Curse

Sjeng · Sep 09, 2006, 11:00 AM // 11:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to my Wallpaper topic ^^

Recently, I've been making some wallpapers of some of my friends' characters, and I've gotten some very positive reactions to them. I even got payed nice amounts of gold ingame for some.

Now I'm no master at photoshop, and I've seen wallpapers that are infinately better than mine, but still I'd like to give people with no photoshop skills the opportunity to have their character(s) made into a nice wallpaper.

Some examples of stuff I made:

Example 1: multiple characters in a collage: 40k

Example 2: character(s) in a single screenshot with background effects: 15k

Example 3: One character cut out and put in a background of choice with effects: 25k

You can include any text you wish, in any font you like, provided I have it (or you can send it to me).

I'll make a quick lay-out first, after which I'll send a low res example of it. Then you can comment on it, or make suggestions, and I will adjust it and complete it. Payment will be half upon commission, and half after having seen the sample and commenting on it. After that I'll finish it off within a week and send it to you by email.

In round 1 I'll be taking on the first 10 comissions posted in this topic! (no pm's or emails. Just post here and first come, first served).
Leave your in game names here, and I'll contact you for the exchange of your screenshots and half of the payment.

Thanks!!!
(maybe now I can afford FoW armor

)

Sjeng · Sep 10, 2006, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Well, after one day without any replies, I figured my prices might be too high, so I adjusted em ^^

Ermac · Sep 10, 2006, 12:43 PM // 12:43

Make it 1gp and someone might think about it ?

Sjeng · Sep 10, 2006, 04:45 PM // 16:45

would you put time and effort into creativity for 1gp? then be my guest

Regarding other topics with people taking commissions, I think my current prices are fair for the time spent working on them.
And please, don't reply if you can't make a serious comment. I'm only offering my services to people who'd like their character made into a wallpaper, but don't know how to make one themselves or whatever. I've made some in the past, and got good responces, so why not?

Sjeng · Sep 16, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

I've gotten a comission ingame! w00t! Well, it's a start

Here's the result:

First I put the characters I got screenshots from in the background picked out by the "client". Then I started adding a shadow, some light flares, and some background effects. I tried several, posted the 2 I think turned out best.
Then I started playing around with colours for fun, just to see how his characters would look like in differently dyed armour ^^

Enjoy Fred! and thanks again! (I got a handsome tip!)

-Old 3FL- · Sep 16, 2006, 10:47 AM // 10:47

^Nice Neverwinter Nights font.

Sjeng · Sep 16, 2006, 10:51 AM // 10:51

Yeah that one's cool isn't it. I love to use it ^^

Storm Crow · Sep 16, 2006, 03:20 PM // 15:20

Wow...a range of 15-40k for a wallpaper that anyone with Photoshop could go home and make? No offense, but it's just not worth it. I'd rather spend that on armor for my Mesmer...><;

Sjeng · Sep 16, 2006, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Well, you see, not everyone has photoshop, or is able to use it. And those people might like to have a nice wallpaper too.
As for the prices, so far none of my customers complained. I even got some handsome tips.
And I'm saving up for my armors this way too ^^

Djinn Effer · Sep 16, 2006, 03:38 PM // 15:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sjeng

would you put time and effort into creativity for 1gp? then be my guest

I think what they're getting at is to make something along the lines of your wallpapers doesn't exactly take very much effort, skill or time. Of course if you're brand new to photoshop it may take a lot of time and 'effort' since you don't know easy ways of doing things but other than that.. its pretty easy. Of course, no offense to you. What I see, by just looking is.. Take screenshot > crop character(s) if needed > apply filters > apply blending options > add lines (Which if you're doing it manually, you can hold shift+click then click the end location and it makes straight lines for you.) > add text + blending options aaand.. Yeah, thats about it.

Like I was saying, I'm not trying to take you down or anything but.. These are more of things that take 5-15 mins max. I don't really see it helping you expand and better yourself as an artist in photoshop though, ah well.. I don't really care.

Good luck with your wallpapers.

Sjeng · Sep 16, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

That's quite a lot of critisizm just to say you don't care...
I like to play around with PS, to see what kind of effects have the best result. I just start with a clean slate. So this definately will cost you more than 5 minutes.
Furthermore, I'm using a LOT more tools than the few you just mentioned. Sure, I'm using those as well, but isn't that what PS is about? PS is great for using those kinds of tricks, it's what they're there for. I'm also using textures, shadows, editing of shapes, lighting effects, hue/saturation/lightness/contrast etc etc etc... Untill I'm satisfied with the result. Creativity doesn't come in 5 minutes.
Lastly, I'm sure there are hundreds of people who are WAYYYY beter than I am. I never said I'm a pro, so remember: this is just a hobby of mine. I like to play around with PS, and if I can sell some walls to people, and they are happy with em, why not? Besides, I don't see anyone else doing what I do around here.

On a more positive note:

A Second comission from Fred. Thanks mate, glad you like my work.
I've made some extra, just cause I like to play with PS a lot ^^

Your assassin:

And some extra walls I made:

Djinn Effer · Sep 16, 2006, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sjeng

That's quite a lot of critisizm just to say you don't care...
I like to play around with PS, to see what kind of effects have the best result. I just start with a clean slate. So this definately will cost you more than 5 minutes.

I say I don't care cause I realized it didn't matter what I said. The thing is.. You arn't really doing anything original or anywhere near difficult, you're just applying photoshop filters and blending options.. I just honestly wouldn't charge people when you're so new to photoshop to experiment with filters like that. I'd just do it for free for them cause you enjoy playing around in photoshop. I wouldn't charge unless you were actually manually drawing/painting something, but thats just a moral thing I have I guess? But like I said, I don't think saying anything will change anything. I'm not trying to attack you either, I'm just telling you what anyone experienced in photoshop is thinking.

Sjeng · Sep 16, 2006, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Quote:

I'm just telling you what anyone experienced in photoshop is thinking.

I think you should speak for yourself... Just because YOU think it's not original or difficult, doesn't mean everyone does.
Look, I respect your opinion, I just wish people would stop having negative critisizm, and try to give some positive critisizm once in a while. But I know, it's so much easier to bash a person when you're better at something. Yes, yes, you said you weren't trying to attack me, but it sure feels that way.
If you really want me to be more original as you say, try giving some tips. I can take critisizm, but can it be constructive for once please? So I might actually benefit from it? Up untill now, all replies (except for Old 3FL) have not helped me in any way...

Like the saying goes: "everyone's a critic"...

I'm still happily offering my services though ^^

natus · Sep 16, 2006, 09:22 PM // 21:22

If it was made in MSpaint it would be worth something.

Djinn Effer · Sep 16, 2006, 09:36 PM // 21:36

You're really taking what I'm saying the wrong way and to an extreme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sjeng

If you really want me to be more original as you say, try giving some tips.

I already gave you tips, actually draw something in photoshop or otherwise (actual paper) depicting whatever you'd like (creative part) and then color and detail it. Don't go with filters cause those just end up making it cheesy, especially blending options that add a glow. If you'd like some good tutorials on how to do all this in photoshop, how to draw, color and all sorts of other specific little things then you can send me a pm.. But please drop the attitude, I'm not even critisizing your actual pieces you've done: That'd be something like "oh the glow disrupts the scene because it off sets the character from the continuity with the background and a lot of it seems out of place because of perspective" and the like. Drop your guard for a second though, and let the thought sink in that I'm not actually out to get you... I'm trying to help, I don't get kicks from insulting people on a forum for a game I don't even play anymore - and I'm not.

If you want critiquing, here you go... Your first three look nice, the others the quality dropped a lot because of perspective, badly placed filters which in turn throw off the entire scene.. A lot of it is the blending option glows you did, they shouldn't be on the characters and they make it look really bad. The lens flares look cheesy too, as well as a lot of the filters done to the background because its seperating them so much from the actual characters that they seem totally out of place, not in a good artistic way either. A good way of doing it, that some people do is blurring the background to give more focus to the characters - you could experiment with that. In a lot of the pictures you have a character floating, they shouldn't float it throws off everything. Putting them on the ground, taking off the glow and manually adding a shadow would help. I don't mean blending option shadow either, shadows natually under different light sources look very different. Many times shadows come in three layers; Darkest, light, and blurry. Its hard to explain, but just observe how shadows look in real life if you don't understand. What you'd do is manually make three layers behind the character(s) and paint in a black silhouette of the character, distorted to whatever angle the sun is hitting it and, and usually they're very distorted. Most of the times shadows stretch vertically to almost a goofy extent. You'd use soft brushes at 100% opacity, then change the opacity of the entire layer(s) to get the proper effect.

A good thing for you to do for a moment is look at it, and just try to get an understanding of who that character is, whats their story? Why are they there? What are they doing? Why are they standing like this or wearing what they are? Get a good feel for everything, it'll end up making everything go a lot more smoothly throughout the entire process cause you'll have a set picture in your head flooded with information about it, so it'll be really easy to make decisions while composing your art.

Right now you may not be into drawing, thats okay... But later on if you continue to get into 2d digital painting I think you'll slowly merge into it. I could give you a ton of hints, ideas and tutorials for that but the biggest thing is your own creativity and then skill. Skill can improve though, you just have to practice and study how things are in nature. Anatomy, lighting, etcetera.

Okay, for right now.. I'll just jump out and tell you why the glow effects look bad. There is no light source to cause that glowing to occur, if it were actually coming from them then in that case it would be coming from all of them, not just the ending sides (and not inner sides such as inner legs/arms etc. Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you were going to use that to ctrl+click the character layer, make a new layer behind it with a solid color behind where the character(s) are, then apply the filter, make a new layer below that and merge the glowing layer into that, that way you can edit the glowing effect you made. Experiment with the smudge tool to drag some of the glowing effect out a little bit at different strengths, and different sized brushes. It'll give a feel for a more bright light source, kinda like the sun putting off rays. Honestly though, I'd just drop the entire glow thing for now cause it does throw the character way out of place.

The reason I said before what I did about this all being fairly effortless and untime consuming is cause well.. Its starter things and your original post is saying your wallpapers are for those that arn't skilled in photoshop (where this is what they'd actually be coming up with - no offense to you). Playing with filters and blending options is really just bearly even tipping the begining of photoshop, theres so so much more you can do. I know it may seem to you like you have photoshop and you're just pretty much awesome and its totally cool that you can do your leet work and get paid for it. But to me it honestly seems like bad manner, I don't really think people that are new or learning something should be selling their services to others.. Its like a student starting medschool and as a freshman there offering a diagnosis to a dying cancer patient cause they read something in a book and thought they were going to make a difference. Well, the thing is.. Its a good thought and all, but it could really end up defeating the purpose of helping someone. If you can understand the connection I'm making. I personally do things like your wallpapers in form of avatars and signatures for absolutely free, and I actually put a lot more work into them in most cases. I do it cause I can, I don't do something I'm not going to like though. If I think it'd be fun to do, I like playing around in photoshop so if I get sometime that I don't have much going on I'll open it up and see what happens. I don't charge for things like that though, I wouldn't unless I was putting something unique there.. Something of my own work. Ah this seems like its going to start sounding really confusing and lose its meaning so I'll just stop.. I hope it atleast somewhat made sense and didn't end up just offending you more. >.<

arcanemacabre · Sep 16, 2006, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Djinn Effer
----------
High Horse

Anyway, your PS skills are phenomenal! I think your work is worthy of payment for wallpapers, definately. Still might be a bit too pricy.

Think about this: judge the amount of time it takes you to do each picture, and charge accordingly. Don't charge for the end result, charge for the time. If you feel the amount you charge is equivalent to the amount of time spent, then more power to ya.

Otherwise, great work, and always seek to improve yourself, no matter how masterful!

Addone_Abaddon · Sep 16, 2006, 09:55 PM // 21:55

I've been recently doing images for a Halo2 website, this is a Halo wallpaper I made once.

Djinn Effer · Sep 16, 2006, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

Djinn Effer
----------
High Horse

Anyway, your PS skills are phenomenal! I think your work is worthy of payment for wallpapers, definately. Still might be a bit too pricy.

Think about this: judge the amount of time it takes you to do each picture, and charge accordingly. Don't charge for the end result, charge for the time. If you feel the amount you charge is equivalent to the amount of time spent, then more power to ya.

Otherwise, great work, and always seek to improve yourself, no matter how masterful!

Here's a quote from another art forum:

Quote:

Before adding comments about peoples work please bear the following in mind.

1, The work has been posted here for constructive criticism that doesn't mean you can just rubbish someone's efforts without explaining why you think it could be improved.

2, Don't just say something is great when it obviously isn't. These type of posts help nobody. We are all here to learn and being told how great a half finished badly rendered image is certainly doesn't teach us anything.

3, Be polite but say what you really think, describe how you would approach the problem and maybe let the artist of the work you are commenting on benefit from another point of view.

4, Don't be afraid to speak your mind - everybody has something valuable they can add to a piece. Don't be offended if your ideas aren't used this time people will make a mental note and use it in the future.

I highlighted relevent material.

actionjack · Sep 16, 2006, 11:16 PM // 23:16

Doing a clean cut out of a character may not always be easy, espcially if the background are very messy. Than you would have to go in manually to do the cleaning.

One thing I don't get is why multiple characters in a collage cost the most, as it is the easiest to do.

Its a service he is offering, and if people like it and feel the price is reasonable, there should be no complain. Those who dislike it can also offer a better service at cheaper price, its a free market afterall.

I like you stuff addone, its hard to see, but has a flare of that modern art to it.

Addone_Abaddon · Sep 16, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

I'd remove the watermark if someone promises not to rip