So I'm gonna post the nominations. You can talk about who you think should win/what shouldn't have been included, but my mind is pretty much made up!! I'll be posting the winners of the main categories and the side categories, and at the very end I'll announce the BEST and WORST pics of the season!!
If you win feel free to post an acceptance speech.
THE NOMINATIONS:
Best of Round 1-2
Best of Round 3-4
Best of Round 5-6
Worst of Round 1-2
Worst of Round 3-4
Worst of Round 5-6
Best Individual Pic from Round 1-2 (just the half of the pic; not the full thing) (bottom) (top) (bottom) (bottom) (top)
ALSO COMING SOON:
Overall Best/Worst (chosen from the winners of the above categories)
Hey, folks! Welcome to the big night! Or, like, week. Because I'm doing this over the course of a week to drag out my fading stardom.
So yeah, why am I here? Oh right, I'm the "match pic guy" even though I barely make any anymore! I guess that means I have to point at people and tell them they're good. Maybe people will think I know what I'm doing!
Here's the first category: BEST MATCH PIC OF ROUNDS 1-2. Why combine the rounds? Because I flipped through round 2 and... I didn't really like a lot of them!
And here are our nominees:
A lot of very good pics! It was VERY hard choosing good ones because I'm going for an OVERALL look. One pic can't carry the whole thing, so when a great pic (Catherines) is paired with a Stock Ulti Pic (Sonic) then it's pretty much thrown out.
You all worked very hard on your half-a-pics! I have to say that you're all very talented, and that
THE WINNER IS PIC 43
Hooray! Everyone cheer for Yoblazer! This is Yoblazer's first nomination and his first win. He's also the first to win a Piccy, period.
EDIT: I forgot greatone10! He did the top half. I kept associating this one with Yoblazer. Sorry, greatone! You are a great one too.
BUT WAIT! Zen chose a joke pic! He can't be for serious!
Well, maybe it's because it's the only round 1 pic to blow me away unanimously. It definitely evokes a lot of emotion, and it's both funny, intense and balanced all at the same time. It's got a good color palette that can grab your attention from across the room and the pics just WORK. They work! They work and that's that.
This contest has shown me that I've gotten too old for match pic making. The scene has just past me by, and I can't catch up anymore. When I started, pic making was different. It was about the art. Now it's all about the glory. The bickering, the hateful slander, it might be right for some but it's not right for me.
But there's more than that. I can no longer make good match pics. Or at least, what is considered good now. I don't know what that means, I don't know what anything means anymore. I should have seen it coming last year, the pictures that I made that I thought were good, great even, were not being accepted. I thought it was simply the luck of the draw, but since then my quality has dropped so low I resorted to creating ironic fake pictures just for a little attention. The man who I was, the artist that I was years ago would be insulted to hear what he had turned into. Was I even that good to being with? Who knows...
I officially retire from making match pics. I just wanted to have my say. Now this old, useless bad of bones will get out of your way. Enjoy your awards.... while you can. Someday, you won't get any more and it will hurt.
--
You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.
Looks like I'm too average to qualify for either top honours or contest turkeys! Too bad, because I managed to get all 12 of my submissions accepted, if only for the fact that barely anybody was submitting anything! Won't happen in any other contest.
But really, the Chrono Trigger/Vampires one was awful with the metal background. So was Ninjas/MMX with those fascinating red/blue corners and blurry characters.
Best 1-2: Best 3-4: (don't like any of the nominees all that much) Best 5-6: (clown-car G'dorf, too good) Worst 1-2: Worst 3-4: (also worst match pic ever, all contests included) Worst 5-6: (though the whining was hilarious)
Best individual pic: (Crono/Lavos)
-- SuperNiceDog owned me in the Guru. Or do I have to stop using the word "owned" in order to not offend black people due to slavery?
It's a bonus award, tailored to a certain Picsmith who showed exceptional confidence and tenacity when opposed by my harsh critiques and the general disdain of the board. He never gave up, coming up with pretty much 1/4 of all pics accepted (maybe more, I wouldn't be surprised) and showed us that he does indeed have the ability to learn, grow and accept constructive criticism.
And that user is ERTYU. Jesus, have you seen this guy's pics? Atrocious! But he's made more than ANY of us, and probably puts more work into them than we ever could.
So many stock Ulti pics! I don't think the guy manages to dodge a bullet because he at least doesn't do something so goddamn offensive to the eye that the entire board is now blind as a result of witnessing it. Seriously, it's incredible that we've all adapted to the speech functions and braille keyboards so quickly. We gotta keep up with the stats, dammit!
That said, the winner is, without a doubt:
Holy HELL is the top of this pic a goddamn TRAIN WRECK. Luckily I'm blind, but the last thing I remember seeing is what appeared to be Link and Ganondorf in a cropped pic that was so dark you could barely tell who was who and if one of them was secretly Epona or something. Also it was skewed for no reason, the names were kinda ugly and it was just all around one of the worst pics ever made. Yo_D_oY, I'm not sure who you are but you deserve this reward. I google you and apparently you're a troll on a Fire Emblem board or something? I forgot, and now I'm too blind to care.
And Justin, your half wasn't AWFUL, but it was subpar enough to drag this one down behind our runner up, which is:
this is gonna be a weird bonus segment, as Ceej did all these pics. He's not here to see these comments so I can verbally assault him as much as the ToS allows!
Our first picture! This was the greatest contest of all time?! Look how bland the round 1 pics are!! Well, to be fair, Ceej used to LOVE full body shots for round 1, but as more and more newer FPS characters got in it got harder and harder to keep with tradition so full body became upped torso.
It's hard to rate these fairly as they're all the same exact crap, but I'll just comment on if the pic choices were good, the quality, how they match (he had FULL CONTROL so they should match to some extent, unless it's Marcus Fenix vs Ulala) and if he did a good job rendering.
This one is alright. I think Wind Waker Link matches PERFECTLY with Aiai. Also, Wind Waker Link basically owned this contest, so I'm gonna start the Wind Waker Link tally to see just how much CJayC wanted him to lose!
Overall: 8.5/10 (matching styles, clean, no dynamic) WW Link Count: 1
The first appearance of Melee Fox?! Maybe. Fox wasn't in 2K2, right? So our first pic is the most basic possible one alriiiight good start I guess. He's a 3D model and Pikachu is 2D, which is OK as they're also the most basic pics you could ever choose ever. For srs. It'd be better if Pikachu was facing inwards. I'm not sure how valid it is but one of the basic design rules I learned way back when is that characters should never be jumping out of the picture. It would be cooler if he was jumping at Fox, I guess so that rule must work sometimes!
Overall: 7.5/10
Hey I'm Tidus and I'm a HURRRRR and this is Ganondorf and he's a DURRRR. They both look super washed out; There was no vibrance adjustment layer back then so I guess it was harder to deal with, but SRSLY they're just kinda standing there. Default OoT art vs... is that an action figure? Huh.
Overall: 6.5/10
You know what really must have sucked? Writing fanfiction for these contests. GODDAMN how could you write this seriously? Magus would SLAUGHTER Sam Fisher in a fight. I think Cloud and Squall and I really revolutionized the Fanfiction business on this board when we came up with the idea to have the characters not fight, but face physical and psychological challenges and overcome them before their opponents!
I don't know why I went off on this tangent but damn Sam Fisher looks like a big black gimp or something next to the dynamic and awesome Magus. I LOVE that Magus art, especially compared to that ugly ass "magus standing there and looking like a pale 200 year old piccolo" art with the huge codpiece.
Overall: 7ish/10
This is pretty awesome because Squall's gunblade is like blending in SO MUCH that it looks like he's just holding a revolver. Two PS1-y 3D models with GUNZ and one of them is in leather and one has a tubetop. SO BADASS.
Overall: BADASS GUNZ/10
But in all seriousness it was a big deal to blend in the gunblade like that. Half of Squall's appeal is that his gun is ALSO a sword!! Jill looks fine but this is really just a "default" kinda look for her, but it's round 1 and full body pics are limited, and Jill always looks pretty good when she isn't cosplaying as Zero Suit Samus.
So I have no idea what Ceej did here (also I keep typing "Bacon" when I want to refer to Ceej so forgive me if I slip up and don't catch it) but I think he like made a 3D thing to act as a light? You can also make 3D! There's an drop down menu for it, but I wouldn't recommend it. You can literally turn a match pic (or all the banners) into a hat:
But it looks cheesy, cheap and any expert will know "oh that's the Photoshop hat." I wouldn't recommend using it but it's a quaint little feature you should try out to like impress your friends who don't know nothin bout photoshop. It's like 3D > Create New Shape from Layer. I think CS4 and up has this feature.
So YEAH another tangent there, but these are some basic pics, and while the flashlight effect is BAD I applaud the attempt because Ceej was probably using Photoshop 7 or CS1 or something like that and it wasn't all that simple to make shapes.
Overall: 8.5/10
I'm pretty sure that Crash is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle or maybe Ferris Bueller because he totally just saw KOS-MOS's boobs for the first time and stopped the action to turn to the audience to make some comment about how he'd like to "get his hands on her ample flux capacitors" or something like that. Pretty nice pic for Crash, and KOS-MOS needs more boobs because being a sexy kawaii animu robot waifu is half of KOS-MOS' appeal. Or all of it. But it's full body pics! You gotta work with what crappy full body art you get.
Overall: 8/10
MOST BASIC PICTURE OF ALL TIME.
OF. ALL. TIME.
Overall: The most basic picture of ALL TIME/10
Eggplant CATS! I genuinely miss this guy. It was great seeing the kiddies come and be like "who is cats" and someone would answer "a type of AIDS." Actually, that was me. My first post on this board was "who is cats I know everyone but him what game is her from google just gives me pictures of kittens" and someone said "a type of AIDS"
8ish years later and nothing has changed
Overall: AIDS/10
Another VERY BASIC match pic but with conflicting styles. BADASS AURON default art vs CUTE CUDDLY TAILS default art. I like the contrast.
Overall: 7.5/10 (god this is boring)
MELEEEEEEE
Overall: SUPER SMAAAAASH BROTHAAAAAAS/10
hey it's MORE MELEE ART fjrhgashvbasjzbhvjab I know the game was still fresh and people hadn't discovered wavedashing yet (?) and were actually using characters other than Fox and Marth (???) but good god Yoshi has WAY MORE ART. I hope we see better examples later on. Also, Conker. Looking awesome. It's a shame his game sold like crap.
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NOT NOMINATED
