DS9 Avatar Contest 101

[Wicca who Wonta]

Hi you all and welcome to the 101st DS9 Avatar Contest!

First I want to thank BigFoot for running the contest for such a long time (We hope we'll see you in these threads in the future! )!

The winner of contest 100 is NCC-1701, who won all three categories with these entries:

In the special category BigFoot won with this avatar:

Congrats to the both of you!


This week's Episode is Equilibrium from season 3. The DS9 related theme is Music, and the Random Theme is Bigfoot. So, lets get cracking on those avatars!

AVATAR RULES
The Theme must be DS9 related, while the Random Theme can be from just anything. The avatars have to conform to board rules: Up to 140x140 px and up to 70kb.

I'll mostly put up threads in the evening central european time (CET). The deadline for this contest is February 20, sometime in the evening.

Have fun and congrats again to the winners!

 

[DeVario]

Episode:

Theme:

Random Theme:

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Episode:

Theme:

Random Theme:

http://i43.tinypic.com/242zztv.jpg
(Cookies to anybody who figures out where I got this image!)

 

[DeVario]

Random Theme:

(Cookies to anybody who figures out where I got this image!)

"The Cage"?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Bingo!!!

Chips Ahoy? Or Oreos?

 

[DeVario]

Ohh, Chips Ahoy (chewy) please.

 

[Wicca who Wonta]

^ Let's not forget something to drink!

*brings forth a pitcher of lemonade to drink with the cookies*



Btw, I really like your episode entry, Nerys!

 

[BigFoot]

I've got a couple of good ideas already.

 

[Marie1]

I may be out this round... not sure, but GIMP crashes every 2 seconds...

 

[Wicca who Wonta]

I've got a couple of good ideas already.

Sounds great! Will be interesting to see what you come up with in the random category.

I may be out this round... not sure, but GIMP crashes every 2 seconds...

Have you tried this free image editor? It doesn't have as many bells and whistles as gimp but it's a good program. I use it for most of my still avatars.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

ep

theme

random

 

[Wicca who Wonta]

Episode:

Theme:

Random Theme:

 

[ZERO_of_ZERO]

Well I have discovered how to make anmated AVs (as in my episode entry)
I wouldn't say its a brilliant AV but its my first attempt at animation and has taken absolutely bloody ages to do, and I don't have time to do anything else.
I can now see how the 70Kb max is limiting.
If anyone has any tips or advice on animated AVs - General advice or software recomendations-please let me know.
(Ive used UnFREEz 2.1 and am on Windows XP)

So before my AVs;

Thanks Bigfoot for giving up your spare time to run the competitions.
You are a STAR!

Thanks also to Wicca for the same.
Another STAR!


EPISODE:

THEME:

RANDOM:

 

[Wicca who Wonta]

Well I have discovered how to make anmated AVs (as in my episode entry)
I wouldn't say its a brilliant AV but its my first attempt at animation and has taken absolutely bloody ages to do, and I don't have time to do anything else.
I can now see how the 70Kb max is limiting.
If anyone has any tips or advice on animated AVs - General advice or software recomendations-please let me know.
(Ive used UnFREEz 2.1 and am on Windows XP)

So before my AVs;

Thanks Bigfoot for giving up your spare time to run the competitions.
You are a STAR!

Thanks also to Wicca for the same.
Another STAR!

Thanks for the kind words!

About animated avatars, I'm no expert, but I might have some basic advice to give. I use Ulead Gif Animator, which is pretty easy to use. I know that many people around here use ImageReady. I've never tried it, though.

When I want to lose as little as possible of the quality of the images, I save the image as .jpg or .png in an image editor set on a maximum quality output before opening them in the gif animator. If I just want to make the image as small as possible so it fits the 70 Kb limit, I edit the image as .gif, or make them smaller than 140x140 px. You've made a great first animated avatar. Good luck with your next one!

 

[BigFoot]

Thanks Bigfoot for giving up your spare time to run the competitions.
You are a STAR!

You're welcome.

 

[Marie1]

Episode:

Can everyone see this okay? My contacts feel wonky, so sometimes this avatar looks blurry, sometimes it looks clear.

Theme:

Does this count? Someone painted DS9 on the back of a guitar... if GIMP continues to not crash, I'll try and find something a bit better, but just in case the program dies...

Working on drawing Bigfoot out of the woods to make an avatar...

 

[DeVario]

They look pretty sharp to me.

 

[Wicca who Wonta]

Marie, I think they look sharp as well! And I think your theme counts - it's from an instrument after all.

It's good to see this many entries! Maybe we should talk about entry periods. Would you all like one week or two weeks to prepare your avatars? Just post your preference in this thread and we'll decide together.

 

[DeVario]

I almost always have my entries made and ready to go on the first day, but I know there are a few latecomers too, so two weeks would be enough time to get theirs in.

 

[Marie1]

I may be out this round... not sure, but GIMP crashes every 2 seconds...

Have you tried this free image editor? It doesn't have as many bells and whistles as gimp but it's a good program. I use it for most of my still avatars.

I haven't, but I think I will. I don't know what GIMP's problem yesterday but it was maddening! Does that do semi-transparent text? I'll have to look... I need something to do that to watermark pictures. It was easy to do on a mac, I've been having trouble finding a PC program.

They look pretty sharp to me.

Thanks!
Wasn't sure... I can't use my solution for eye drops... so everything looks slightly off... its bizarre!

Marie, I think they look sharp as well! And I think your theme counts - it's from an instrument after all.

Thanks!

It's good to see this many entries! Maybe we should talk about entry periods. Would you all like one week or two weeks to prepare your avatars? Just post your preference in this thread and we'll decide together.

I think... I think I'll say 2 weeks... ordinarily I'd say one, but I'll usually miss the thread, forget, get lost, come back, try and find stuff...

So 2 weeks should be okay... or a week and a half...