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Posted on 08/11/05 7:56:16 PM |
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mj
Guest Reply |
Re: Contest 70: Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see you have been studing history in our not so great American high schools. They teach here whatever strikes their fancy and most of it made up. LOL. _________________ -Never met a PS'er I didn't like- Will Rogers |
Posted on 08/11/05 10:04:57 PM |
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roy
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Re: Contest 70: Gunpowder, treason and plot
Been a bit busy, but here's my latest effort...  |
Posted on 10/11/05 3:16:44 PM |
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jwhite
Collage Critter Posts: 274 Reply  |
Re: Contest 70: Gunpowder, treason and plot
Well, I started on track with 3 barrels, but ended up somewhere else...  |
Posted on 11/11/05 10:13:49 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6934 Reply  |
Re: Contest 70: Gunpowder, treason and plot
Interesting - November 5th is such a part of life in the UK, we tend to forget what a localized festival it really is. Each country needs a day on which to let off fireworks, and at the risk of sounding partisan I do feel that November (when it gets dark around 5pm) is a better time of the year than early July - do you guys in the US have to keep your kids up until 11pm before you can let those fireworks off? I can see we're going to need a fair amount of explanation this week. The furtive figure in Adam's post is George Galloway, the MP (Member of Parliament) who most vigorously opposed the war with Iraq. It's a perfect shot of him, skulking about the cellars; and it's always good to see that EyeCandy smoke and fire making an appearance. Are the barrels, perhaps, a little too blue for their surroundings? and should the smoke be going behind the pillars, rather than in front? Good perspective on the barrels, though, and the Galloway figure is perfectly judged. A nice political comment from kenny, featuring - left to right - Saddam, George Galloway (again!) and David Blunkett. (Historical note: Blunkett was the Home Secretary at the time of the Iraq war, had to resign over a sex-and-corrpution scandal, came back in another cabinet post after the election, then had to resign again last week following another "poor judgement" scandal.) A good arrangement of barrels - flipping the middle one really helps to break up the line - but where's the top of Saddam's head? It's easy to draw this sort of thing back in. And Galloway's hat does seem a little drawn in, don't you think? But a good political dig, which is always welcome! A thoroughly entertaining "terrible" first effort from Paul 2005 - don't be so hard on yourself! The angle of the dog is great, the idea works really well, and the bevelling on that leash does the job a treat. There are, of course, one or two issues here, and it's worth taking the time to go into them in a little detail. First, the barrel: I don't think Motion Blur is the way to make this one spin. I can see the idea, giving it blur in the direction of travel; but a better solution would have been Radial Blur, with the centre point set way off to the right, to follow the shape of the barrel. Good use of text - the cartoon font is perfect - but the stroke is of different widths on the speech bubbles. Here's the best way of doing these: draw all the bubble on the same layer - better still, use a Shapes layer to make them all editable - and apply a stroke to the layer using Layer Effects. That way, when you resize a bubble, its stroke will be retained at the same size. A really good gag from John, one of those double-take jokes where you have to look twice to get it. Great judgement on the scale of the cigarette lighter - just small enough not to be taken in at first glance, but big enough to recognise clearly when you do see it. And I really like the random scattering of the barrels, and especially the blur on the more distant ones, which really puts them at the back of the scene. Nice work! Another cracking entry from Neal, with many expert touches - the expression on Bush's face, the perfectly drawn tape over the mouth, the pose of the body, the spark at the end of the fuse… and, of course, excellent extra touches, such as the shading on the fuse itself (including the show-off bit where it loops over itself). It would be pointlessly pednatic of me to complain about the perspective of the barrels, so I won't mention it. Oh, damn, it just slipped out. Great bodies, great expressions in Dek_101's entry - that's Tony Blair and his scary wife Cherie, for those of you who don't recognise her. Many good details in here, most notably the rats on the ground and the No Smoking sign in the distance, but for me the best thing about this image is the fire. It's not realistic - the scale is too big, and it doesn't come from any identifiable source – but it admirably conveys an overall sense of danger, and matches Blair's panic perfectly. This image has a real sense of drama to it, and its excellent, balanced composition really helps. Nice one! A nice piece of work from BobbyJo, with some well-stacked barrels (although a bit of shading would have helped) and a beautifully drawn bomb, with text distorted to fit its surface with great expertise. But what do you mean, you couldn't find any images of politicians? It took Google just 0.14 seconds to come up with 7,570 pictures of Gordon Brown! Unless, of course, you carried your misspelling of "Gordan" into your Google search? Maiden's entry brings us a great gag - that's PM Tony Blair complaining to his deputy, John Prescott, a man known for his fondness for beer and food. It's always really tricky to make a body lie down, and the foreshortening of the body has been done admirably here. Redrawing the tie and shirt to accentuate the belly is a really nice touch! Best of all, for me, is the placement and shading of the barrels: their colour and perspective now match the background perfectly, and tucking the nearest one behind the pillar really makes them belong in the scene. Great job! I don't recognise the figure in mguyer's entry - not quite Sigmund Freud, but that's my closest bet so far. I'm a little baffled as to why the right hand barrel is so much lower than the one in front of it: surely, as we're looking down on them - we can clearly see the lids - it should be higher? If it's just a smaller barrel, then at the very least the base should be higher than the one in front of it, in order for the perspective to work. The seated figure does fit well in the scene, though! And are you making a political point with your Irish spelling of Whiskey? There's a great, moody, atmospheric feel to Roy's entry this week, with some really detailed shading - look how each barrel has had its shadow painted on individually! The ones nearest the window are almost fully lit, those further back show just a glimmer of their surface. For those of you who don't know him, the figure with the cigarette lighter is Michael Howard, outgoing leader of Britain's Conservative Party. A great pose - he holds that lighter expertly - and again, expert shading on the face and body. There's an overall unity about this image that really ties all the elements together well: it's a thoroughly consistent picture that has an almost touchable texture to it. In fact, it's so good that I'm going to overlook the fact that some of the barrels don't cast a shadow behind them, and award Roy this week's Challenge title - I think Mood Magician best sums up your contribution here. Great work, Roy. There's some great placement of images in jwhite's entry, with all our favourite Harry Potter figures putting in an appearance. The character interaction works a treat - but you really need to sort out the hue problem! All these guys come from photographs taken under very different lighting conditions, and none of them match the background! Get in some practice with both Curves and the Hue/Saturation dialog! It wouldn't take much to make this a consistent image! Thanks for all your work this week. A very varied and original set of approaches to the problem from everyone. |
Posted on 12/11/05 6:32:46 PM |
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roy
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Re: Contest 70: Gunpowder, treason and plot
Thanks for your generous comments, and special thanks for the title! It came as a very pleasant surprise, particularly in the face of such strong competition. |
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Don't mind me I just babble on it's just a good job I didn't continue on to say that Henry V goes on to become President of the United States after defeating the Brazilians led by Eva Peron at the Alamo.