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[cieux]

hi my name is sammi. i'm 14 years old and i do amazing things that most 14 year old kids can't do. my ego is the size of the sun and i'm not kidding you at all.

... if you are looking for my illustrations, click this.. if you are looking for my personal website where i post illustrations, graphics, literature and web design, click this. actually, click that regardless. i could use a few more pageviews. i rarely make banners anymore, but...

Spoiler: 2008, 2009, 2010

2008

actually, the one above is a coloured manga scan, meaning i coloured it from its original black and white version.

2009

2010

you may not use my banners as i have either made them for close friends or myself.

i have 270+ pokemon icons posted here and 53 posted here. these are recent and date back, the furthest, from 25 04 2010. these icons can be offensive.

Spoiler: some old icons from 2008

new icons from 2010 here
good light textures that don't suck downloadable here
more new icons i haven't posted on livejournal
there are a few more sitting around on my desktop but i am too lazy to upload
click to see orig image



over the years i've become less reliant on textures that i haven't made-- i do not use them in any of my recent icons but use some in my recent banners. i completely exclude brushes that i haven't made from my recent work as well. i now focus more on minimalism and raw photoshop skill as well as colour harmony.

thank you for your time.

 

[jahz]

When you first commented on my art thread i was a bit bewlidered, I'd never seen you around before and you had some very insightful points to make from somebody (i wrongly assumed) was new. Now i see where you're coming from, these are very very good. Incredible infact.

Use of colours- second to none
creativity of layout- very impressive
use of text- unlike me, very well placed when needed.

I'm no art genius and quite frankly your knowledge far outweighs mine so there's no constructive comments I could make that you wouldnt work out yourself. Great work ^^

Is there no end to your freakin changing sigs! I swear to god if the bottom screen is a rickroll...

 

[Northern Lights]

We both know you don't need someone else to tell you how good your are at making graphics and art.

I still prefer your earlier banners to the more simplistic ones you make now, either because they have more in them, they're quite intricate, or simply the use of various colours the bright colours will be my downfall, i am aware of this - but damn you and your typography sense

 

[Luxrayess]

(Forgive any spelling errors I failed to recognize...)

Okay, Mr. cieux... I hope your ego isn't big enough to not take a little constructive crit.

Like many others have said, you have a very matured and professional sense of design. You have a great sense of color, typography, and texture (or lack thereof, and that's a breath of fresh air, too). It's a little hard for me to believe you are only fourteen, but if you are, congrats on devopling your skill to such an advanced level at such an early age. It must've taken a ton of hard work.

But sometimes I think you sacrifice function, especially legibility, for the sake of beauty. In the real world, when you get paid to design advertisments and such, if it's hard for people to read your designs, the work is considered a failure, no matter how artisticly beautiful it is. I'm particularly concerd about the legibility of these three banners:

"A Little Twist" from 2009 - The white text is straining to read on that yellow-green background. In case you didn't know this, putting white text/logos on yellow is a big no-no in the world of design, and that pretty lime green color is so close to yellow on the spectrum that it's making the same eye-straining effect. If I remember right, yellow is the color that appears brightest to the brain, even before white; it's also the color that's most stressful for the eyes.

"I Will Always Remember" from 2009 - I literally had to squint to read the text. It's pretty much the same yellow-against-white problem. To make things worse, the yellow undertext is put on top of the the girls' white stockings and the scooter. White-on-yellow-on-white I'm afraid nearly killed the legibility. My brain was trying to read the yellow, mashed-up undertext before the clear, white text.

"Unnecessary" from 2010 - The white text is sometimes hard to decern from the two black and white characters below. The black lines and textures on them do help, but not enough, especially since the textures aren't uniform all around. The problem stems from the mid-ground whites on the character are competing for attention (and blending) with the white text in the foreground. The best way to cure this is to tone down some the whites on the characters to a grey, I'd say about 25% grey - a light grey, to seperate the text from the characters. Also it would make the text pop out more because the white catches your attention first.

That's all I have to say. I guess you have my permision to rant in my gallery if you so desire. I could use some constructive crit.

 

[cieux]

well, i certainly have a large ego, but it's also what makes me sturdy enough to take comments. i suppose it's the right kind of ego; how you say... confidence? i am welcome to criticism that is of good quality such as yours. of course, i will be a little annoyed if one makes no sense.

but anyway... unnecessary was meant to be illegible. it was a mock of the badly placed text most people use in their banners ngl. a subtle message to nigh everyone on these forums.

i'll always remember was also meant to be illegible, however, i sort of failed at trying to be fashionably avant-garde. i suppose it is one of the times where i should exclude the text, yes?

a little twist wasn't meant to be illegible and you're right about the yellow thing. well, white on yellow isn't really a big no-no in design. it really depends on what shade of yellow. in this case, it wasn't quite good. also... is it just me, or is a little twist green and light grey? not yellow... it could be your screen?

also, i know that i'm not supposed to sacrifice function of beauty in the real world; hence why i don't do that on advertisements etc, but thanks for reminding me because sometimes i wonder if i'll forget that considering i'm a really superficial sort of person 8)

many thanks for your criticism! it was lengthy and nice. we need more posts like yours in digital media, or fanart as a whole. i will check out your graphics thread when i have more time. i'm currently quite hungry.

edit: oh! your post is lengthier than mine

edit: (3 06 2010)

oh god i somehow thought i already replied to jahz's and nl's posts. i didn't.

@jahz: thank you for your praise! also no, the bottom screen is a link to a page on my personal website containing the links to all the threads i've made. (4)

@nl: oh, the 2010 banners are more simple because there are only 3 and 1/3 uses nothing but color layers since i'm showcasing an illustration by myself and i do not want to take away the focus. but it's true, i should make an effort to make things look more resource-y sometimes.

 

[Giggity...]

I gotta admit your work is very impressive, however I concur with Northern Lights. Your earlier banners are -in my oppinion- far better. Although you don't display the same colour manipulation and agreement skills in them, your latest banners at too simplistic and limit the creative genius that you displayed before, i think you have forsaken something more valuable for something less valuable. But thats just my oppinion.

I'm just starting to get to grips with graphics if you would be able to offer me some comments on my thread it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cieux]

idk, in my old banners i think it's more of what kind of images i used. i used a lot of full on images that took up nigh the whole banner. if i got more requests for those, i think my banners would look similar to the ones in 2008... just less grungy and tacky and with a lot more raw skill rather than relying on other people's textures, hahaha. but thank you.

and i'll try to comment when i have time. on the other hand... i posted new icons.

preview:

 

[Kisa]

You told me to post here so I did. =/

Other than that, I like your banners, as usual. I think the thing is that the colors always pop. I love it. It always stands out and screams Sammi. I hate it how it's so simple but yet so hard to pull it off. Nobody can imitate that perfectly but you. >:

Someday I will somehow take your soul and put it in a glass container and keep it there for eternity.

<3

lol at the egotism.

 

[cieux]

**** i accidentally pressed back and lost all of my post god i am so lazy i just made a long post and then i pressed back urgh what the hell i am blushing right now why why why why... maybe because i spent 10 minutes typing that post

yeah i needed someone to post here so i dont have to double post and look tacky and cheap... and everyone here sucks though so i'm only egotistical here.

i made light textures and icons... i made light textures because i cant find any that don't suck (did all the people who made good ones delete theirs or what??) so i decided to make some myself

preview of icons with the textures being used in them*

preview of the textures themselves... 3 of them, out of 10

10 textures in the .rar file
*some of them were resized and rotated to suit the image

speaking of which sppf needs to learn to find good light textures but i guess that's kind of hard because people delete their resources when they're the only good ones around... well i guess i'm the hero now

icons:


click to see the original image before color manipulation before you go "YOU DIDNT DO ANYTHING TO IT". i know you guys love your tacky/cheap brushes and grunge textures but unfortunately color and lighting the most important things in graphics

edit: i took 20 minutes out of my life to make banner contest entries

 

[screamer]

you called me a bitch for not commenting, so now i'm commenting. >_>

i really like your eyjafjallajokull banners. wow, looking at that i thought i just slammed the keyboard. anyway they're gawjus. your icons are really cute, especially the kirby ones.

in some of your stuff, the text is hard to read. that's really the only actual criticism i can actually find.

 

[cieux]

well, i commented in your thread because you told me to, but you didn't comment in mine? 8(

yeah, i sort of use my text as a brush though in a lot of cases. it's there because it's too empty but it's better than an actual brush because letters are pretty. it's still legible, just not in your face.

... why are you using an old banner i made in like 2007 lol

anyway i have more stuff to post. just icons though.

dont want to post the orig images this time

 

[screamer]

... why are you using an old banner i made in like 2007 lol

because i love this banner. :< and i like the text i put under it.

anyway, i'm sensing an exclusion layer on the first one. in my uneducated opinion, there's way too much blue on that one. be gone with all that blue, s'il te plait.

 

[cieux]

uhh... it's just grey/brown to me

there were no exclusion layers

or are you talking about the first one in the column of six? yeah there was no exclusion; it's just that the original image, he's on a stage with bright blue backlights. basically he was glowing blue.