Link: The Hero of Time
Made on August 17th, 2005.
This is what turned out to be my first decent tag, and the latest one I could trace back. This was also made before I knew how to resize my stock, and knew good blending tricks. However, it was the first time I used a downloaded font. I chose the Link theme because the font was called "Triforce" and was based off of the Legend of Zelda font. So I quickly googled to find a Link stock, tried to emulate some brushing from a tutorial, followed a tutorial for my new font, and ended up with something fairly decent.
Kirby: Don't Play With Fire
Made on January 13th, 2006.
Wanting to improve my technique further, I consulted one of my forum friends who was a graphics expert at the time. I wanted to make a Kirby tag to show my love for the puffball, and so I went out to look for a stock. When I found the stock, placed it, and brushed, I got on AIM and followed my friend's advice. He taught me how to make the stock blend without using blending effects and fading the image. The end result was a valuable skill that my friend passed on for me to improve upon.
Samus Aran
Made on August 27th, 2006.
Fast forward down the road, to my return to foruming, and discovering gamerenders.com. Basically, I was told by a graphics expert at the forum I frequented the most to follow some tutorials to learn new techniques. This tag is simply a tutorial followed to the letter, with me experimenting with the font, trying to emulate some of the experts at my forum.
Infinity
Made on August 28th, 2006.
A day after starting my path to improvement, I discovered what is possibly the sweetest tutorial I've ever found. Unfortunately, I can no longer find this tutorial, or else I'd share it. Again, I followed the tutorial, and ended up with a really sweet tag.
Vibrava: Dragonbreath
Made on August 28th, 2006.
On a roll, I decided to make my third tag in two days. I had seen some sprite tags floating around, and decided to try my hand at one. Being a Pokemon fan, and frequenting a Pokemon forum, I decided to use a Pokemon sprite. This tag would mark the first time I used C4D renders in a tag, as well as the first time I made a sprite tag.
GunZ: The Duel
Made on August 29th, 2006.
The first tag I made from a random render off of Game Renders, this one didn't turn out too well. I followed a splatter tutorial, which looks fairly nice, but I added a faint C4D which makes the whole thing look kind of strange. If I still had the .psd, I'd go back and fix it and balance the colors a bit better, but unfortunately, I don't.
Weavile: Shall we Dance?
Made on September 28th, 2006.
Not much I can say about this one. It's oversharpened, with pixel stretch coloring and barely legible font. This was probably the worst tag I ever made, but I'm not going to deny it's existence. This tag would, however, mark the last time I used a tutorial on a published tag.
Elegance
Made on October 29th, 2006.
Making a tag for my two favorite Pokemon was more of a challenge than I expected. Especially since it was the first tag I made without any form of tutorial. The biggest challenge was the Swellow stock, which I had to cut out and was just generally low quality. Looking back on this tag makes me realize how much of a good idea it was to get help with my font.
High Hopes for the Wii:
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption & Super Mario Galaxy
Made on January 23rd, 2007.
This duo of simple tags were pretty much experiments for coloring techniques. The most basic tags I ever made, I felt they looked good enough to merit a save in Photoshop and be used out in the open.
World of Warcraft
Made on June 2nd, 2007.
Finding a sweet render on the night before my birthday at about 11 PM, I decided I had gone long enough without making a tag. It seems that four months does wonders and I somehow learned new techniques like magic. Well, not exactly, I just played around and experimented a whole bunch (for the first time). This would turn out to be just the start of tags where I experiment for a while, and end up with something neat at the end.
Yanma
Made on June 6th, 2007.
Making a sprite tag of a fairly unmentioned bug Pokemon was something I did before, but missing the bus because of it was something that was accomplished with this one. Basically, I woke up one morning and decided I wanted to make a tag. In less than an hour, I finished with this and was fairly proud... and late.
Ferrari F430: Born to go Fast
Made on August 27th, 2007.
Do not even ask how I made this, because I really have no idea. This was probably the most amazing effect I ever made, and was a result of some weird experimenting. This was also the first tag I made under the name "Nitrous Oxide", which replaced my old name, ".AzureLight".
Audi R8: Technology/Style
Made on September 8th, 2007.
Maybe not the smartest choice for making graphics, I switched to Ubuntu Linux in September '07. Regardless, I managed to get a version of Photoshop up and running, and made a rather simple, yet fairly decent tag for my favorite car.
Master Chief
Made on September 30th, 2007.
Despite using Linux, Microsoft still played a big part in my life, with the release of Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. Basically, Master Chief was awesome enough to deserve a tag, and I tried pretty hard with a buggy Photoshop to make one. Again, it's mostly simple stuff.
Leonidas: This is Sparta!
Made on November 1st, 2007.
Further driving my obsession with Spartans was the movie 300, which I finally saw at the end of September. And since Master Chief was awesome enough to deserve a tag, Leonidas was damn well deserving of one too. Too bad my quote doesn't match the scene. Oh, and again, it's simple, courtesy of a buggy Photoshop run on Linux.
Rush
Made on November 22nd, 2007.
This turned out to be the final tag I made during my run with Ubuntu, and my last of 2007. This one took a lot of effort to pull off, but was helped along thanks to me forcing CS2 to work on Linux (instead of 7, which was used for the last three tags). This also continued my bright exposure effects started with my Ferrari F430 tag.
Get Ready to Brawl
Made on February 1st, 2008.
The day of Brawl's Japan release, I came across this screenshot and couldn't resist the urge to make a tag. The effect took me a couple of hours to produce, but I basically taught myself how to make a ball of energy with no prior knowledge. Not one of my best tags, but it still looks decent enough that I keep it around. Fun Fact: I used a Lens Flare in this tag.
Nowhere to Hide
Made on February 8th, 2008.
And along came Team Fortress 2. If there was any doubt what happened to me between December and February, it can be summed up in the fact that I bought The Orange Box. And this was the best TF2 tag I could be bothered to muster up until much later. Not much work on this besides the text on the wall. Just played around with desaturating parts and added the scope's laser.
Spider-Man
Made on March 11th, 2008.
I made this for a battle where superheroes where the theme. As much as I dislike the stock, I still pulled this off well enough to win the battle. If only the picture was larger, so I could fit more of Spider-Man in it instead of having to crop him awkwardly...
Counter-Strike Collab
Made on April 23rd, 2008.
I didn't really do much work on this one, and it's mostly a Gears of War screenshot turned into a background, with the Counter-Strike default stock image placed on it, sharpened, and colored. However, it was still my first collab, something I wanted to do for a long time.
EuroCup 2008
Made on June 6th, 2008.
This happens to be one of my odd cases where experimenting and trying something new didn't quite work as planned. Someday, I'll fix this up, but I'm generally lazy when it comes to repairing things. Maybe for the next major soccer event...
Red Barchetta
Made on July 1st, 2008.
The streak of sub-par tags continued, and thankfully concluded, with arguably my worst tag ever. I tried to turn a Rush song into a tag, and while the idea was original, I spent way too long on this and it still couldn't turn out decent. I also couldn't believe how ugly that car is.
Sidney Crosby
Made on July 4th, 2008.
It's amazing how quick I redeemed myself. It's also amazing at how easily I discovered a new technique that combined the aspects of brushing and C4Ds together. So basically, ages ago, I saved the picture of Sidney Crosby's celebration of his shootout game-winning goal in the Winter Classic, and decided it was high time to make something out of it. I probably should have done it a month earlier when the Penguins were battling for the Stanley Cup, because who knows, they might have won then. Either way, it was about time that I finally made a tag pertaining to hockey.
Call of Duty 4
Made on July 7th, 2008.
I wanted to make a CoD4 tag, so I found a screen shot somewhere, and then struggled for an hour until I added a Curves layer and accidentally set it super bright and inverted and weird. It turned out pretty decent, especially the font. I didn't work too well around the stock, however.
Team Fortress 2
Made on August 7th, 2008.
Continuing on with my techniques learned on my Sidney Crosby tag, I decided to make yet another Team Fortress 2 tag, but this time using the Meet the Red Team stock. Maybe a bit too sharpened and bright, but I still like it. I guess I'm a fan of bright things.
Can't Stop the Rock
Made on September 1st, 2008.
This is my most recent tag, and my absolute favorite. Made as a collab with a friend off of a now defunct graphics forum, we didn't hold back any of our creativity. The stock was my choice, the font was his doing, and the rest was basically split down the middle. I, however, have the honor of coming up with the fire effect (yes, that's fire) that sealed this tags fate.
And there you have it, the most in depth compilation of my tags to date. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up, I'll gladly help out with any Photoshop (no GIMP, sorry) work and stuff.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment