a) Poser. I'm very curious why people think slapping a poser head or body into a
wallpaper can make it good; all it seems to do usually is make the wallpaper look like a
hundred others which have the exact same head or body. We all know the default Poser male
and female models by heart now; move on. There are photos in free-use archives aplenty if
you aren't good at figure drawing. If for some reason you need a metallic figure, try grey-
scaling & then solarizing a regualr human in a photo.
Bryce. Yes, it's a full-bore 3d app; but only kinda. It comes with presets and
wizards to allow you to make a quickie landscape in no time flat. If it had the ability
to accept commandline input, I could write a .bat file to make random landscapes at the rate
of one every five minutes. Just because it's photorealistic, it isn't necessarily good art.
c) Chromed 3D primitives. Again, I can crank out (you can too, play with Bryce for
5 minutes and you'll understand) a new wallpaper every five minutes which features a photo-
realistic landscape with a floating or buried chromed 3D primitive. It gets boring very
quickly.
d) Large text. My thinking is, if you need to spell out for the viewer what they
should be thinking when they look at your wallpaper, you're doing something wrong. This is
a no-no which I frequently allow to be violated, but I think in most cases where I allow
big text, the text is -not- the central focus of the piece.
e) Binary. Yes, we get it, it's computer graphics. Try to resist the urge to fill
your background with one's and zero's. It's been done, the horse is dead already.
f) Asian text. Yes, we get it already. This falls under the combined aegis of Large
Text and Binary; resist the urge, if the only way you could come up with to make your
wallpaper look cool was to add a huge kanji character in the middle, you're doing something
wrong.
g) Difference Clouds. Yes, it produces a neat-o smoke effect. It can be used to great
effect in textures. Used as the primary focus, it stinks. Use it as a tool, not as art in
and of itself. The computer did that, not you, don't try to take the credit.
h) Swirlies. I've never understood why some people think applying a swirl filter to
any image makes it look cooler; it just makes it look like a slurpee viewed from above.
i) Lightning. It's -incredibly- hard to produce realistic lightning. I've yet to see
it done well.
j) Lighting Effects / Emboss / Crackle. Adding these to an image probably won't help
you. If the image was interesting before the effect, submit it. If it took the effect to make
it interesting, it probably -isn't- interesting.
k) "Filter Frenzies". This describes you, late at night, starting with a blank canvas
(or maybe you've added a few simple brush strokes), and applying filter after filter after
filter, until more or less totally by chance, you arrive at something which you think looks
cool. Chances are you're wrong; it'll just look like a mish-mash of filters. A good thing
to practice is to have an image in mind -before- you approach the canvas, and then attempt to
make that image appear on the canvas. It's harder, yes, but it'll help you develop as an
artist.
l) Signatures & URL's. It's your work, yes. You want to advertise your website, I
can understand that. Just please, please, don't put the sig & url in a 36pt font w/ a high
contrast color; would you want to look at my name & URL every time you looked at your
desktop? Didn't think so. And -don't assume that since it's on the bottom, it'll be covered
by the taskbar; very many users of this site don't -have- taskbars.
My suggestions: g'head & sign & url 'em, 12pt font or less, & put the sig & url on
a new layer & drop its opacity to about 30% or less. It'll still be readable, but it won't
overpower the piece. If your concern is only for copyright protection, try watermarking;
no noticeable degradation of image, nothing visible, but it holds up in court a lot better
than a simple sig on the bottom which can be altered oh-so-easily.
m) Copyrighted & Trademarked images. Ok, this one's a guarantee; use 'em & it won't
get in.
n) Anime, Comic-Book art. Falls under the copyright / trademark aegis.
o) Spacescapes. Falls under the Bryce landscape aegis.
These rules can be, and are, violated often. If you do something really novel which
happens to include some of the no-no's, it might get in. These are only guidelines.
It doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to get in if you -aren't- violating any of
the no-no's.
Comments as posted by shoggot, moderator at skinz.org...circa 2000 [saved to text 24/4/2000]
