[Entries] SOTM#35 - December 2015

[Dark Angel]

We are now officially opening the forum's "Signature of the Month Contest Round #35".

Special Rules for SOTM:

* Images in signature for this round must be within 500px in width and 300px in height.
* You are not allowed to put specific usernames on the signature.
* Images should be either in .png, .jpeg or .gif format.
* Have fun creating the signature.

These texts are required on your SOTM entry:
* SOTM
* anime-sharing.com

NOTE: * You may include your own tag line to promote SOTM. *

General Rules for SOTM:

Signature of the Month, also known as SOTM, is a GFX competition held monthly.
* No nudity allowed. Your signature can be ecchi, but not too explicit.
* No profanity allowed.
* No offensive materials (racial slurs, etc...) allowed.
ALL ENTRIES MUST BE YOUR OWN DESIGN. You may add captions as you please.

Theme: X-Mas!!!!!

You may ask questions in the discussion board. Feel free to insert your creativity.
Each participant is allowed to submit maximum of ONE signature entry. I will be indicating your
official entry number later on. You are only allowed to have ONE POST in this thread. You may edit
your post as needed. Submissions could be changed till the deadline.
Entry number is first come first serve basis. SO SUBMIT ASAP.^^

Also, we are not responsible for the entries which don't show up during the poll time, each participant should be responsible for his/her entry, so check your entry post once in a while. Voters may choose to wait for it to be viewable again or just pick from the entries which are showing up properly.

DEADLINE: Thread will be closed At 04/01/2016.​

 

[nanashi1]

And here is it...

Entry #1

Edit: It'll be also my siggy...xD

 

[|♚|KK|♚|]

Entry #2

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Merry Xmas!​

 

[Rain Summerfields]

Entry #03

 

[Konstantinos]

Entry #04

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[Evdokia]

Entry #05

Merry Christmas!!!​

 

[Touwa Erio]

Entry #06

Merry Christmas ASF!!!​

 

[Anestis]

OK here it goes nothing... Entry #07

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[unownHGSS]

Welp, here's Entry #8 x3

 

[Petros]

OK after a long time here is my entry #09

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[Toon Link]

Toon Link's Entry is Arrived! :3 Entry #10

My best wishes for y'all guys and Happy Holidays!! :)​

 

[Uryunga]

Entry #11 - :/

 

[Ignis]

　　　　

We've got TWO WINNERS!
Voters wanted to have more than one in SOTM #35 with the theme X-Mas.

Come on, people, be decisive! You're choosing signatures, not eroge girls! Ahem. Anyway. This time, our first wining entry comes from Touwa Erio, who as far as I know is one of Dark Angel's friends (disciples?). It features... what else, Santa girls, duh! The one thing you'll never find here in relation to Christmas celebrations, no matter how much a given it is everywhere else, is a fat, old man with a white beard and clad in all-red clothes like he's hot or something. I mean, nobody wants to see that, right?

I don't know if the particular stock image Touwa Erio chose comes from any game/anime/manga title, but it looks like something illustrated by Mitha. Wait, that's not important either. Touwa Erio's entry livens up well the red-and-white colour scheme (no, not blood on ice, you crazy hockey fans) commonly used in Christmas imagery. While the snowflakes look a bit messy―some of them appear to 'compete' for focus with the girls themselves―they really add to the richness of the signature.

It was probably a wise decision as well to not use a stock landscape image as a background as the image doesn't really need more clutter to it. It's lively, and it's good, but it has about the right amount of it.

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This one comes from Petros, also one of Dark Angel's many friends. No Christmas on a weeaboo community is complete without semi-nekkid Santa girls, amirite? I'm not sure if it's intentional, but this signature seems to have a... drowsy feel to it. Goes well with the girls' expressions, if you ask me. The use of bokeh effects coupled with a flowing colour transition contributes to the overall image. I don't know if I'm just terrible at describing things or have a dirty mind or both, but it its entirety, the signature screams "pheromone" to me.

Petros sure made good use of bokeh effects, though. Blur lenses in different sizes, shapes and opacities, all corresponding to the different gradients in the colour transition. Layer these atop a mix of gradients that look liquid―and I don't mean through the use of the liquefy function in Photoshop―and flowing, instead of a slap or two with the gradient tool and the common palette such as linear or radial, and you have a combination that complements the twin focal points (the two characters).

If I had to nitpick, it'd be the thick black borders. Black borders are pretty standard regardless of the colour schemes confined therein, but they usually come in light flavours like 1px or 2px. Thicker and you risk adding the black itself to the overall colour scheme―not always to desirable results. That shouldn't let it overshadow the pluses of the signature as a whole, though.

Congratulations to both winners!

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