The ZU Graphics Competition - Final Round

[Cody]

Well, it's down to the last three contestants, and this time I'm going to announce the remaining contestants here.

From Part I, we have HylianShroom, with his Textalicious Wallpaper. He won by a landslide, congrats.

From Part II, we have Ed, with his Wind Waker Wallpaper. I'm sure his fangirls out there will be happy.

From Part III, we have man_with_thooo, with his Triforce Wallpaper. He was the first one to hand in his wallpaper, two days after the round started. The only one until about a day before the round end to hand one in, too.

Your wallpapers will be placed in the wallpaper section of the website as ZU wallpapers, unless of course for some reason you decide that you wish for it to be taken down. This offer also extends to the others who made it into the second round, as your wallpapers were, as a rule, all pretty good.

Final Round:
In the first round, we explored the realm of a signature made around a certain stock image, as would be often requested at a Signature Shop. In the second round we focused on the bigger picture, with large Zelda wallpapers. So, for the final round, the theme will be theme. <_<. Well, let me explain it more clearly, I just had an urge to type "the theme will be theme." Anyway, we're back to signatures, but this time, you're not going to be given a stock image, but a theme to work with. You can choose any images that you wish to complete the theme, that theme being "Heat".

Rules:
Considering you've made it past the first two rounds, I assume you already know the rules. If in doubt, look at the last couple of round threads.

On a side note, for non graphic-artists looking at this thread that would like to give it a go, there is a Graphics School section particularly for that purpose, where you can learn Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP and can even learn to harness your powers in Microsoft Paint, which I always thought was pretty funny.

Good luck. The deadline is February 6th, 2008.

[Jason]

Jesus Christ, that Wind Waker wallpaper is superb.

I know it's probably against the rules, so feel free to delete this comment, but I'm blown away! Honestly, did Ed really make that vector art from scratch? Even tracing over the original box art image is impressive. I mean, it's not like it's simple vector art, but he managed to get pretty darn close to Nintendo's official art. Obviously it doesn't match, but that's only because I examined it closely and found the nuances that weren't the same. Absolutely superb! Somebody really knows what the heck they're doing in Illustrator. It's so refreshing to see that.

Ed, if you read this, you simply must upscale that to 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 sizes!

[Cody]

Nar, comments are allowed for this thread, or I would have stickylocked it. :P


Edit: Oh, and making those upsized wallpapers would be useful for the main site.

[Scott]

Indeed it would be useful.

Chillin'z, make it happen, fast-like.

[Ed]

Jason, wow. Thanks a lot man. I wasn't expecting anything like that. Also yeah, I traced over the image from one of the official wallpapers. Heh, I don't think it took all that much skill, just time. ;)
Thanks again.

I tried upscaling them, though honestly they turned out.. not so good. If anyone knows how to upscale images correctly, feel free to do so, it would be much appreciated. :P

1280x1024, 1600x1200
Hm. ;/

Cody - I should have my entry in by next week sometime.

[Jason]

Upscale the VECTORS, not the whole image

You can get away with scaling the rest - it's the vectors that need to continue looking crisp and clear.

[TAB]

Try converting them into .svg's. Then you can make them as big as you need them. Of course, that would take good math skill or a good program...

[Cody]

Bigger versions of yours would be nice too (Jason's edit: would be MANDATORY, too), Tacheon. :P

Edit: And everyone else's.

[Quantumplation]

If Ed deleted the paths then there's no way to increase the size while retaining the quality, since Photoshop is raster based. Ed, if you're up to it, you can trace the image again in an SVG compliant program, like Illustrator or Inkscape - then you can scale it up or down as large or small as you want without any degradation of quality.

[TAB]

Go for Inkscape. It's the best.

[Wired]

If you'd like the wallpapers for the main site, then I'd be glad to contribute, but just let me fix the crap outta mine.

[Ed]

I downloaded Inkscape, though honestly, I really don't want to trace it again. Eh, sorry. School also starts back this Thursday, so I don't really have the time either. If there is anything else I can do, I'd be happy to. My apologies.

[Quantumplation]

Originally Posted by Ed

I downloaded Inkscape, though honestly, I really don't want to trace it again. Eh, sorry. School also starts back this Thursday, so I don't really have the time either. If there is anything else I can do, I'd be happy to. My apologies.

I don't blame you. Although if you want to cheat some, you could try Vector Magic.

On a different note - and I know this is probably the wrong place to ask - but where do I submit a wallpaper?

[Cody]

Just PM any wallpapers you want to put on the site to me.

[Ed]

Originally Posted by Nayru Blue

I don't blame you. Although if you want to cheat some, you could try Vector Magic.

Thanks I'll try that later. :)

Also, eeeek. I'll get my entry in after school! Promise.