Okay, I'm going to have to break up the chain of congrats posts here by doing a bit of a 'review'. I mean, congrats to Mayh3m and Lucky Me for winning, and good job to everyone (Because yes, you guys DID do a good job), but I felt as though each and every piece have a few issues that could be improved on, which is basically what I'll be iterating on in this next post.
Do note, all of this is my opinion, and in this 'review' I'm doing it from a single basis and standpoint - that everybody could have done the same thing. Yes, skill level is different but that is something I'll be ignoring, simply because I can't judge it. Furthermore, I acknowledge that some of the programs are worse than others - for example, older software, or free software, may not render the image as well as paid software. (And if I were to specify, I would say that Mayh3m's software from Adobe rendered images the best) However, I'm still not cutting any slack.
I'm writing this hoping that it'll help everyone fix the issues faced in the future, but not necessarily to praise you about what you did well here. It's constructive criticism, and if you don't like it, that is fine. The only reason I write this post now is because I think constructive criticism will be good support for everyone, including me.
The following are done in order of the way they were posted in the submission thread.
Edward Kenway Submission #1
UNSC Spartan-II Submission #1
Mayh3m submission 1
Mayh3m submission 2
TDM Submission 1
TDM Submission 2
TDM Submission 3
JL's submission
UNSC Spartan-II submission 2
Halo5willbecool's submission
Mayh3m submission 3
Sikslik7's submission
To sum up the basic problems that I think I see, it is that:
1. There's a lot of times when people simply copy purely the 'Spartan' or the 'Monitor' or the 'Ship' but doesn't copy it's surroundings. This leaves both a bad looking border around the copy, as well as messes up with the depth cues of the image, which then leaves our brain wondering what the frick we're looking at.
2. Balancing the number of objects. On one side of the image, quite a few things in the foreground, on the other side, pure background. Also applies to color and lighting.
3. Rendering. I'm fairly certain that apart from Mayh3m's use of Adobe Photoshop C3, all the rendered images do not look as clean and crisp.
All these come together to basically decrease the professionalism in the images. It is this decreased professionalism that then lowered the worth of using the images as a front cover.
Personal evaluation: Next time, use adobe
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Now for some happier stuff, congrats to Mayh3m for his success on the FB page photo, as well as a hefty good-job to everybody who participated. It's nice to see everybody give it a go, and yeah, as Ranger said, surprising (But lucky! I've seen firsthand what they can do) that the Art Department, or Insignia, didn't input their own works.