Hi all! I made some new Erfworld icons. What can I say...I realized that some of the most popular characters didn't have one of their own...that, and I got bored while my Internet connection was down.
Please upload them to your own picture hosting account before using them. I don't want to host other people's avatars. Also, all I did was crop, resize and/or flip Jamie's art, so all credit goes to Rob and Jamie. Please give them credit.
Update! I made a banner for giving proper credit to Rob and Jamie for all of the derivative works in this thread. I think that I've covered everything needed to abide by the Creative Commons License that they're using. If you use it then please make it a hyperlink to the first page of the comic like I did. The code for doing that and an alternate version of the banner are in the spoiler tag.
Spoiler
Of course, please upload the above banner to your own image host and substitute that URL for my photobucket URL in the following code.
HTML Tag
<a href="http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0001.html"><img src="http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s298/Scientivore/Erfworld/Title468x120.png" border="0"></a>
If you use the version without the URLs then please include both links in some other way, such as by linking to one with the banner and including the other link in accompanying text.
Edit
I removed most of my originals because Steve did such an awesome job with them later in the thread, optimizing them for avatarness, that I recommend using his versions instead. Be sure to check out the huge gallery that he hid inside a spoiler tag there!
I removed most of the rest of my originals because I remade them using techniques that I learned later. Ansom's "end the turn" pose now comes both framed and with a clear background, as do some others. Parson's exasperated face is the only one that I won't be remaking unless someone specifically requests it, so I hid it inside a spoiler tag.
Spoiler
117x117
84x120
Here's a spoilerized gallery of 100x100 versions for non-GitP forums:
Spoiler
If you're not hip to editing images like that and there's a specific one that you want for an avatar, post here and I'll see what I can do. I'm not currently taking requests, sorry.
Finally, here are links to all of my wallpapers from downthread, moved up for your convenience!
Very Very Pretty. I like them all so much, however since you made the suggestion, I am going to make a request. Page 39, panel 10: Lord Tool dropping his spoon. I think that that would make an awesome avatar.
Thanks. And again, I really like what you did.
Very Very Pretty. I like them all so much, however since you made the suggestion, I am going to make a request. Page 39, panel 10: Lord Tool dropping his spoon. I think that that would make an awesome avatar.
Thanks. And again, I really like what you did.
You're welcome!
Wow, that was a tricky one. It's a very narrow panel so I made a 70x120 version; it won't necessarily work at other sites but it'll work here. You can see the problem in the zoomed out square version; it has to include some of the space between panels to include the cutlery without cutting off too much of his head. Also, he's facing our left in the original, but the rectangular one has the "clunk" effect so I left it unflipped. Finally, when I flip it then he's eating with his left hand and that looks weird to me, so I also made non-flipped versions of the other two.
Also, I forgot to mention in my first post: if you're a GitP veteran then you know that Rich doesn't want people cropping his strips into avatars. Rob and Jamie have a different policy on that and (unless I totally misread that post) this kind of use is okay with them.
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My avatar is a remix that I made of Prince Ansom. Resource credit:
Just a reminder, custom avatars get pushed and pulled into the dimensions set just below where you put in the URL. It's not as big a deal with the square ones because at least they're the right shape for the default settings; I assume that they'd just get blown up 17%. For the rectangular one that I posted, set Custom Avatar Width to 70 and set Custom Avatar Height to 120 or it probably won't look right.
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My avatar is a remix that I made of Prince Ansom. Resource credit:
I couldn't sleep so I made a Wanda desktop wallpaper. I only finished one for 1280x800 but now I can't not sleep. So, I'm posting what I have and going to bed.
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My avatar is a remix that I made of Prince Ansom. Resource credit:
Hi all! I made some new Erfworld icons. What can I say...I realized that some of the most popular characters didn't have one of their own...that, and I got bored while my Internet connection was down.
Please upload them to your own picture hosting account before using them. I don't want to host other people's avatars. Also, all I did was crop, resize and/or flip Jamie's art, so all credit goes to Rob and Jamie. Please give them credit.
If you're not hip to editing images like that and there's a specific one that you want for an avatar, post here and I'll see what I can do.
Nice. I may try my hand at that if I can resolve a few technical problems. (Wanda Firebaugh is naughty. Corel's Tech Support department is evil.)
Nice. I may try my hand at that if I can resolve a few technical problems. (Wanda Firebaugh is naughty. Corel's Tech Support department is evil.)
IrfanView is free, lightweight and fast. It doesn't have multiple undo, multiple layers or fancy tools...which is exactly why I prefer it if I'm just chopping up and resizing someone else's images.
The Next Day
I've added the other two main aspect ratios of the Wanda wallpaper. One of the three will probably work for you though you might need to scale it up or down.
Also, I've created a new wallpaper juxtaposing two dwagon flight scenes: the one where the green dwagon is seen from below as Wanda flies back to Gobwin Knob with Manpower and the one where Jillian's hat is falling as the red dwagon carries her off in its mouth. So far it's just in one size.
IrfanView is free, lightweight and fast. It doesn't have multiple undo, multiple layers or fancy tools...which is exactly why I prefer it if I'm just chopping up and resizing someone else's images.
True; I tend to use Paint Shop Pro for working with pics and Irfanview for simple viewing. (I eventually figured out why the PSP update refused to install, and sent a note to tech support to help them solve the problem next time it came up. What's in it for me?! Heh. Kidding. ...I'm kidding!)
I'll do some experiments as I find time, though with a con and a wedding in two months I expect that to be increasingly rare for a while.
Mine. It's at the tail end of the con I'm helping to run (Conterpoint; see the upcoming con thread if you're interested in details).
Anyhoo, getting back to the subject at hand, I've done my own versions of the "Jillian writing her report" avatar at 117x117 (wide and closeup). I've lightened and desaturated the background somewhat, and slightly lightened the shadowing of Jillians face, to bring out the details and (IMO) make the image work a bit better in an avatar (non)context.
I saved both GIF and PNG versions, though in this case the color compression of the former doesn't seem to created any noticeable effects (perhaps it helped to use Paint Shop Pro's relatively smart color-depth reduction tool before saving). The PNGs are about 20 KB; the GIFs are about 9 KB:
(Edit: "Jillian Writing" avatars included in the larger collection I posted further down the thread. I've also discovered that a good optimized-palette reduction to 256 colors has negligible effect on the appearance of the image at icon size, and got the PNG file sized down to the same range as the GIFs.)
Ditto Scientivore's request: if you want to use them, please host your own copies and give proper credit for the original artwork.
Congratulations on the engagement! Good luck with the con! Wow, those icons look much better than my versions!
Thanks!
Quote:
I'm now highly motivated to learn how to use my other software better.
The key software tool for this sort of tweaking is an edit selection tool that 1)lets you click on a pixel and autoselect the adjacent region of pixels that are within X tolerance of that pixel's hue/brightness/whatever and 2)lets you make multiple selections and adds or subtracts each new selection from the current overall selection. This is useful for all sorts of effects, extracting an item out of its background, etc. Then, it's just a matter of practicing and (usually) learning when to quit fiddling. (For the other icons in the OP, I'd mostly just want to recrop them to 117 x 117; the Vinnie one might benefit from a bit of similar color-tweaking to bring out the detail against the dark jacket.)
Last edited by SteveMB : 04-21-2007 at 06:36 PM.
Reason: Ungarbled quote tags
You are so totally cool! Since you offer, I've been begging for a pink dwagon avatar over in the Erfworld Avatar Arts and Sciences thread for months, but nobody will oblige me. Any chance you could make one?
Well. That was very educational. Awright, here's my first foray into the wild and woolly world of form-fitting selection and transparent backgrounds! I had to do some touch-up at the pixel level because the "magic" selection tools in Photoshop Elements are almost as disappointing as Stanley's "perfect" warlord. This is as good as I can get it at my current skill level (total novice).
For this one, set the Custom Avatar Width to 84 and the Custom Avatar Height to 120. If you're curious, the image is from the last panel of Page 31. If you had your heart set on a particular pose, tell me which page and panel and I'll give it another shot (I should've asked first).
Edit: Added a black border on the bottom and a link to a PNG version.
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My avatar is a remix that I made of Prince Ansom. Resource credit:
My Erfworld avatar gallery is attached to this post, and edited every so often as I add more and/or make improvements to existing ones. If you want to use any of them, please 1)host them using your own storage and bandwidth and 2)give proper credit to Rob Balder and Jamie Noguchi for the original source.
The main galleries are configured as a display of clickable thumbnails. Saving the image you see will give you the 100x100 pixel version; clicking on the link will give you the 117x117 pixel version.
(There are a few non-square ones, with the exact dimensions linked to the 100-pixel-high and 117-pixel-high versions. You may need to specifically set the height and width on these so that the forum software doesn't stretch the image into a square.)
The most recent ones in the main section and the text-remix section are displayed; the rest are spoiler-tagged to minimize visual clutter.
Icon Gallery -- Recent Additions:
Older Icons:
Spoiler
I did a lot of variations on this one because the "writing" image is just so apropos for a forum/blog avatar:
Non-Square Icons:
The dimension on these may need to be specified (depending on the specific forum software) to avoid stretching.
EDIT: Note that the 8/6/07 revision to the GitP forum rules do not allow the use of animated avatars. I've kept them here for people to use elsewhere.
Spoiler
(The mistress/prisoner one was an experiment to recreate the one from Rob's set from scratch and see how the results compared. The most significant difference is that mine has both the 100-pixel and 117-pixel version.)
Woah! Nice stealth additions there, SteveMB! I especially like that green dwagon.
A few things about my wallpapers. First, the ones that I uploaded earlier are now the correct sizes. My Photobucket account upload settings were incorrect; I noticed it, fixed the settings and re-uploaded the files.
Second, I finally got around to making the other two proportions of the Dwagons wallpaper, 1280x800 and 1280x1024. Here are all three links:
Third, I tweaked the two larger versions of the Wanda wallpaper up above to be more visually balanced like the 1280x800 version. I'd originally prioritized source image scale and compromised the composition too much. The results didn't even meet my own standards. Bleh.
Fourth, although some wallpapers didn't need to be redone, I re-encoded them anyway as 95% quality JPGs. There were originally some 90% quality JPGs in the mix. They weren't horrible or anything, it's just that you might want to resize them and the end result will look better if you start out with a higher-quality image.
I've probably spent way too much work on these for the result...oh well. The file names are the same so if you downloaded one earlier, you may need to refresh -- or possibly <ctrl>-refresh, or even clear your cache -- to see the new version.
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My avatar is a remix that I made of Prince Ansom. Resource credit:
Woah! Nice stealth additions there, SteveMB! I especially like that green dwagon.
Thanks -- that was actually the easiest; the image on the blowup of page 3 turned out to be just the right size for a 117 x 117 avi, and was against a nice white background. It got a bit of a fringe of not-quite-transparent pixels when I reduced it a bit for 100x100; I'll want to tweak that when I get a chance.
Well. That was very educational. Awright, here's my first foray into the wild and woolly world of form-fitting selection and transparent backgrounds! I had to do some touch-up at the pixel level because the "magic" selection tools in Photoshop Elements are almost as disappointing as Stanley's "perfect" warlord.
The result looks pretty good. I had similar problems with the "Dwagon Threat" transparent one I just added to my list; I'm still not entirely satisfied.
(An idea that just occurred to me is to fill the background with medium gray after extracting the existing background and before scaling -- that way, the pixels around the edge would "blend" with medium gray rather than white and come out blending fairly well with the black linework. I haven't had a chance to actually try this trick yet.)
Nice look to it. Kinda grassy green outline there, looks good.
I think it'd work great if you made more with other shades of outline/title.
__________________ Quote of the [insert timeframe here]: (Week? Perhaps! Year? Also maybe.)
"Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds...may then with the fair white wings of Imagination hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live."
-Augusta Ada Lovelace
The result looks pretty good. I had similar problems with the "Dwagon Threat" transparent one I just added to my list; I'm still not entirely satisfied.
(An idea that just occurred to me is to fill the background with medium gray after extracting the existing background and before scaling -- that way, the pixels around the edge would "blend" with medium gray rather than white and come out blending fairly well with the black linework. I haven't had a chance to actually try this trick yet.)
Oh, now I understand! I paid more attention when giving my current icon a transparent background and saw for myself how downscaling it created a halo of light pixels that didn't look good on the forum. I just manually erased them this time, but now I can picture what you're saying.
In case I change my avatar again, here it is (117x117):
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My avatar is a remix that I made of Prince Ansom. Resource credit:
I did a few new variations to the "Jillian Writing" icon, lightening the background some more and tweaking a few areas to bring out details in the image at this size.
Edit: (New icons consolidated into gallery in earlier post.)
I hit upon the idea of clone-brushing the "kritch skritch" sound effect out of the original large-size image and then adding it back in again after scaling, making it more readable at icon size. This also yielded the no-sound-effect version of the "wideview" image and a sound-effect version of the "closeup" image as bonus features.
Again, if you use these, please host them yourself and give proper credit to Rob and Jamie.
I made a wallpaper but I don't have my own website that I can host it on--where can I upload it to so that I can then post it here?
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"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand, I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell 'em I ain't comin' back, burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me."
May the Force be with you.
Why are you standing in the courtyard holding a parasol painted like a bullseye?
Highlight: I prepared Explosive Runes this morning.
I was kind of hoping not to use Photobucket....I have an account, but half the time when I use it it crashes my browser....*sigh* Oh well.
__________________
"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand, I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell 'em I ain't comin' back, burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me."
May the Force be with you.
Why are you standing in the courtyard holding a parasol painted like a bullseye?
Highlight: I prepared Explosive Runes this morning.
Last edited by Maerad of Pellinor : 05-06-2007 at 05:56 PM.
Reason: addition
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