Hey guys! :D

Here's my last version for my second Battle Angel Alita wallpaper :


And for those like me that love to see an evolution in a wall here's the place to go : http://www.animepaper.net/gallery/wallpapers/sessions/item50560/

I hope you'll all like it and comment as far as you can.

More infos :
- Own scan from the manga.
- All made in Corel PhotoPaint 12
- The stone can be removed :D

WELL ZAZY! nice to see you active again. Hmm I duno about this one, the scan isnt too wonderful to work with. the dust over the whole image as a major layer kinda dosent give us a distinct place to look at. Hmm the sand has some brush strokes in it that are pretty noticable. I'd say clean it up, add a pretty sky (starfield etc.) And also fix that brush strokes around the moon. HMM also I duno what that blob is in the right corner, a rock perhaps? Well anyway it dosent match well Speaking of light, I dont think your characters light source is correct. Since the highlight on one of here shoulders are wrong. I duno im not good at telling that stuff lol
GL Zazzy!
~Slaka

Zazou, okay, it's time i gave you some reasons why i find it difficult to properly critique your wall.

1: my monitor has a habit of hating jpeg gradients. so any subtle changes of color for a jpeg file shows up horribly on my screen. only on very few instances do they look nice. and if it's a psd, then it would look smooth like it's supposed to be. just not in jpeg.

2. this wall is huge. my monitor is 1280x1024 (and thus the reason for the first 11 of my walls being that res). your widescreen resolution makes it utterly impossible for me to see enough of it at 100% to be able to take into account the entire composition and visual appeal. i can only tell for separate parts but that's not really enough.

anyway, i'm trying. ;_; well, i still think it is obvious that gally is low quality. and i also think she should be moved a bit towards the center of the wall instead of being so far off to the side. especially for a widescreen, i find it strange how the interesting objects - gally and the moon - are all placed far on either side, leaving the middle blank.

the aforementioned gradient viewing problem prevents me from seeing the billowing sand properly, but i think it looks nice...just it kind of steals a bit from the audience's focus on gally because the sand makes things hazy and vague.

i'm not quite sure how well i like rock either. it and the desert look like two individual components that you tried to blend together, which means it doesn't fit perfectly. the moon is looking much better though. :D maybe just darken a few craters.

that's all i have to say for now! yay, you are getting back to work. sz was slow without your diligent comments. ;P

Um..the moon and all is better than the previous ver,it is just that I am not so fond of the rock...=_=
May be you should make it smaller and add more of it into the wall...or..I think it will be better if you get rid of it..>_<

I can't see the full size :(

ROCK BAD!!
MELLY WANT TO SMASH ROCK!

ummm, ok, whatever.
no, I don't like the rock, even though you have sand covering the sides, it just doesn't look like it belongs, you don't find a lot of rocks in the desert anyway, it looks like it's needed there for negative space filler, but maybe you could put something else there, the shadow of a camel or something more desert-ey. *maybe a sand dune or somehting*

I am liking the overall composition of the WP, but I do think it's maybe a bit too sandy, try toning down the sand a little(the flying sand)
and can you not move your scan over just a little bit more so she's not completely cut off? it would help with that negative spacing also.

I love the moon, and I love the colors, and I'm really digging the sky.
keep at it! you are totally getting the hang of this walling thing. I doubt this one will even get past 3 pages in SZ

Hhmm...well, its dark, maybe because our monitor was dark... :(
i can't see it properly, but as i see a little bit, maybe you should fix the sand and a rock?
maybe you should remove that as well ;)
good luck

So so so...

I darkened a bit the rock... I guess it's still not fitting at all...
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/50434367/

I can't really put her more in the middle for a REALLY simple reason... it's a cut scan! :D And I REALLY don't feel like drawing a cape like the one she's wearing!... Melly? It's NO! lol ^_^

Right now I'm searching for some nice fonts that could suit my wall... Just an idea... :)

Not much of a change...the rock still doesn't quite fit with the rest of the wall. everything is vague except for the moon. cut scan...hm, if this were not a widescreen wall, then the composition would not be affected but since it is, the middle seems empty. and you can't exactly put text smack dab in the middle of the wall. (but on the other hand, isn't this an incentive for you to vector? ;P *nudge* you did a nice job for you batcat. i'm sure you can make gally look so much nicer by vectoring her.)

>_< and zazou, deviantart hates me, remember? ;_; could you go back to uploading to image-dream? pretty please? ^^;

A shorter version...


As for vectoring her... I can try.. But I'm just pretty suspicious about the way it would look vectored... I mean... Did you see all those shadows in her coat and everywhere on her face and so on? It's gonna get crazy...

But I think I'm gonna try tomorrow... And see if, after a day of work it's getting any good or not...

I liked you sytle man...

@ryuuk: please keep your posts productive and meaningful.

@zazou: well, if you want to redraw gally exactly as the way she is now, then i think instead of vectoring the entire thing, you'll have to learn to do some painting with a soft-edged brush ;P it's not too hard if you are patient. just vector the outlines, put in the base colors, and then paint int the shadows and highlights.

Looking good. I'm sure this one is going to turn out awesome. Here are a few suggestions on adjustments:

- It might just be me, but the wallpaper is a touch too dark... (or maybe it's just me ;) )though the moon looks quite nice how it is. I think you might be able to make the character stand out a bit more rather than the moon. This reminds me... I got a similar style wallpaper lying on my computer you can look at for ideas. It also has a moon sort of thing. HERE

- The wallpaper looks a bit empty - next to the character. If you like, you could add a title like the example I gave you or then again, it's you to you. Or you could fill it up with dead corpses... lol might be a bit much.

- I'm not quite sure if you can but... the sand looks a little weird > as in it kind of in a way looks like fog except yellow. Possibly you could make it look like a dust storm is a distance so you can place the character in the front or fix the sand altogether (though I'm not sure how). In any case, I think there's too much of the sand in front of the character at the moment... maybe.

- Don't forget a signature. >.<

Hope this helps. XD I'm looking forward to the results.

Well well well.. I see what you want me to do Mint... But I would prefer to do a more scenic wallpaper... But I like your moon a lot :p ^_^ I'm gonna try making the character bigger to make her more like the focus point of the wall.

As for the vector... I'm working on it right now and well.. It's not as difficult as I thought it would be as soon as I just drop all the contrast and shading everywhere!:D

Here are some results :
The version with the scan under the vector:

The version with only the vectored part I did


It's not perfect while I was saving I saw some places that needed some correction... But I'll fix that later.. Right now I just wanted to show you that I was working and checking if you had some tips for me :D

Asa feel free to give me some infos about painting the shading and stuff! :D ^^

Well, generally, i like to do this with fills and mask layers. but since i don't want to go through the trouble of explain the photoshop masks and this method isn't necessarily much better, i'll just briefly explain how you could do it using a soft-edged brush.

so you have a shape layer filled with the basic color of a certain area (for example, her face; by "a certain area" i'm simply referring to a region that have about the same color). and by "basic color" i mean the color that her face would be without shading or highlights.

now i'd choose a soft-edged brush (that means a blurry brush head) at a good pixel radius and at a somewhat low opacity (this will require your own judgment, as i don't exactly memorize what opacity i'd use my brush at). then i'd brush it over the surface that should be shaded with the color of the shading.

worry only about the transition from this darker shading to the lighterbasic color layer; whatever goes over the outline into another part can be erased after you've done your shading. after you've erased the excess, voila. you have light and dark parts, but instead of being abrupt borders between shades, you have a soft gradient-like transition between the two.

this is pretty basic stuff, i think, but nonetheless, i hope you'll understand what i'm talking about. it seems that i'm not very good at explaining stuff -- you've told me so many times that i don't make sense. xD