Discussions on the NEW graphical Workshops

circes_cup wrote: Is this workshop still concluding on March 31?

Yes...last date for entries is midnight Mar 31

Some really great entries here...a shame no-one used one of my stories, but hey...I'd go see ALL of these movies.

Dru1076 wrote: Some really great entries here...a shame no-one used one of my stories, but hey...I'd go see ALL of these movies.

Everything given and considered mine would probably turn out to be more a TV series than a movie.

Also, I'm seriously considering to some of the entries as covers to the Series Library section.

Thought I'd take the plunge and post my comments/crits on the entries (excluding my two):

Atalanta:
I think the reason I didn't like this much as the other two was the fact that LvV was the center figure. Don't get me wrong, I adore her, but the fact that I knew exactly which publicity shot the pic came from (ironically, I toyed with it in an early version of my DDI poster) almost kinda spoiled it for me in that I subconsciously KNEW it was photoshopped. That sounds silly, especially in light of the fact that it was an excellent job putting her in the toga/tunic, but for some reason I didn't like it as much as the others in terms of integrating the photoshop work.

Bakers Dozen
I LOVED this and was my favorite of all of them. From the "casting decisions" to the photoshop work to the overall layout. And the logo/title....simply wonderful. Loved Tina Fey being cast as the Librarian (at least I assume that was her)!

Daylight / Starhawk / Exploring Earth
I kinda lumped my critiques for all of these in the same bucket cause I thought they had a lot of similarities in terms of layout which seemed to me more like an electronic book cover (nothing wrong with that). I think the thing that could have made them pop more would be something as simple as choice of fonts. The fonts used, both for titles and accompanying text, were rather standard (e.g. Times New Roman) and should have been upgraded a little to make it standout more.

Family Pictures
I wasn't as familiar with the story this was based off of so I found myself less invested in it as some of the others. That said, I loved the almost retro look of the heroines and the blur/blend effect that Woodclaw used. Truth be told, I tried using a similar "morph" effect in one of my earlier versions of DDI (I had a LOT of iterations) and failed miserably as my skills in that area paled to one you cranked out here. The landscape approach (which I guess is more common overseas) reminded me almost of a two page magazine spread that we might see as a movie ad in Entertainment Weekly.

Starfall
Probably the best photoshop job of all the entries. Loved the way the heroine is embedded in the street. Seamless! Also the overhead rock lift is well done (better than my Serena, IMO). The flames on the costume were also a great touch of detail. My only critique would be the use of the text or lack thereof to make it seem more like an actual poster or advertisement. Something even as simple as "Coming Soon" I think would have helped frame everything in better.

Panic in the Sky
In my opinion, the cleanest entry of all. It literally looked like something you'd see on a Blockbuster shelf -- if they were still around! . Everybody talks about Jaime being a great Sif or Wonder Woman, but now Jaime as Superwoman will be indelibly burned in my mind. Also, I loved the old Fleischer logo you photoshopped on her...outstanding. The use of the green glow and colors of the city worked great with the contrast of the blue and red of the title character as well.

My $.02
ElF

It is really hard to pick a winner from these. I'm gonna have to give it some thought before I cast my vote. I like that you threw in the logos at the bottom, Lfan...nice touch. I was wondering...are both films also available on Blu-Ray?

Dru1076 wrote: It is really hard to pick a winner from these. I'm gonna have to give it some thought before I cast my vote. I like that you threw in the logos at the bottom, Lfan...nice touch. I was wondering...are both films also available on Blu-Ray?

Sorry, Dru....Blu-Ray is not supported at this time.

Since making a single post feedback would be hard to do I'm going by author.
Given that I have close to none knowledge of how things are supposed to be done, I'm not going to critique the technical elements, but only how well I think the poster gel with the story.
Let's start with G7. I'm very happy to see you again around here and I'm sorry if my criticism are too harsh.

How Atalanta Kept the Bridge by GeekSeven:

Atalanta is kind of hard to judge for me, it has everything it needs (except maybe a subtle Xena reference ), but it misses the mark for me. Let me explain. There's nothing in this design that doesn't work per se (except maybe the parchment in the background, but this is a matter of personal tastes), still none of them fit together as nicely as I would expect. I'm not sure what causes this for me, but it ruins the enjoyment a lot.

Baker's Dozen by GeekSeven:

This is an excellent entry in my eyes, all the main characters (so far) are featured and look the part close enough and the composition is very poster-like. I also think that the title is spot on with that football-like style, it evokes the school atmosphere. I take issues with the font used for the upper half, though. It's not bad, but it looks bland to me. The sore spot is the tagline. It's brilliant, but being relegated to the right upper corner in a dark color makes it hard to spot, which is a major drawback in my eyes.

Panic In The Sky by GeekSeven:

Among G7's entries this is the one I take issues with, not because it's badly designed, but because it doesn't work with the story. Unless this is meant ot be the movie poster for a "Man of Steel" reboot of Doc's story, this doesn't work because it's not evocative of the style. The old school feeling of Doc's stories is what makes them unique, this poster has nothing of it. I'm sorry but I think that this lack the required vintage feeling.

Let's continue with Castor's entries. As others already observed these seem closer to book covers than posters, but I don't consider this a negative.

Daylight - A Story in the Dark by Castor

In my opinion this the best among Castor's entries: it's simple, but evocative. The picture is quite well balanced having the two halves of the tagline bracketing around the central figure. The halo is what makes this picture for me, it outlines the figure, making it pop from the background and giving life to the whole picture.
My big negative is that the title is white, instead of its own color, which kind undo the above effect and that it doesn't pop out enough from the picture.

Exploring Earth by Castor:

This picture is strange to me because I can't decide if it's too clutteder or not. On one hand the overlaying of face and Earth is a well known technique but here - I think - it doesn't work well and the two elements doesn't blend well together. As a result the picture seem too complicated for me.

Starhawk by Castor:

This one is just a "no" for me. While I can see that Castor put a lot of effort into it, I think that the final result is too complex, having both a very detailed picture of a city and a flaming character makes the details too chaotic for my tastes, which is something I really didn't want to say because I can see that Castor tried to go the extra mile with this one.

By the time I'm writing this, LFan's entries have a pretty substantial lead in this workshop, which isn't that suprising.

Deep Down Inside by Larafan

Both the eLF's entries have a very "Hollywood" feeling (same with G7's) meaning that they look exactly what I would expect from a high budget U.S. movie. Between the the I think that DDI is the less interesting. In spite of having more people in it, this poster feels bare and unfinished to me - although the glowing tummy is a nice touch. It might came from the fact that there's "less" going on in this posted compared to "Serena" and G7's "Baker's Dozen".

A personal note: LFan decided to include the movie credits like G7 did, but with names from our community - which is nice touch in my eyes - but choosing me for the music department would probably win this movie a Razzy Award right away, I'm pretty much tone-deaf.

Serena's Lucky Day by Larafan:

This seem to be the most popular entry so far and with good reason, I believe. While there's a lot going on in this poster, all the elements are relative to the story, hinting enough without revealing too much. The composition works pretty well to outline Serena's central figure, but does a big diservice to the other two characters that are "lost in the background", especially due to the overlay effect that makes them hard to spot at first glance. The tagline is a sore spot for me, since it doesn't gel with my vision of Serena, but that's personal preferences for you.

Starfall by Pansardum:

This entry is a surprise, while I saw a couple of work in progress versions, the final result is above my expectations. While some details might be off, I'm positive that this is the most dynamic scene among all the entries. The scene surely sells what its advertising and the care for details is present. What it lacks is a little extra in terms of text. Anything from a tagline to a date would have given this entry a much needed boost. Right now, it's an excellent picture, ready to be transformed into a poster, but it's not a movie, not yet.

After one week we have 61 votes and it's a tie for second place between bakers dozen by G7 and Deep Down Inside by Lfan, if you haven't voted then you only have 1 week left to get your vote in and help decide who should set lfan's money.

Fats

geekseven wrote: fats, the new pie chart view of the results has some issues. For a couple of the entries, the title is not visible. Also, the pie chart doesn't display on my phone (Android) at all, where the bar charts looked fine.

sorted

fats

Well, the workshop is over, if everybody is fine with it, I'll add some of these image as covers for the various stories.

Please all the authors contact me if there's any objection to this.