Most of my torrenting takes place at one place and they were opening up the possibility to design a banner for the site. Anyone could participate, submissions that were accepted would be displayed on a rotating basis.
I tossed together some ideas in Photoshop. Most got scrapped fast but some survived all the way to the submitting stage. And this is where it took a joyous turn.
People were giving me great constructive critique on the issues they saw, suggested changes or told me what worked and didn't. All of their comments was put forth in the interest of getting a banner they would feel comfortable putting up and it was incredibly refreshing to get a complete strangers' opinion on something I'd done.
Not that I don't like it when people say 'aw, nice idea/looks good' and nothing more but there's always that nagging feeling of wanting things pointed out that needs correcting/adjusting because therein lies the key to growth.
Creating and showcasing the different banners to this impartial group of people provides me with an excellent chance to challenge myself further. That feeling alone exhilarated me so much, filled me with renewed inspiration, encouraged me to look at things from a whole new angle.
I'm still limited but eager to expand and stretch those limitations ^_^
Jeanne the Persistent:
In my folder of anime characters was a nice image with Jeanne (from Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne) and I had the silly idea to make it look like she'd stolen the "o" in BoxTorrents, leaving a blank space.
The top two are my first attempt at this particular banner version. One is with flare and the other one is without.
I got the advice to adjust the missing "o" area with an empty ring, to more clearly show my idea, as you can see in the 3rd image.
The droplets didn't win people over so they were taken out and replaced with stars. "o" got more tweaks with a sparkle + I filled in the hole with colour. This was the last one with minimized Jeanne. Due to the detail of the image it came off all pixelated, a problem not fixable by me (despite efforts).
Hence the last version of her. I removed all the extra stars, leaving only one in the "o", not wanting the banner to look cluttered. Re-positioned the sparkle to add more focus on the ball Jeanne is holding and added one of the stars in its place.
For a larger version Click here.
It was awesome working on this one and gave me insight on what to look out for in following creations ^_^
