better there. The recolours are very natural looking however and both Pokemon fit into their boxes well as does everything else in the card. Great job with the hand made trainer image - I do think that the mouth could've been used to portray the personality of the trainer better but other than that she looks brilliant and could definitely be used in-game. Individually, both backgrounds look good but since they look quite alike to one another, using them together gives a result to one gained when a single background is used in a trainer card, making it appear somewhat bland overall to look at. The similar coloured text doesn't do anything to help this impression either resulting in a card that is technically good with a creative theme and a great trainer image but visually, it's just a bit unexciting - still, great job on a well made card.
Great work this round, everyone.
-The Scoreboard-
First Place - AyraCalaenlen Second Place - FourthBeat Third Place - Jjoploo
New Theme: Create a card based around a song or band/artist/musician. You may want to pay attention to lyrics if you're choosing a song to base it on. Be sure to explain your reasonings for anything Pokemon-related on the card. As always, feel free to ask questions for clarification on the theme. Judging Date: May 16th Judge: FourthBeat*
*While the tournament is taking place, I will be judging all the regular rounds as to give Artirtico and Samkuro plenty of time to work on the tournament and not worry about regular rounds.
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