h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...although, I'm not exactly sure what sort of artwork is needed.

Hi Picquilarius

Thank you for volunteering. The artwork we do is described on <./>CommunityArtists-What</.>. You can see examples of our work on the <./>frontpage</.>, in the <./>GuideML-PictureLibrary</.> and via page U204560.

Which graphics packages do you normally use?

Amy

I use Photoshop and Illustrator for the most part.

Just the ticket . Do you have any examples of your work online?

Uh, yeah...http://picquilarius.deviantart.com/

Hello, After a review of your work I think you shall pass the test with flying colours, just remember to have solid lines and colours (painted I should say rather than penciled ) and stick to set sizes and so forth as in the guide.

I look forward to welcoming you soon...

Hi Picquilarius! This is what you've been waiting for...

Thanks for volunteering to be a Community Artist.

To join this volunteer scheme there is an art test. This is because the standard of Edited Entries on h2g2 is very high, and the Editors would like the illustrations to match this.

Two random Edited Entries have been picked using the Infinite Improbability Drive. You are asked to do a picture for each of them. You can look in the <./>GuideML-PictureLibrary</.> for the kind of graphics used in the past, use the entry for inspiration, and use the internet for research, but make sure that you follow the specifications that you can find on the <./>CommunityArtists-What</.> page.

The Editors don't want to see photographic manipulations or montages.

You need to produce the main image and the front page circles for each title, although it's possible that only the main ones will be used because these Entries have already had their day on the Front Page.

Once the graphics are done, let the Editors know by Posting to this thread. The details for sending them into h2g2 will then be given to you.

If your pictures meet the Editorial standards then not only will you become a Community Artist but your test pictures will be blobbed and added to the entries.

Your entries are:
A647129 - Greek Myths - Centaurs
A653203 - Fire Breathing

The deadline for these pictures is Monday 23 February.

Feel free to ask questions and good luck.

NB: The same rules of copyright apply to images as to text. If you are in any doubt as to what this means, please ask.

Have fun!

Ok, I guess the images are done, you can see them here:
http://www.everythi.ehost.com/Pages/Mike/Stuff/H2G2.html

Hope you like them...

I like them very much indeed. They are both well composed and full of movement .

Just a couple of technical points to sort out. The border around the main centaur image has black blobs in the corners which should ideally be removed.

The circles for the small centaur images have strokes that are too thick and the circle for the fire breathing ones are flat on the right hand side and at the bottom. You might want to use this template instead. http://design.gondastudios.com/lo/h2g2circletemplate.htm

There is no hurry. No decisions will be taken and no badges will be awarded before the 23rd of this month. Well done for getting these done so quickly though, I wish I could work that fast .

Amy

I'm impressed! Just another couple of nitpicks:

* The main image for the firebreathing ought to have a 1 pixel black border

* The corners of the circular images should be set to 'transparent', as well as being the correct background colour. It's a bit of a faff I know, but it (should be) a fairly easy habit to get into...

Well done on getting them done so fast!!!

I agree with the others. Lovely pictures , just the little technical bits, which everyone has trouble with at the start. Well done .

Wotchit

Cool, thanks for the pointers. I'll be sure to fix those problems soon.

Well I fixed all the problems you brought up, although i'm not exactly sure if the circles are setup how they're supposed to be.

http://www.everythi.ehost.com/Pages/Mike/Stuff/H2G2.html

Looking good!

There's just one step more to get the circles spot on - the 'corners' need to be set to 'transparent'. There should be an option in your graphics program somewhere (often when you save the file) to select which colour is transparent.

Technically, the corners could be any colour at all, so long as that colour was set to transparent. However, as a fail-safe measure, we like the goo circles to have goo corners, and the white circles white corners (as you've done). It's just a matter of switching on the transparency.

I'm not familiar with Photoshop or Illustrator, so I'm afraid I can't be of any help in finding this option!

Well none of the circular images have ended up transparent and the circles themselves are a little grey rather than black. Was that the sort of thing you were not sure about? The background colours are right though and the antialiasing works.

Yeah, I used the template for the circles, so if the circles need to be darker, its the templates fault, not mine. As for the transparency, I dont see what else I can do, if I delete the background color to transparent, then there is no color. If you wanted that, it should only require 1 image, because whatever color background you use would show through. I guess I dont realy understand what you want me to do...

The GIF format includes an indexed palette - 256 colours in the case of your images. One of those indexes, despite having an RRGGBB colour can be specified as transparent. What you need to do is select the colour index being used for the background and set it to transparent. Exactly how this is done will vary between software packages but if absolutely necessary it can be done in the file after saving.

As an example, for your blue centaur circle the palette index for the background of #000066 is index 209 (of 0 to 255).

I get what your saying, but I can see no way in photoshop for making a particular color transparent, I can make the background itself transparent, but that means that there is NO background color. Is that what you want?

It is easy in PaintShop Pro but that is designed for such precision rather than photo manipulation. It may depend on which version of PhotoShop you have (I assume there are some manuals or help files). You could try looking for a colour dropper symbol which actually picks up colour and then seeing what options you have.