SotW and WPotM: Discussion Thread: OLDER THAN BEEJAY

Originally Posted by Yami

Take a dictionary, open it up, and find a random word. Bam, theres a theme.

'Heart'
'Courage'
'Cruel'
'Love'
'Uniform'
'Oppression'

etc.

Ranil, those are far too generic. It'll just be you going to Google, typing in 'pokemon character', then slapping that into your factory.

Whereas, a word with meaning will have something more interesting coming out of it. It will be people's different interpretations of the word, what it means to them, and how well they have expressed it.

It's not all commercialism, jeez.

Hey, a theme is a theme, whether it's generic or not. I'm simply trying to split one theme (Nintendo) up into multiple themes (Pokemon, SSBB, etc.), so we have more to work with.

Asci: I lol'd.

Well the point of a TotW is that it's like an essay contest, Ranil. For instance, the theme would be "Love" and a motif would be, say, "Love sucks". In this case, you're trying to skip the theme "Nintendo" and go straight to forcing everyone to follow one motif, "Pokemans", when you should really make one thing like "Nintendo" and then have everyone do their own Nintendo thang, and then go from there. People may have different things they think of when they hear Nintendo.

Essay contest? This isn't supposed to be like an essay contest. Otherwise, Pani wouldn't be doing themes like Zelda, Mario, anime, etc.

...I don't think you get it, kiddo.

I'm saying that a good signature is like an essay-- it has a theme, and it says something about that theme.

More to work with? You're saying 'less is more'?

Splitting up Nintendo into various sub categories makes it even less broad, and if you divide that into like, games, series, etc. then you'll just have a bunch of signatures with Captain Falcon on it for example.

A decent theme would be something like "90's era video game icons" or something like that.

Mr. Tabbles: Do NOT call me 'kiddo.'

Yami: I meant more themes to work with. That way, we're not recycling the same ones over and over so fast.

Well, there are billions of things in the world to talk about, kiddo

(I'm calling you kiddo not as a derogatory term, merely because I'm more than 12 years your elder)

Yes, but are we going to think of all of them? No.

And I take offense to being called 'kiddo.' I take it as an insult to my maturity because I technically am an adult, I'm just not officially one yet.

Even if we're not going to think of them all, there's never a reason to use one more than once unless it was a completely awesome amazing epic idea.

And how old are you, exactly?

Well, age and country, if you please.

About 17 and a half, give or take a couple months. And I live in the US. Here, the age where you're officially considered an adult is 18.

Also, I agree with you.

I see. Well then, As an 18th birthday present, I'll stop calling you kiddo. Until then, though...

And I'm glad you see it my way, kiddo

No problem.

Themes like the ones Yami mentioned are fine, but I would prefer ones that were easier to do. The easier the theme, the more competition we're likely to have.

Yeah, but if its too easy, then it would take no imagination to do.

Exactly. I like easy, but not too easy, or else there's no imagination involved.

Part of the SotW is testing your ability as an artist. To be honest, for instance, the space theme was a lot harder and, in my opinion, better than the "Mushroom Kingdom" theme, because it made people think outside the box more. And that's why my beloved Blue wins almost everything she enters, because she always thinks outside the box <3

Originally Posted by Ranil

Exactly. I like easy, but not too easy, or else there's no imagination involved.

Okay, sure I get your point, but you just said:

Originally Posted by Ranil

The easier the theme, the more competition we're likely to have.

I believe that is a contradiction.

You can't really measure 'easy-ness' on a scale. Therefore, what do you propose to amend your contradiction?

Make your mind up.

What I meant is, I don't want something as easy as "fruit" for example. All you do is slap an apple or something on the piece. Zelda or Mario is a little harder because there's greater variety in what you can do with these themes. You can do a character, or an enemy, or an item, from whatever game in the franchise and use your imagination on how you would portray that. With fruit, there's almost no variety, which leaves almost no imagination.

Fruit is plenty of variety. It just depends how you portray it. I mean, you could get an artistic photo of a strawberry from a close up angle with water droplets on it, and have that nicely framed and lighted, say, compare to something like just a slap dash copy paste flat apple.

Fruit would be an interesting theme, I think.

What I meant is, I don't want something as easy as "fruit" for example. All you do is slap an apple or something on the piece. Zelda or Mario is a little harder because there's greater variety in what you can do with these themes. You can do a character, or an enemy, or an item, from whatever game in the franchise and use your imagination on how you would portray that. With fruit, there's almost no variety, which leaves almost no imagination.

OOH! I VOTE FRUIT FOR THE NEXT THEME!

Honestly, fruit would challenge the mind more. Let's say you start with a banana. Then you decide that it might look like a mouth if it were turned right. Then, you take a picture of a pear, and notice that it's nose shaped. And maybe lemons for eyes. It's full of creativity and freedom because fruits are basic shapes which could be turned into just about anything.

Zelda, on the other hand, is Zelda. It's an enemy, or Zelda, or Link, or an item. Honestly, that's not nearly as much creativity as it could be because everything is what it is. Also, that's what you see everywhere. I mean, who hasn't made a Zelda sig before? Everyone's seen them, lots of people have made at least some sort of game sig. How often do you see fruit challenges? Never. Everyone always goes for the obvious boring things like video games.

Pani, seriously, I think fruit would be an amazing theme.

EDIT: Aww, Yami types faster then me. Well, we agree, fruit is fun.

Originally Posted by Ranil

What I meant is, I don't want something as easy as "fruit" for example. All you do is slap an apple or something on the piece. Zelda or Mario is a little harder because there's greater variety in what you can do with these themes. You can do a character, or an enemy, or an item, from whatever game in the franchise and use your imagination on how you would portray that. With fruit, there's almost no variety, which leaves almost no imagination.

FRUIT- Apples, bananas, oranges, lemons, limes, kiwis, watermelons, regular melons, papayas, buttercup, Brazil nut, wheat (yes, wheat is a fruit), coconut, walnut, milkweed, pea, bean, peanut, carrot, radish, shepard's purse, beet, redcurrant, gooseberry, tomato, avocado, cherry, starwberry, mulberry, boysenberry, blackberry, blueberry, plum, peach, apricot, olive, cranberry, fig, etc.

MARIO- Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, Bowser, Shy Guys, Yoshi, Boo, etc.

There is a lot more variety, I have no idea what the hell you're on. Also, who's to say you simply have to slap a render of the subject onto a background? There are many more styles than the one style you use.

EDIT: GODDAMNIT YOU PEOPLE ARE FAST

DOUBLE-EDIT: Woo, hundredth post in this thread

TRIPLE-EDIT: Yes, I think fruit would be a WONDERFUL theme for next week. Pani, make it so.