keiiii

That's great that you are open to criticism. You can learn how to design. I STRONGLY recommend this book. For someone in your position, that book is absolutely invaluable. Read it from the beginning to the end, absorb everything, and I guarantee you'll become a much better designer from it. Unconventional/ casual is fine. But that doesn't mean you should use Comic Sans. There are many, MANY casual fonts that are free to use. Seriously, I don't even go near Comic Sans. It's a major turnoff for many design-savvy people, and artists tend to be design-savvy... Of course the content is more important. But that doesn't mean it's okay to have a bad design/ presentation. Your design doesn't have to be amazing, but it needs to be decent and organized.

Sorry to hear that, Archangel. D: I can't offer you any help on the actual problem, not being a musician... All I can say is I'm really looking forward to the finished product, which I'm sure is going to be great! I've been in a comparable situation before... having to work on a single picture as two separate files. It made things harder, but the end result was my best back then, and the person I did the picture for loved it too.

Right! What I'm saying is, one shouldn't settle for 'good enough' if you know 1) how to make it BETTER, and 2) that you have enough time to do it.

I'm not Rozo, but I think you should do what you feel is right as the musician. If you think it does not need any more work, then finished it is; if you think it could use more work, well... it's not like the entire album is waiting on you. You have time (just not forever). There are some tracks that haven't been finished, some that haven't even been claimed; plus I need to do the arts. >o>

Workin' on that bio! And coolios on art notes.

And it is done. Just need to work on a couple of finishing touches.

I'm whipping something up from scratch, and I might be able to finish it tomorrow! You haven't seen the WIP so not sure if you'd like it as much as I do, but I am pretty certain that this album kind of needs this picture. It's that iconic. And I'm holding my breath for that preview. If I die from the lack of oxygen, "preview" will be among my last words. Also, do I get to say anything about the stuff I make for the album? Maybe you can put it on the artwork page of the site?

Like others said, the idea is great. The execution needs improvement. The following is going to be rather criticism-y, so please bear with me. 1. The layout! Enlist the help of someone who really knows how to design a site. In the meantime, here are some specific suggestions from me: ---I think it'd help immensely if you put all the navigation links in ONE place. Right now, there's fanart on the left, and official art on the right. I'd pick one and stick everything there. ---The navigation menu texts are centered in their div. There is a lack of visual alignment, which makes things seem cluttered and not so organized. ---Other things not aligned: the right-hand ad, GAHQ twitter, Select Language (both the dropdown menu and the flag images). ---Don't use bold text too much. ---Can you move the top ad elsewhere? And put your logo on top? ---You're using this pinkish red for the logo, and a more bloody red for links. Either go for the contrast and make them totally different, or unify and make them the same. ---Speaking of the logo, the digital watch-ish font you're using is too blurry. ---The all-whiteness of the site is not appealing. ---Integrate the layout of the forum and the rest of the site. Make it look like they're a part of the same thing. While we're on this topic, the forum layout (I'm assuming it came with the forum package) has a couple of points that you could apply to the rest of the site. ------The darker background color frames the content area, immediately making things look more organized. OCR does this too. ------Alignment, alignment, alignment. The forum icons align. The forum descriptions and titles align. The "Search" button, the bit of text below it, and the right side of the forum boxes align. 2. Guidelines for artwork submissions. Quality is going to be hard to describe, but at least provide clear guidelines on what you automatically don't accept. ---What's your policy on a pencil work reproduction of a screenshot? Would you accept something like that, or do you require an original composition? What about pose/composition copying? ---What about violence/ nudity/ etc. ? ---What about background jacking? i.e. character is drawn by the artist; background is some photo jacked from google, OR in some cases, stock photo used with permission) ---Original characters allowed? (my opinion: don't allow them, even if the artist's original character is shown hanging out with Mario) 3. The "About" section doesn't tell me anything about what the site is actually about. I was expecting to find some info on who you are, why you made the site, what you're trying to accomplish with the site, etc... (I was specifically wondering if you were an artist yourself, and I still don't know if you are!) 4. Individual artist pages, like this one. Instead of linking their offsite gallery with their name, I'd like to see a more formal "contact info" kind of area, like: Why? Because if you just link their name with nothing to indicate that the link leads to their offsite gallery, it's confusing. I first thought clicking on their name would simply refresh their artist page, because clicking on their name (on the previous page) was what took me to this page in the first place. Organize the artworks by series/ game title. Yes, it's a page showing all art from that one artist, but it could benefit from more organization. Put the "Every artwork on this site was chosen by me personally, every artist was asked by me for their support of this website" part below all the artwork thumbnails. People don't visit this site to confirm whether you chose the art personally, they come to SEE the art. Show them what they came to see, and put the other stuff later. 5. I realize this might not be easy for you -- I'm not a native speaker of English, either. But please, try to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Failure to do so seriously harms your presentation. Don't forget a . at the end of every sentence that does not end with !, ?, etc. Do not capitalize the beginnings of words like "character" in "80 playable and unplayable Characters" here. Get help from someone who's fluent AND knows their grammar. That's about it... for now anyway. Best of luck! The internet seriously needs a good centralized gaming art site. If you clean up your site, it could really become something big.

I have no software to record videos with. ;_; Vocals would be amazing for this album. I would love to hear them here! And I'd gladly contribute my own singing -- I'm still learning, but maybe my voice/style could just fit some specific track. On another note, yes, I'm still around as a visual artist! I'll get you something new by your birthday, Rozo, though not sure if it's going to be a finished piece or another WIP.

Always liked your stuff a lot! The new albums make me happy

I'd do a Zelda themed wedding JUST TO DO THIS. With the little fanfare music thingie.

Back when Samurai Shodown 2/ Samurai Spirits 2 was all the rage in the arcades, I played Cham Cham like a pro. One time someone played Ukyo against me; he used his pow special (he spins multiple times in the air with his sword), and I used the jumping scratch. Somehow I managed to time it PERFECTLY, avoided Ukyo's whirling blade, landed the jumping scratch, and made the other player nearly break his stick in disbelief. The priorities in that game are surprisingly exact and unforgiving, so pulling off something like that is no easy feat, especially with moves like jumping scratch in which the character jumps and moves in an arc before it can connect. A MUCH safer, smarter counter would have been a simple upward projectile My reflexes are terrible now. These days I can't even do the projectile counter right sometimes.

But don't finish them TOO quickly, I need more time to make more arts for this D: *gets bricked*

I HAS AN IDEA. Uhuhuhuhu

I am sincerely honored to have contributed to this project. I hope there will be many more opportunities to do art for OCR! Downloading it now on torrent, and can't wait to listen to the music!

What kind of administrative/ behind the scenes work goes into releasing an album? *curious*

Wow, one of them is of a boss that I almost drew for this. Decided to do something else at the last minute, though.

I can't finish mine by tonight either. But I'll probably just submit whatever I got by the end of the day, and finish it after the contest for myself

I was so sad when I couldn't make it to NYC Distant Worlds this past spring. I would have loved to hear Gilgamesh battle theme in person! I am a visual artist and not a musician; nevertheless, Nobuo Uematsu's music has been a significant influence in what I do.

Ooowow. <3 BTW, did I ever give you a version of the art without the logo? Let me know if you need it.

Hmm... the Seiken group on dA is having a boss themed contest, and there's this. Perhaps I shall kill two birds with one stone!

I already have most of those. D: If it comes with a really nice collection of art (that wasn't included in previous separate soundtracks), I might consider...

Needs deadline info, dude. I probably won't be able to try this, but if the deadline is far enough...

I sign the same form y/n? I'll have my bio done over the next couple of days (assuming you want one from me as well).

I'm still alive; haven't been on the computer much lately due to health related reasons, but I'll be back to work soon, hopefully. As in, subbed to OCR...? Would that count as pre-album release leak?