GANGTAG CONTEST 2: ELECTRIC SCOOTALOO

[Doctor Wheeze]

I was actually saying the other way, the first flyby should be right to left and the second should be left to right. You want the second one to be left to right because it of the text.

Loops doesn't really make sense with how you had it. First she does an arc towards the camera, then she flies close and parallel to it. To illustrate, a shitty diagram:

From the top down, and the thing at the bottom is the camera. If you reverse either of them (and I suggest reversing 1), it makes more sense as a loop.

I'd also suggest inserting a small pause between 1 and 2. Just hold on the last frame of 1 for a little bit longer. Rainbow Dash is fast, but she can't teleport.

And this is incredibly nitpicky, but the orange stripe could probably be smoothed out and cleaned up, especially on the right.

[Dan Backslide]

I was actually saying the other way, the first flyby should be right to left and the second should be left to right. You want the second one to be left to right because it of the text.

Loops doesn't really make sense with how you had it. First she does an arc towards the camera, then she flies close and parallel to it. To illustrate, a shitty diagram:
From the top down, and the thing at the bottom is the camera. If you reverse either of them (and I suggest reversing 1), it makes more sense as a loop.

I'd also suggest inserting a small pause between 1 and 2. Just hold on the last frame of 1 for a little bit longer. Rainbow Dash is fast, but she can't teleport.

And this is incredibly nitpicky, but the orange stripe could probably be smoothed out and cleaned up, especially on the right.

I totally misinterpreted you the first time, sorry.

I attempted to smooth out the rainbow, a lot less noise going on.

Just for comparison, there is center justified font and left justified font.

[Aurora]

I think centered definitely works a lot better there.

[Dan Backslide]

Still not 100% on the text/font/color but I'm satisfied with the concept. Comments and suggestions appreciated as always.

[Doctor Wheeze]

Try putting a little pause between the apple hitting the canvas and the text showing up. It took me a few iterations to get what was going on and a little breathing room would probably help.

A few ideas for the text:
1. Put the word apple in red or green. Maybe the colors from Applejack or Big Macintosh's cutie marks.
2. Put Artisans in a fancy typeface. This might be tricky because there is both dark and light green behind it, and if you sacrifice the boldness of the current font you might lose the text in there. You could always just remove the dark green and maybe the rock though.
3. Play with font sizes. You could go either way - making Apple larger and Artisans smaller or vice versa. Just play with it and see what works.

I like it, not sure which version I prefer. The first one flashes the spread pattern for like a frame before switching to the drawing.

Also that thing on the right kinda looks like a face. Maybe change that. Now that I've noticed it it's distracting.

[quantumKitty]

So I copied it from something else

And I just found my new signature!

[Dan Backslide]

The flashed spread pattern was intentional, but comparing the two I think it is better without. Anything else you'd suggest for the last set of Rainbow Racers I posted as well?

[numsOic]

"Apple" in red, "Artisans" in yellow. Gotta rep that Apple Bloom color scheme.

[Doctor Wheeze]

^^ I like the green and the red combo, but that's a good point. Maybe try some combinations of her body, hair, and bow colors. The red and green are more clearly apple colors than any of Applebloom's colors though.

That fancy font is much bolder than I was envisioning, so you can probably get away with having that dark green area and the rock if you want

The flashed spread pattern was intentional, but comparing the two I think it is better without. Anything else you'd suggest for the last set of Rainbow Racers I posted as well?

I figured it might be, and I think I get what you were going for there, but it looked too much like a mistake. Still not sure which Applebloom variant I prefer, they both work.

For the Dash tag:
It's good! I disagree with Chunky, I prefer the left-justified text. It lines up nicely with the cutie mark.
It still looks like she's flying at a weird angle on pass 2, could you get more of her body in the frame? That might help. Not sure. You could also try a different flying pose. The one I used was the first attempt at the sonic rainboom, from the beginning of Sonic Rainboom.

[Dead Ponyrapid rapid rapid rapid rapid Individuals]

Maybe yellow font and paste on some red bows as accents

[numsOic]

Yellow font with red border and pink bows on the initial letters.

[Dan Backslide]

Now that the ribbon is there, I think I like the splatter better.

I had tried that before nums, but it seemed like a little too much.

[numsOic]

Try making the initial A's hair-red then.

[Dan Backslide]

How about that?

Try making the initial A's hair-red then.

[BattyBovine♪ i got a new way to walk ♪♪ walk walk ♪♪ i got a new way to walk ♪♪ walk walk ♪♪ i got a new way to walk ♪♪ and it shows how good i feel ♪]

This looks much better, but it still doesn't look quite right. Maybe there's some way to have her fly out of frame at more of an upward angle, and then have her come in from the opposite side? That might be enough to imply that she flew in a loop while coming closer to the viewer.

As for the Applebloom one, the black outline looks kind of boring.

I think these look mostly fine. The only real issue is that the text doesn't really stand out from the background enough. Maybe make the outline more red than pink. And I don't really like the way it looks with just the first letters outlined in pink. It's actually kind of distracting; it seems to throw the whole thing off-balance.

[Doctor Wheeze]

How about that?

Good. Maybe have her fly a little faster on pass 2? It needs to be more dash. It actually looks like she slows down a little in the last few frames.

Not a fan of this.

[numsOic]

I meant the fill color, really, but okay. You can do a darker red than her actual hair color if you're doing the entire outline that way so it stands out more.

[Aurora]

Good. Maybe have her fly a little faster on pass 2? It needs to be more dash. It actually looks like she slows down a little in the last few frames.

Hmm, I'm not seeing the slow down. It looks fine on my end.

[BattyBovine♪ i got a new way to walk ♪♪ walk walk ♪♪ i got a new way to walk ♪♪ walk walk ♪♪ i got a new way to walk ♪♪ and it shows how good i feel ♪]

Yeah, I don't see any slow-down at the end, but I do think she could be going faster in general. Or maybe just a bit of motion blur to make it look like she's going faster.

[Doctor Wheeze]

Hmm, I'm not seeing the slow down. It looks fine on my end.

It's just a few frames, and very slight. I could just be crazy.

[Killing Vector]

I see it too:

I drew a line connecting the ends of Dash's feet as she flies across, except that frames 14 and 15 don't quite line up so it looks like she slows down there momentarily.

[Dan Backslide]

No, I definitely noticed that slowdown. So, instead of just eyeballing it, I eyeballed it with ~guides~. Hopefully it is a lot smoother. I rotated her position a bit, but I am not sure if it is enough to solve the visual dissonance. Unfortunately, I couldn't really figure out a blur that looked good, or one that wouldn't push it over the filesize limit, so I just lowered the delay on those frames.



Options, but I might just have to look into finding another useable background since the first one seems pretty alright.

[Aurora]

Yeah, that's visually fast enough that it doesn't matter, I think.

[numsOic]

Hmm. You can always darken the BG on the Apple Artisans one.

[Super Karoru]

Here's my idea for a Cheerilee tag. It's nothing too flashy, but gets the job done. I was going for the look that she's standing in front of a chalkboard with the simple shine on the apple. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.

[numsOic]

Ideas? Add a soft texture on the blackboard. Don't actually have Cheerilee go over the black border. Add some shading to the apple and make the shine animated. You may or may not be motivated to do any or all of these in particular.

Oh, also make the text as if it's being written, kind of like the Faithful Students tag.

[Super Karoru]

Here's a revision with those suggestions. The shine is animated, but it's very subtle. I had the idea of making the text animated too, but I have no idea how to do that. I might attempt learning that (and punching up that shine if necessary) tomorrow... or later today, I suppose.

[Frosthawkwhat is this. what is this SHIT]

I actually really like the simplicity behind that, and for me it's nice on the eyes. The only thing I don't like about it is that I had almost the exact same idea for a Cheerilee tag, and now I have to come up with another one.

[Headless Horse]

Yeah, the trouble with animating the text is that then you have to come up with a clever way to reset it, which bumps up the complexity of the whole thing by an order of magnitude.

A levitated eraser sweeping across it (and maybe kicking up some chalk dust) might be neat though. (If she were a unicorn.)

[numsOic]

For the text, a way which I just came up with now is to duplicate the text layer, erase the last bit to appear, duplicate that, erase the next-to-last bit to appear, duplicate that, etc... and then put them in reverse. For the wipe, use the erase tool in big straight vertical/diagonal swipes like you would with a chalk duster on an actual blackboard.

On that vein, make the area behind the text slightly clearer, as if dirty with that layer of chalk left over from using a duster, so it looks more like they're repeatedly writing and erasing the text (and also to give it a little more texture).

[Doctor Wheeze]

Assuming you're using something like Fireworks, an easier way would be to mask the whole thing and then reveal more and more on each frame. The advantage of that is it's easier to correct a mistake. Not sure it really needs it though.

[Redeye]

I'm going to hold this contest open for a little while longer, but I'm glad we at least have one potential in each category.

[Pony Factory Factory]

Oh yay, I was just reading the OP and was freaking out that I just missed the end. I'll do some today.

[Dan Backslide]

Hmm. You can always darken the BG on the Apple Artisans one.

Much better. Nums, you are aces.

[Pony Factory Factory]

These take longer than I thought, and I didn't work particularly quickly to begin with.



I guess I'll work on more tomorrow/until the deadline passes.

[Doctor Wheeze]

Could you extend the rainbow so it spans the text?

[numsOic]

And make it more than two frames. That's even less animation than the current tag.

[Chaos Sonic]

I dunno. I think it works in its simplicity.

[Aurora]

I like Backslide's way, way more. It keeps with the current one while adding just enough.

[Pony Factory Factory]

I like Backslide's way, way more. It keeps with the current one while adding just enough.

Yeah, same here, honestly. I saw the "speedometer" idea earlier in the thread and wanted to see it executed. But 1) Dash, 2) Speedometer, 3) Feeling of speed was an extremely difficult combination to put together without it feeling really messy. As it is, there are a LOT of colors in there for something that should ideally be a simple, high-contrast palette.

And it actually is more than two frames of animation in total, because of the background. The speed lines are actually unique for four frames total. But, bottom line, it's just really difficult to portray Dash's kind of speed without actual movement, and I think that's already been executed well.

I can do the requested revisions, but I don't think it's worth it. Moving on.