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Ok, I guess I'll go ahead and call this one...

A winner is ProgZmax, for making George Lucas Skywalker's CG hair blow so realistically!

Congratulations and may the force be with you as you come up with the next competition topic (and hopefully get more than three entries).

I'm a fan of Sophocles myself.  You can download a free trial and when that runs out, if you'd like to register the full version it costs about half of what the others do.

and if you want to just skip the "paying" part... it's a lot easier to do with this software as well... not that I advocate that in any way.

Well, apparently I suck at coming up with topics for Photoshop contests.  But seriously, c'mon... how can you top the brilliant union of pirates and nazis?  I mean, it has to be all down hill from there.  Anywho... Worth 1000 has a Star Wars related Photoshop contest that I hope might help to jog your creative minds.

You have just a few days left...

Ahh, congrats, Kinoko!  I just sent you a PM congratulating you when I saw your post on a JET program website message board.  I hadn't seen this thread yet!

Congrats!  Now you just have to struggle through the two-plus months before you board that plane bound for Tokyo.  Happy packing!

Kinoko's right on the button!  Labrynth was a must-own DVD.  And Goonies... don't even get me started... LOVE IT!  Return to Oz scared the crap out of me.  That's one I've got to rewatch.  But, I've gotta throw this one out... Dark Crystal.  Can't forget Dark Crystal!  Did you know they're making a sequel?

Well, saw Episode III this morning.

...grumble grumble... (see thread's original post)...

Looks beautirific!

If you can bring the same sense of nostalgia back from the old school RPG days as you did from the old school P&C adventure days with Cirque, I'll be one happy camper.  And based on your screenshots and the info you've given us thus far... I'd better start prepping my Happy Tent^TM and Happy Sleeping Bag^TM.

But Star Wars 3 gets a world-wide release on the 19th. There are some small exceptions to this...

No, just one huge exception... Japan... Damnit!

Go to Download.com and search for "install" and then choose one of the 1151  results that will make an installation program for you.

Sorry this took so long.  I had a busy week involving wedding preparations, a bachelor party, and my marriage.  I didn't even think to check the photoshop contest that I had forgotten about after the board downtime.  Anyway... onto the phun.

What is the Photoshop Contest?

Duh! Isn't it obvious?

Okay, see this link if you don't know:
http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/

And for other examples, see here:
http://www.worth1000.com/

The two above websites should give a fair idea of what is involved. Also you can check out the earlier Photoshop contests in this forum.

Note: Photoshopping isn't drawing a completely new image -- It's editing images to create a new image, such as editing one image or combining several images.

Also, you don't have to specifically use Photoshop -- Paint Shop Pro, Gimp or any other equally good programs can be used.


With the new Star Wars coming out during the course of this Photoshop contest installment, I felt the need to choose a topic related to the series.  Our good friend George has spent a small part of his life creating a beloved series of movies, and a large part of his lifetime ruining them.

With the recent announcement of two new Star Wars TV shows, the new possibilities for Mr. Lucas to erase your pleasant childhood memories and dreams are almost endless.



Will it be the innevitable stunt casting? (as depicted in my terrible example above)  The Desperate Housewives cross-over episode?  The reality-TV hook?  Or will it be the new video game tie-in that will finally destroy the (still barely) good name of Star Wars for ever? 

For this Photoshop contest, you are tasked with creating new ways of completely ruining Star Wars.  Have at it.

I really like the design of the main character.  But look at his sleeves.  The color of his sleeve at the shoulder is always the same, but the color of the sleeve at the hand changes.

And yeah, I'm just not feeling the power of that lightning bolt.  There should be more light coming off of it.  Maybe the main character's hair is blowing back from the force...  The character's stance is so powerful, but the ogre just standing there looking confused as his arm gets torn off at the shoulder just doesn't lend the sense of power that I feel the bolt should have.

It's just silly difficult.  Did you read his description of the answer to that one?  After I googled and solved the riddle, I looked at his explanation of how I was supposed to come to that conclusion.  Not having an interest in picking up international espionage as anything more than a hobby, I quit at that moment.

His explanation minus the pictures:

Spoiler

Here you are, my friend ;-)



I'm quite unsure that the whole riddle will be solved in the "right" way, that
is the one I'm going to explain here: that's because I feel I've made an image
(the bmp) which is easy to understand even without analyzing the text, which
is (IMO) the most interesting part of the riddle. But let's follow the steps
I thought you should have done to arrive here:

- First of all, read the page: it has a .gif file called "alice.gif" and a
  link which sends you a file (0c.zip) containing a .bmp image with a detail
  of the Alice image. Why is this detail so important?

- To tell the truth, the detail of the original alice.gif image is not
  important at all, but the bmp file is important itself: it contains some
  steganographed data that make up the password you need to go to level 2.
  This is the error I've done: just by looking at the image, you can see that
  there are steganographed data. As you can see, there are some yellow pixels
  which are "less yellow" than others, because their last byte (the blue
  component of their color) contains some information: that is the hex value
  of the PLAIN TEXT characters telling you which is the right pass!
  I know, this was quite a big error, anyway I don't want to correct it now:
  I'll do a harder riddle next time, who minds

- It's not hard to understand the order you should follow to connect all the
  dots (do you remember my words in the riddle text? "solution will be as easy
  as just connecting the clues you have found"... heh!). You just have to
  follow the borders of the image, but to be sure you worked the right way I
  gave you a big, big hint...

- in alice.gif there are 34 numbers: they can be divided in 17 pairs, where
  the first number in each pair is incremental, while the second seems random;

- what does occur 17 times in the text file? Have you ever tried to use a
  program which counts occurrencies of bytes inside files? Don't worry, since
  you are at level 2 now I'll let you find one in the tools section (or I'll
  dedicate a tutorial to it). Anyway, if you just count (argh! or run the
  counter program you can find that the only byte which occurs 17 times is
  ASCII 46, that is (alt+46) "."

- isolate all the dots inside the text (that is why I had to add all that crap
  (don't misunderstand me, I love text adventures but I didn't know what to
  say more to fill all those gaps!) and you will find a "picture" like this:


                                                              .
                                                                     .

                                                          .
                                                                     .
                                            .






                                                                    .


                                                                       .


                                            .
                                                                          .



      .                                                                  .

                                                         .

                                           .

                                                      .
                                                                               .


                            .



                                                                    .



- now number all the dots according to the values you found in the alice.gif
  image: that is, the first dot in the text will become number 10, the next
  one 11 and so on.

- join the dots and what do you find? THIS image!
 

[meaningless image of dots connected]



- now just read the wrong pixels values you have found inside the bmp image,
  following the order of the dots you have just connected (keep just the blue
  values, of course):

  112 97 115 115 32 105 115 32 76 105 100 108 83 99 111 116 116

  that, converted in ASCII, correspond to the phrase:

  pass is LidlScott


... I think that's all

[close]

ETA: If you are interested in cryptography and cyphers and like a good challenge but aren't interested in going prematurely bald, check out the cryptochallenge.  The tough ones are really tough, but not impossible, and they also have a section called the "Lunch Hour Challenge" full of cyphers that you can crack in under an hour.  It's a much more satisfying brain twister than 3564020356.org.

Darth has ambition.  You gotta give him that.  I assume you've seen Broken Saints? (Soon to be made into an "adventure" game for next generation consoles/PC)

I say produce something you can finish.  THEN adapt it to flash or another form of media, if that's the way you see the project going.

BTW: Love Andail's edit.  Except for the way too small text (as he mentioned). 

And in that first frame of page two, he's leaning against the wall, but he's leaning the wrong way.  It looks like he's going to fall over...

One more suggestion: add some smoke from the cigarette.

Love Helm's lighting job.  The page would benefit a lot from this.  Especially the last 'BAM!' frame.  I imagine it with some pretty harsh clinical-white overhead lighting... but that's just me.

Look out for small typos in the script.  I think you need a space in the second frame in "stupidif."  Also, in the last panel, I think you want "The name's Scid" rather than "The names Scid."

Looks nice.

Flash can export as .png -- use it.  That's how I'm doing all the art for my game.

Using layers save lives.

ETA: DING!



EATA: And Stefano's edit:

Wipe that tear off your cheek, my good man.  This is the 21st century!  Pen nibs for most tablet manufacturers are readily availiable for purchase on the internet.  Just go to your tablet's manufacturer site and search around.  You'll be nibbin' in no time!

I disagree with Steve's dislike of overlapping frames.  I think it can be a visually exciting technique as long as it is used appropriately.  And I think this is a good time to use it.  The mood of the comic jumped so quickly into violence and blood that the overlapping makes it feel more like a smash cut in a movie.  It kind of lends a 'BAM!' feeling to it.  However, I do have a few problems with it.

I agree that his head shouldn't overlap the foot, and also that the cigarette is ginormous.  Actually, I just think the elf-boy's head is entirely too small compared to his clothes and cig.

It's difficult to have a three panel page, when a square page lends itself so naturally to four panels.  You've got the final panel ending in the lower right hand side of the page.  I think the eye always wants to end the action on the page in the lower left hand side.  A single frame on the bottom of the page should either take up the whole width of the page or should  be on the right side.

With regards to your art style, I think the comic's drama and mood would benefit a lot by a shadow layer...  quick demonstration.

Quick paintover:



That was crappy, but with only a few moments' work, I think it added a lot of mood to the page.  Of course, your style is your own, so it's just a suggestion.

Great review down at Gamespot:

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/psychonauts/review.html

You brilliant Brits!  America (and Australia?) are so backwards...

Oh right.  I remember these photos.  I don't know what the hell they used them for.  The only time I saw my photo again was on a big "Well Come Mr. Vincent" sign at the airport.  And let me tell you, if I had known that they were going to blow that picture up and put it on a sign, I would have taken my own.  Yikes.

They were also going to use the pic for the official Okinawan JET website, but they gave me the option of giving them an alternate picture, which I of course did immediately.

As for your gaijin card, they have passport photo booths outside of just about every convenience mart.  They had me take my picture there (and it turned out waaaay better than my actual "professional"  passport photo.  Hmm... better quality at 1/15th the price?  And no need to deal with any incompetent human employees?  These Japanese are on to something...

So anyways, my advice is to not worry too much about the pics.