Are you ready for some Mayhem?

[wavion]

Yeah, I understand impi. These contests really need to include sources with entries, though in this one instance it probably wasn't appropriate due to the possibility of self-portraits giving away the contestant. I actually recognized LightGiver in this contest.

[GbyP]

Attention Internet Explorer users...

I've received a 3rd complaint about the page going blank when you click a link or when you click a button to post. The folk who develop these board styles don't always test in all browsers like they should. I suspect this might be a piece of JavaScript that your browser is blocking as I have IE7 and Firefox at work and both render the site fine for me but out company doesn't use script blocks. Likewise at home I use Firefox and Chrome - again, no issues.

That said, since I've received 3 complaints, I'll try to address and fix this today or soon. I can't do anything now - at work. So in the interim, I suggest IE Users change your board style by following the directions in this Help document

If you can't change your style - because of the code issue - drop me a line and let me know. Then when I get home, I'll change the default board style... likely back to "double rainbow" (MS2_Ember) - and look for a more stable dark background Style. I will be installing one wavion picked that is pretty nifty (but is dark gray).

I know what is causing the issue - I had to address it on the website home page to get the effect I wanted. But these Styles are huge collections of files so locating it can be time-consuming.

I am sorry - I want to offer a better user experience, not an invisible one.

[LightGiver]

Here are my source pics. I photographed all this stuff either out of my fridge/pantry or picked from my trees.

[Supdog]

Once again, fantastic work by all involved, and congrats to those making it to the next round. Mine was a self portrait, so in the interest of "web anonymity, I've pixelated myself a bit on my sources, but here they are.



Best of luck to all the contestants in round 2!

[ElectronChaser]

(03-25-2011 04:39 PM)impishimpi Wrote:  Thank you, Vortex Dweller. Tbh, after the work I out in creating that portrait entirely from fruit, I'm kind of crushed.

I gotta apologize to you impi as I am one of the people that rated that one kinda low. I guess all I can say is that the face was just too good. It made me think that the black cutouts where the fruit addition to the image. I totally screwed that one up, and I am sorry for that.

[Mister I]

Congratulations to GbP and Supdog. Those were my two perfect 10's -- brilliant!

impishimpi, I rated yours very highly too, just taking a leap of faith that there must have been some great skill and effort involved in transforming fruits and vegetables into that finely drawn face. I just wish we could see a tutorial on how you did it. Seeing the sources leaves me even more baffled!

Yugoboy, also very nice. Self-portrait as Einstein?

My own is a lame quickie. I just didn't have enough time, and am a bit embarrassed to have squeaked into Round 2. These are my sources.

[dsclink]

I don't think there is much doubt that seeing the sources would have helped voters see impishimpi's entry for what it is; an awesome 'shop. But I had decided not to reveal sources because I had hoped that would add to the mystery of how the images were created. (And as wavion said I didn't know before hand if anonymity would need to be preserved.)

I tired to make it clear that all of the images met the theme, but I figured too many were seeing that image the way EC did. It was too good for us. If I hadn't seen the sources I might have had my doubts too.

I say it again, impishimpi - Great Work!

[LightGiver]

Impi

What can I say... You Got me!

I'm having one of those "Wavion Syndrome" learning experiences again. Where I am awakened to the advanced skills of the image maker.

Thanks

[dsclink]

I also want to add that I was blown away by Yugoboy's Einstein and GbyP's Predator.
I also thought Supdog and ElectronChaser made outstanding 'shops.
I liked Lightgiver's hat, made me smile; and I got a chuckle out of libranoelrose's entry.
I thought Vortex Dweller did an excellent job.

[Vortex Dweller]

I did have the benefit of waiting to send my votes in until after dsclink reinforced the validity of all images. Although, I can't say how that may have affected my voting.

GbyP, I considered for a split moment only going to a 9 because of the closeness of subject to one of the only readily available, quality sources, but it was too good. Perfect. You should spread that around, I can see it having some very long legs on the ol' tubes.

I also smiled at Lightgiver's entry. A very open, welcoming presentation.

Thank you dsclink, I personally hope to be happier with my 2nd round attempt though

Kudos to all submissions!

[Yugoboy]

Thank you for all the kind words... I wasn't about to do a self-portrait... I'm not that good looking or interesting-looking. Einstein was iconic enough, and interesting enough that I enjoyed the challenge. The hardest part was finding the initial fruit or vegetable to make his head/face out of.

Sources:

[GbyP]

How to make The Predaturnip
Step1. Spend 2.5 days cursing the tourney host.
I didn't want to do me because I'm boring. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Originally I wanted to do Bill the Cat in his Billy & the Boingers outfit because his hair is green and looks like a salad. But thought if I did Bill, you would know it was mine. Then I remembered seeing a veggie Alien (oddly titled Salad Predator) awhile back and wondered if he had a veggie friend. Strangely he does not. Or if he does, it it well hidden in the depth of the webs. The closest I found was a pumpkin carved like the Predator's head. So thought, "What the hell, why not..." That's about as competitive as I felt.

I found a really nice large painting; the film pics were small and dark. I thought about using an action figure for reference because it was large and well detailed. But I liked the color scheme in the painting more.

Step 2. Spend 6hrs looking for big-ass pics of veggies and fruit that match parts of the pic.
Now here I played a strategic advantage - I work in Seattle's International District and there are some weird-butt veggies and fruit in the tropics and Asia. So rather than Google names of fruit I know, I Googled "Asian spiky fruit" or "tropical stringy vegetable" and stuff like that. For example, did you know that the Japanese love to grow square watermelon? Saves space in stores. So my warping on the armor was really a combo of warp + source.

Step 3. Realizing 7hrs into your 12 hr chop why no one has done a veggie Predator - too much frickin' detail!!! But I couldn't stop.

I sketched the reference pic to map out what fruit I needed where. Then just lots of cloning, lots of warping, lots of dodging & burning (way more than my normal) to get that bruised and unique piece look - for example, I only used 3 string beans for all of the dreads.

The background is 2 fill layers: black on top of lime green. I 'painted' in the black fill layer mask erasing the black foreground to reveal the green beneath (like my reverse-tables werewolf Fear pic).

Finally, I topped off the huge stack of layers with an exposure adjustment layer to make contrast pop and a 40% lime green photo filter adjustment layer to bathe the Predaturnip in a soft glow.

That's it! Now my sources of which I included the reference pic and the Veggie Alien inspiration:


I found a really nice large painting (by Krats on abduzeedo - I have the site bookmarked for inspiration) and decided to use that as my reference mostly because it was huge and detailed. I sketched it to get a general layout and I liked his color scheme so I referenced it for color & texture search when able. I did not use the actual painting in my chop. I guess you can call mine fan art of his fan art. If you are wanting to see my PSD file, I'm willing to share.

[ElVeeno]

I guess I thought that was OK as a source since mine is created entirely out of veggies & fruit. But after reading VD's comment, now I'm wondering if I played it too close to the source... If you think this is true, let Clink know and I'll disqualify myself and step out. I'm willing to post my PSD file if you need proof of my effort.

I was feeling good about my effort; now not so sure. I'm going to go work on the board now.


I hope you still feel good about your creation, it was the one that easiest to give a ten to. Fantastic work by all, marvel at all of the talented members here. My top two favs were Yours & Yogoboys
Awesome jobs by ElectronChaser & Supdog
Great job by everyone.

[Vortex Dweller]

(03-26-2011 03:41 AM)ElVeeno Wrote:  [i] But after reading VD's comment, now I'm wondering if I played it too close to the source... If you think this is true, let Clink know and I'll disqualify myself and step out.

WHOA WHOA WHOA Who said this? And where?!? I can't find it. IMHO NO COMMENT I MADE SHOULD WARRANT THIS REACTION AND I APOLOGIZE IF ONE DID. I love this site, the choppers in it, and EVERY submission to MMT 3-R1 and in no way meant to have any reaction like this. No.

I apologize to whoever said this, I cannot find your post, which may well be my fault. Please if this was GbyP (or anybody else), dude/dudette just chillax no fouls were committed or even close to.

Wow, I'm glad I checked back in here. Much love to squirreldom from me.

*cntrl F* is returning nothing is all I'm saying, I don't know who to apologize to, but I suspect is GbyP is all... and if it IS (or isn't, either way), he'd/they'd better be kidding about stepping out!

[GbyP]

Vortex Dweller Wrote:WHOA WHOA WHOA Who said this? And where?!? I can't find it.

Jesus, could we have any more simul-posts?

No worries, VD, just Crazy Panda doing his thing. I deleted the message after Clink showed me the errors of my way, but Elveeno must have been posting at the same time. I could have edited out of his message, but not going there with him or anyone. Just a moment of idiocy following a moment of bumm. Y'know, the usual.

dsclink showed me the error of my way; I misunderstood VD. After a great day I got some bad news tonight and I was bummed.

Such is the way of Zathras.

Sorry VD.

And yes, all the elements just snapped in line to make it one of my best photoshops. Now it's all downhill from here.
Oh crap! Gotta run, Here comes Clink!