Judging Time!
I'm frankly surprised by this round! A theme like this, back when I first started TC Making on Neoseeker, would've had plenty of entries flowing in right away so either times are changing, or perhaps this was just bad timing with finals and a tournament going on. At any rate, the key to this round is to effectively portray a different type - be it through recolour or actually retyping the Pokemon - and also portray the character as a Gym Leader. We had some nice variation with nobody choosing the same Gym Leader which is nice to see. Without further adieu, let's get to judging!
quote JJoploo
B I'll be blunt: Spelling counts, children. So you got marked down for that, and that's all I'm gonna say about your spelling xD; Onto the card, I feel there's some template issues created. At the top, you've got the title and a whole lot of space that, even with decoration, looks empty, and then below the title you've got a lot of information stretched all across. It's just sorta jarring how there's so much information one one level, and hardly any right above it. Other than that though, the ice effect has really become your forte, and it looks really nice, and the recolours work to some degree. They don't immediately scream ice, so perhaps light blue and white would've been a better choice to light blue and navy. I also think it would've been nice to see you attempt to retype her original badge, seeing as it could be made into snowballs or a snowflake or something, as opposed to just giving her Candice's. It's an information-heavy template - which isn't always a bad thing - but in this case it wasn't your best effort.
quote JosiePika
C Sometimes less is more, and sometimes less is less: in this case, it's the latter. This is a very minimalistic card, because you have a title, trainer, and Pokemon, and that's about it. The thing about Gym Leaders is that they have a lot of information to them, so there's a lot you can put on the card: their type, their location, their Pokemon, their badge, the name of their badge, their mugshot, etc. That's why I chose to specifically make it a Gym Leader round - to make people retype these other aspects to a Gym Leader other than just their Pokemon. In your case, the retype isn't perfect. Your recolour works pretty good for Altaria, giving the storm cloud appearance, but Swellow still just looks like a bird. Having a spriting background is a benefit, because it can help you edit things like the Pokemon sprites to make them work better for you. It's, again, nice to see you using some new templates, and editing them around a bit. Keep in mind that any open, unused space is a bad thing, so the borders of your card look bare and empty. The few items you have aren't all too clear as to what they are, and at first I didn't even notice the badge was there. Always be ready to move boxes slightly to allow more room, such as for the name box at the bottom. Samkuro also added my Title Text sheet to the front page, so you could use that to create your title next time. It's a decent entry for your first time attempting a retype card, so just keep at it.
quote FourthBeat
A(-) *Judged by Artirtico* A great card here - you've followed the theme perfectly in creating a card that would ordinarily work well as a Gym leader's card for Volkner, containing his Pokemon, badge and relevant information and then altered the colour scheme to make it appear to be another type. Dark is a very easy type to retype to as you know since the prominent feature of Dark types is the colour scheme so well chosen in that regard - the grey/black naturally works well and the red gives the card the extra colour it needs to avoid looking bland as well as ensuring that the Pokemon do look fully like dark types. The lack of red on Jolteon, coupled with the purely red eyes does make me think of ghost slightly so I think that perhaps giving it red ears and more regular eyes would avoid that. You've established the template to be very successful with the layout working well here and the backgrounds look great in portraying the dark type as well as ensuring that everything still remains clear which is often quite a tricky thing to do with greys so nice job with those. The only (main) negative I have is the fact that it's just a regular card recoloured really - although it works well enough for the dark type, in a theme like this, there's a lot of scope for pushing a lot further than just a recolour such as altering the Pokemon, the trainer and the template to make it fit the type specifically. Overall, a well made card that looks great but I think that more needs to be done to gain the highest grades - nice job!
quote ArcadianSky
C+ Well, I'll start by thanking you for throwing an entry together to help make up the numbers for us. I'll then proceed to tell you that the card is very, very flat in appearance. You've got a single background for the entire card, and hardly any of it is covered up by other components on your card. There is a lot of empty space created by the size of the card, as well as the size and shape of the boxes. Circles leave lots of open space, and are tricky to use. I also have to say that for some types, a recolour is not enough to portray them - Sure, Dark Types can be portrayed with just a recolour, but Water isn't so easy. Overall, the card looks empty and flat, and the Water type is portrayed aside from the bubble boxes and recolour.
quote Squirrel Lord
B+ Nice to see that template being used already. The first thing that caught my eye is the vast amount of white around the card which isn't something I can mark you down for, I'm just pointing out that it would look better with a transparent background, just for visual reasons. I can't mark you down for it, but just throwing that out there for others using that template. Anyways, your card looks very nice, and effectively uses each box of the card in one way or another. Personally I'm not a fan of text in the middle of a card (especially a title) so editing the template could've been beneficial - Just because the tournament round stated not to edit it, doesn't mean you couldn't for a regular round. Also, because the text is a bright red and really stands out, my eye is drawn to the center of the card but nowhere else. The recolours look great, though I feel that both the Pokemon as well as Falkner blend in with the background, so perhaps a lighter background would've been beneficial. I like how you filled the lower boxes, but it's perhaps redundant to have both the Pokemon sprites and the icons on the same card (especially so close together), but overall it was a nice way to fill the card. In the future, just be warned that it's hard to take something that is physically a bird and make it look primarily like a different type. Even though you recoloured it, it still appears to be a Flying type due to the fact that it's a bird, so the retype wasn't fully effective.
quote Aether
A- Ehh, I'm kinda iffy on this one to be honest. Aside from the background, I'm not much of a fan of anything on this card, though it does come together and work. Choosing to use one of the types he does use already -- Piloswine's Ground type -- was a good choice because it didn't require it to be retyped as it already appears to be that type. However, Lapras doesn't look Ground. It just appears recoloured, which is often not enough to give it a different type appearance. There's a large handful of fantastic Lapras retypes - off the top of my head I can think of Shiny Milotic's, as one example - to rock or ground. The fact that it has flippers is the main problem, as that makes it look Water, not ground. The items appear to have no actual connection to the theme, and they aren't particularly clear. So Piloswine is holding its hair and Lapras is holding some fossil or rock? It doesn't elevate the card to make them look Ground, and frankly I don't see any relevance to your choice of Ground type. The left side of the card is alright, though because Pryce is shoved off to the far side it makes him appear less important to the card, so flipping that side and putting him in the middle with his badge and mugshot off to the side would make him a focal point to the card, as opposed to something shoved off to the side. I find the text on this card is a bit difficult to read because it's the same colour, so that's one area for improvement. I also find in templates with lots and lots of boxes, having a background with lots of lines can be distracting and look cluttered. I don't have a lot to say -- It's certainly not your best but it still somehow works effectively.
Great work this round, everyone.
-The Scoreboard-
First Place - FourthBeat Second Place - Aether Third Place - Squirrel Lord
New Theme: Open Round! Enter any card that has not been judged before. As always, feel free to ask questions for clarification on the theme. Judging Date: June 21st Judge: Artirtico
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