Fire Elemental part two

[immortal]

when i saw that ss i said 'fu..k' xeno that is a really nice start to a skin, but will u just get it finished please! lol, this is 1 of the longest ive waited for a skin to be made :P

[xenosomething]

yeah i know....i was way in over my head when i started this thread(very naive)

but i'm mature now!

[dlinkwit27]

why not have that metal thing on the left go all the way up and be like the titlebar?

[not in santiago]

I really like the bit that transitions between the main and the eq. I don't know if it was your intention, but I like how it looks like hills in a desert, which makes the volume (I think it's the volume) look like an alien palm tree, which gives the skin a lot of depth, since you now have a foreground (Cbuttons), midground (volume) and background (hills fading off into the hazy distance).

I hope I'm not wrong. I find it rather cool. (Hot, yes. Hot.)

I'm not too fond of the yellow and orange background. I think it needs to be blended or blurred or smudged or given some depth or something. Right now it looks too filter-y and it doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the skin. As for the lava, my superuntrained eyes don't see any yet. Have you considered making your plastic-like structures transparent and placing some lava inside of them?

Or is that too cliche?

Please don't let this skin slide into the oblivion of unfinished skins (said the colossal hypocrite . . .)!

[xenosomething]

Originally posted by ¤db¤
I don't know what you need to do to make it more lava like, but it's got a fair bit of work on it left, IMO. For a start, I think it's too smooth and should probably look considerably more violent. Try giving it a rougher texture, more shine/glow, bubbles, steam/smoke rising off it, maybe a volcano in the background to give the viewer a cue.........

ill give it all i got to make it look like lava, but i must say i dont think ill be able to make it look as good as it should.
...and isnt lava supposed to be smooth?

Originally posted by dlinkwit27
why not have that metal thing on the left go all the way up and be like the titlebar?

well, where would it lead to? would it just hang in the air? i thought of this too, but i cant see how it would fit into the rest on the skin.

Originally posted by not in santiago
I don't know if it was your intention, but I like how it looks like hills in a desert

yeah, i wanted to give a "faraway" look.
but not hills though....just bad lava.

[dlinkwit27]

have it follow the black line in my attachment. Have it come around the corner, and taper off to a point.

[xenosomething]

its a good idea and doesnt look too bad IMO, but like i said i just dont see how it fits with the rest.

[dlinkwit27]

idk how well it fits either, but imho it looks better than the fade away, and it orivides some sort of border for that top part. Maybe if the point tapered off more twoards the close/min buttons, then you coudl have transparency? and you could have those sweet bars be the buttons.

(i can diagram in paint if you want)

[xenosomething]

ill have to play around somemore to see how much i like it.....and if i do keep it, it will be a big plus for the winshade.

[StillWater]

Originally posted by xenosomething
...and isnt lava supposed to be smooth?

I guess it is, but what I meant by adding more texture is to add a wider range of colours into it (red, orange, glowing amber....). I guess making it much brighter and hotter-looking would be a good start. And that smoke in the attachment looks good and lava-like.

[Jellby]

Originally posted by ¤db¤
And that smoke in the attachment looks good and lava-like.

Only when fire elemental meets water elemental

How about this?

http://www.raven.dreamhost.com/nature/lavamain.jpg

[xenosomething]

those are some nice lava pics, but i really dont know where to start with it...

screenshot

too dark?

[StillWater]

Originally posted by xenosomething
those are some nice lava pics, but i really dont know where to start with it...

I think you should try and make it glow somewhat - at least at the edges. I think that especially with your bright background, the lava just doesn't look bright and 'vibrant' enough.

[Jellby]

Yeah, make it glow through some cracks or something.

[not in santiago]

Okay, I'm probably the only person who holds this opinion, but does it have to be lava? Can't it just look hot? While those shapes don't really look like lava, they do look liquidy and warm. Would you be willing to settle for a bit of abstraction? I only wonder because I kind of like the way they look now. It'd be a shame to mess with it too much.

As for the border, I like it, but I think it should be thinner. There's a nice sense of distance and depth in the main and the superthick border makes it feel really contained.