Many thanks to everyone who entered the Ruffles Pop Quiz! Since we only had 23 entries I'll say a little something about each.
Off we go!
Albannach's demon used the item as teeth masked to the head, I believe. I had to go look it up as I couldn't tell. On the one hand, it's kind of cool that I couldn't figure it out by looking at the image, but on the other hand, I couldn't figure it out without looking at the image. It's a nice character design, though.
Atomic Punk made an animated gif! Sadly that removes it from contention since only direct output from the program qualifies, but it's still fun.
I love the way Drummergirl used the ruffles as the neck of the dragon. That's definitely one of the most creative uses of the item, which is what I judge by on these. I do wish the warrior figure were standing on something, though.
FRM made a very clever Jill-in-the-box. I like the vibrant colors and the overall composition a lot. And while the ruffle is used as a neck item, contrary to the rules, it is also used much more as the pop up parts, so that's ok. Nice illustration!
Fudgee placed the ruffles in the orc's weapon. I like the illustration but the item is so incidental I had to look up how it was used.
Harlequin produced the absolutely lovely "Love Is Always Win", one of his nicest pieces to date (which is really saying something). Beautifully framed, with great color design, and subtly used ruffles as trim on the clothing.
HerrD did not name his file appropriately so isn't in consideration for the win, but "Snapbloom" uses the ruffles in one of the most creative ways.
I love Jack's "Clown Car", featuring the ruffles as wheels of death. The dirty patterning on the car is fantastic, and I love the clown face on the front. Great job!
Like Albannach, Jack Zelger turned the ruffles into teeth on a monster. Pretty cool.
Johnny Gear's "Moon and Sun" is a very pretty illustration, but it took me a while to figure out the middle blue part was the challenge item. And then I couldn't figure out what it serves as in the image. Is it a lake, a representation of a world (so the same scene is mirrored)? I didn't quite "get" this one.
MadPac went with a pretty standard "killer clown", with the ruffles used as ruffles on the sleeves and pants. This is an example of using the item as what it actually is, which was a little disappointing.
Maniacmick, on the other hand, went full maniac and built the bastard love child of the Michelin Man and Godzilla! It's really cool that almost everything in the image is the challenge item.
I love Nobody's "Broccoli Man". The head piece helps get it out of the "item used exactly as intended" trap.
Ploughed Jester's "Irish Dance Outfit" is a lovely character sketch, but again I had to really search to find the challenge item. And then it was used as clothing. Plus, the feet are a little floppy. Still, a beautiful costume design!
NHA247 didn't name his file properly, and used the item as neckwear, so isn't in contention. But it's still a fun drawing!
RobM's "antipasto" not only features a very creative usage, but also made me hungry.
Rozenstal again did not name his file properly so isn't in contention. But I really liked the clever transformation of the ruffles into toothbrush bristles and such.
Skybandit's "Conan the Ballerina" gave me a good chuckle.
Superfan1's "Alisha the Clown", like several of the others, uses the ruffles purely as clothing at the end of the shirt and pants, while what I usually like to see on these is something more out of the box. It's a very nice illustration, though, as usual from this gifted creator.
Thundersong's "LadyMidori-San" is a stunning piece of work. I love all the patterning and color, she's just gorgeous. The ruffle is used as a hat, which is not the most innovative usage, but it's truly a lovely, lovely piece.
TOOL came with "The Red Queen", which is a fun illustration but which uses the ruffles as neckwear, which I asked you all not to do. So unfortunately it isn't in contention. Still a nice piece, though!
Vampyrist's "Jadek" is another excellent character design, but unfortunately for me, flattening the ruffles into the hat brim ends up looking a bit like corrugated cardboard edging. I really like the character itself, though.
Finally, Wildcard gave us "Nightmare", with a head made entirely of the ruffle. Pretty neat.
Ultimately I narrowed the Finalists down to Harlequin, who a gorgeous image with a not terribly innovative usage of the item; Jack, with the most creative use of the challenge item but which has the clown theme heavily used by a lot of others; and Thundersong, with that stunning costume design, though it still uses the ruffles as a piece of clothing.
I was pretty stuck on which one of these three to choose as the winner as they're all outstanding. Ultimately I had to go with the one that I thought was not only a great illustration, but which also heavily featured the use of the challenge item in an innovative way. And since of the three, only Jack used it as something other than clothing, I went with him. Although I can't figure out how the "dirt" patterning on the car was done within HM so Jack, if you read this, fill me in!
Congratulations to our winner, Jack! But well done everyone, it was another fun and successful contest. I appreciate your creativity very much!
If I had to guess and reproduce the dirt pattern on the car Jeff, I would say it was done with various energy and or aura effects and the camo pattern.
Thanks all the lot of positive feedback.
And gratulate for everyone who enter. Technically i don’t make that picture for the contest. I do only for practicing to i can make a kiss scene. The background story is also motivate me. So i really happy but a little bit sad also. I hope to win, because i want to ask Jeff to make a portrait for this. But no problem.
Gratulate Jack, i see a clever execution.
Great stuff everyone. Kind of excited that of the four drawings I had thought would be finalists, all three hit it on the nose. All three were great and Maniacmick’s was simple but very fun. As for the winner, played Twisted Metal a ton as a kid. Great throwback feel. I love that the bug was used because it would just make an awesome combat car if duned out for suspension and handling… they’d never hit it. The best part is when I first saw the drawing, I even heard the evil laugh! Excellent!
As a side note: I didn’t realize that not being able to use it as neckwear was intended to be the same as to not use it as a ruffle. I did, however, enjoy seeing the really creative uses more.
Last, and this isn’t meant as bitterness and I hope it doesn’t come across as anything but informative, but I disagree with the feet being floppy. That is, in my opinion, a very accurate representation of what Irish hard shoes look like in a toe stand, depending on the brand of shoe and thickness of the fiberglass (or “clicky” part) of the shoe’s toe. No offense is taken though, as this is merely a cultural misunderstanding. I do realize that Irish dance isn’t that well known outside of the pure rhythmics like Riverdance, which don’t often feature full on toe stands.
http://susanwachowich.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/irish-dance.jpg
http://data.whicdn.com/images/11439873/tumblr_lnbq7gyGGQ1qawqogo1_500_thumb.jpg
Cheers!
Congratulations, Jack! Creative works for everyone (as always).
I know the animation disqualified my entry. However, the static picture wasn’t festive enough. (Actually, I was more concerned about copyright infringement.) Had so much fun that I wanted to share.
Bigger take-away: “Shareware” and “Freeware” GIF animators are choc full of spy- and malware. I should have known better. Still wanted to take a shot at it. I have spent all morning scrubbing my hard drive. Happily, I killed a lot of other worms. My laptop hasn’t run this fast in years!
Tip of the gas mask to:
RobM’s “Antipasto”
Harlequin’s “Love is Always Win”
Thundersong’s “LadyMidori-San”
Thx Dude.
Congrats, Jack!
This contest was so much fun.
Gratulation, i like Harlequin and the Jacks clown car at most.
@Jeff: I have no seen a yellow writting from you. I live in europe so i dont know what your dead line is.
As i posted it was 16:30 (am?) of our time. You posted in the evening.
Last time you always make a post when is end of a contest, this time you forgot. 😉
So please not forget here are a many people they come not from your time zone!
Heyla!
Awesome Win Jack!
Ah, close, but no win. LOL! Each contest I enter makes me try to think out of the box…most times. All the Entries were Awesome! My fav (besides mine), is the Jill-in-the-box.
Harelquin, your entries always amaze me. I did not even Think that a kissing pose was possible! Way Kewl!
*On a side note, though it is not noticeable in the picture, the dress bottom I used for the overcoat, when there is no pattern on it, and I make it transparent, there is a black dot that appears. It does this on a few other bottoms (Legwear) and a couple of the dresses (Tops) as well…is there a reason for this?
I’ll try to remember that going forward. In my defense, the pop quiz is one day only and I say in the announcement I say I could end it that night. And while it’s not yellow, there was a pingback to the results posted before yours.
But I’ll be explicit next week.
Danke Schön Kytana.
@Thundersong – Everything is possible. 😀 – Sometimes no more needed than a little imaginery, and think out the box.
Thanks All this is more me than i win.
I won? Holy crap, I WON! 😀 This is awesome!
And for the pattern…I added a camo pattern to the buggy, but it looked too gray and not rusty as I was hoping for, so I got a bunch of circles and squares from ‘Insignia’ and overlaid them on the pattern in select areas, lowering the opacity of the colors down to about 20, and some the color of the car.
Hunh, learn something new every day. Thanks for the info, I stand corrected!
It’s a great effect, Jack, very well done.
Guess I missed the part about “not using it as a neck piece”, I thought it was just use it somehow, good ideas here though. I thought Harlequin won but I see people saying Jack won, either way congrats.
From the original post: One caveat, though — you can’t use it as Neckwear.”
And from the last paragraph of this post: “Congratulations to our winner, Jack! ”
🙂
Sorry I have had a lot on my mind, possibly getting a divorce :/ I am usually good at reading directions.
So it is necessary also to name the file … I’ll try to do it next time.
I’d appreciate it. As I say each week, and have discussed in comments, it needs to be in the form [yourname]-[charactername].jpg/png
Jack, your clown car is really awesome. Congrats!
Yikes. I forgot the file name! Haste makes waste. Congrats everyone. Thx Jeff, for the compliment. Good luck, Tool.
So because someone don’t think it to i use only hm3 here is the text link for few of my pictures. If someone check any photoshop work pls tell me. I don’t want to die in idiot.
P.s. I only use Paint for save the widescreen pictures and crop the image if not needed the full background.
I give the community the text. Check it, and use it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?jtw682b6ngew695
I don’t think anyone thought you were going outside the program (unless somebody wrote you in private). While you are really stretching the boundaries of HM3 I don’t see anything that couldn’t be done in the program. With that said, I am amazed with the ingenuity of your poses and shape creations. For curious folk the text file you have provided will be very helpful in pulling back the curtain of your process.
And for the record I crop my HM3 png exports in Photoshop for the final presentation.
This is another edition of “What dblade said” — I agree 100% with all of that.
Thanks.
@Herr D, thanks, we were able to work it out so all is well. Hopefully it will stay that way and things will get better. Nuf said.
Hey Jeff, for my contest prize, could I get a “Sketch of the Day” drawing of this character in an action pose? 🙂
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/bobobo1/Rorschach/rowtag.png
Or maybe a five-figure turnaround? *hopeful*
Whichever you’re more comfortable with!
You got it!