Emoticon Challenge #1 - Night Elf

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 8, 2007

Welcome to
The Hive Workshop's

Emoticon Challenge #1

Index

Introduction

The Task

Rules

Judging

Rewards

Deadline

Introduction

Emoticons (or smilies) are image representations of emotion based actions. The Hive Workshop currently provides a lavish selection of 68 emoticons (25 of which are Warcraft themed) for its users. The purpose of this contest is to provide users with a greater abundance of Warcraft related emoticons to choose from.

The Task
Contestants must create a series of 4 (or an additional 5th one) emoticons in 3 weeks. All submitted emoticons must be Night Elf themed, this does not mean it has to be strictly Night Elves, it can be any sort of unit from the Night Elf Wc3 faction.

Any submissions with other races (i.e. Humans, Undead, etc.) will be discarded. Submitted emoticons do not have to be animated, but contestants may choose to do so. All final entries must be a maximum of 25x25 pixels in size with a transparent background. The 5th optional emoticon can be a maximum of 40x33 pixels in size!

Rules

No emoticon may violate any of The Hive Workshop's site rules.
Contestants must create all submitted emoticons from scratch (that means no C'n'P).
Completed emoticons (.gif files only) must be physically attached to the thread along with a small description of each.
Final versions of the emoticons must be a maximum of 25x25 pixels in size with a transparent background.
Emoticons must be identifyable.
Emoticons must follow the Night Elf theme.
Contestants may not work in teams or receive any help from others with the creation of their set of emoticons.
Emoticons do not have to be animated but animating them might prove a plus with the voters.
You have to show a minimum of 1 WIP during the contest, more are encouraged.
All final entries must be appropriately titled and contain all 4 icons.
Any incomplete entries after the deadline will be disqualified.
Deadline may only be extended a maximum of 1 week and will only happen if less than 3 contestants thinks that they will have their entrys ready before the deadline.
No guarantee is given that the winning (or any other) submission will be added to THW's forum emoticon selector.

Judging
Judging will be broken down into two categories:

1.) Public Poll 40%

Votes through the public poll will represent 40% of the final vote and will be divided among the contestants. Users may vote on 1 entry only.

2.) Ballot Tally 60%

The Ballot Tally is determined by the number of users who vote for a contestant by filling out the Ballot Form, which will be avaliable in the voting thread. The ballot will represent 60% of the final vote and will be divided among the contestants.

Finally, the contestent with the highest final percentage will be the victor!

Rewards
The top 5 contestants of the Emoticon Challenge #1 will recieve the following rewards:

Rewards

1st Place:..............30 rep+Award Icon...........
2nd Place:..............25 rep............................
3rd Place:................15 rep............................
4th-5th Place:...........10 rep............................

Contest Dates And Deadline

All emoticons must be complete and submited three weeks after the contest begins.
The contest shall begin on 08 September 2007 and conclude on

30 September 2007 0:00 AM, GMT

Special thanks to Herio-san who submitted the idea for this contest!

Herio-san said:

Have fun, and try to think outside the box if you're having trouble.

Click to expand...

FamousPker49 · Sep 8, 2007

add me in hopefully first reply!

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 8, 2007

Good luck to anyone entering the contest, may you produce a set of high quality emoticons!

Herio-san · Sep 8, 2007

Im I eligable to enter? lol
If so, heres a wip of my optional emoticon

Edit:
-WIP Removed, Update can be found here

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 8, 2007

Only one not able to enter is myself.

CaveMan_Joe · Sep 9, 2007

I'm definitely in!
I was making a fine dwarf icon, but oh well :cry:

, I'll try to think of something.

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 9, 2007

The more the merrier. You can still finnish the other icon and showcase it in our gallery, if it's good enough we might use it for the site.

Xatoga · Sep 9, 2007

Isnt 25 by 25 a bit small for the larger amount of detail needed to make it not just an average Smiley Face type? In example, all three of the ones you put in the post are over 25x25

Wolverabid · Sep 9, 2007

[off-topic]

Our standand emoticons are (mostly) a maximum of 22 pixels in height, although many of them are far wider.

The three examples shown in the contest post are of the large (optional) emoticons.

Xatoga · Sep 9, 2007

Here's my WIP of a stony faced mountain giant. Pun intended, though stupid.

CaveMan_Joe · Sep 9, 2007

You can still finnish the other icon and showcase it in our gallery, if it's good enough we might use it for the site.

Thanks for the information!
Anyway, here's my WIP.

Ah! Any help with why the image background isn't transparent?
EDIT: attachment moved

Herio-san · Sep 9, 2007

Alrighty, I think I've finished the Keeper Icon (Although I may slow down the animation some more - need some feedback)

- "I live!!"

BTW, should I be creating SUPER HIGH RES emoticons, or should I be creating some using the Isometric style like our current smileys?

DragoonZombie · Sep 9, 2007

Herio-san said:
or should I be creating some using the Isometric style like our current smileys?

Since the smilies should be 25x25 px, I think we should make standard smilies.
Nice KotG smilie, but his left horn is somehow blinking Oo. Or is it normal?

Anyway, here are some of mine. But the height of my smilies are 29px.
Is that okay? Because I don't want to remove their pony ^^
All of these are finished if no suggestions are coming.

donut3.5 · Sep 9, 2007

Nice, I think the purple should be a bit darker though...
I especially like 1, 4, and 5.
--donut3.5--

DragoonZombie · Sep 9, 2007

darker, hm?
I actually made it a bit brighter. Maybe I can find a midtone then.

/Edit:
Ok I made them darker, look at my old post.

/Edit #2:
Added :'thumbs_up': smilie

Wolverabid · Sep 9, 2007

DragoonZombie said:
But the height of my smilies are 29px.
Is that okay?

The contest rules state:

ragingspeedhorn said:
Contestants must create a series of 4 (or an additional 5th one) emoticons in 3 weeks. All submitted emoticons must be Night Elf themed, this does not mean it has to be strictly Night Elves, it can be any sort of unit from the Night Elf Wc3 faction.

Any submissions with other races (i.e. Humans, Undead, etc.) will be discarded. Submitted emoticons do not have to be animated, but contestants may choose to do so. All final entries must be a maximum of 25x25 pixels in size with a transparent background. The 5th optional emoticon can be a maximum of 40x33 pixels in size!

Although I gotta tell ya guys, it's unlikely that any (standard size) submissions that are greater than 22 pixels in height will be added to the Hive's smiley selector unless they are very, very high quality.

The optional fifth emoticon is a different story: those could be up to 40x33 in size.

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 9, 2007

Everything is looking great so far guys, a shame that they are a bit too large your icons Dragoon. Is the rule of 25x25 really that important, Wolverabid? Or more of a guideline?

If a whole set of icons all was 29x25 and was used in the database as counter to the orc icons then it wouldn't really matter if they were 29x25 as all of them would be that. They would be more different from the orc faces aswell then. But your call ofcourse.

DragoonZombie · Sep 9, 2007

Can't be helped.

Removed a bit of the hair so it fits the 25px height. I'm a bit sad about it though ...

/Edit: Added Thumbs Up Smilie.

frostwhisper · Sep 9, 2007

Hey not bad. I might enter this too, if I have time/inspiration...

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 9, 2007

Okay, well they still look great, so that's out of the way.

UchihaSasuke.gr · Sep 9, 2007

I am not really good on creating emoticons.I would like some basic details.It should .gif?i can create one with photoshop??
If u want give me a link.

Herio-san · Sep 10, 2007

UchihaSasuke.gr said:
I am not really good on creating emoticons.I would like some basic details.It should .gif?i can create one with photoshop??
If u want give me a link.

Yes, emoticons can easily be created in photoshop or even in MS Paint! If you're using Photoshop I recommend using the pencil at 1px. If you are using MS Paint just use the pen tool. Also, to save in .gif format just go to Save As..., if you're using photoshop it will say Compuserve (.gif) and if you're using MS Paint it will just say .gif.

UchihaSasuke.gr · Sep 10, 2007

the size of the emoticon shall be 32x32 pixels?

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 10, 2007

Why don't you try reading the rules before posting dumb questions.

Katu · Sep 12, 2007

Yeah Raging.

Anyway, great smilies, let's see more!

thisruoy · Sep 13, 2007

Smile

A cat smiling and otehr things, cant get the transperency to work
their pretty bad :grin:

why are they so small?

donut3.5 · Sep 13, 2007

Night elf theme... I don't believe purple kittens are in the night elven race.
--donut3.5--

DragoonZombie · Sep 13, 2007

they look kinda scary ...

HeretoDLstuff · Sep 13, 2007

donut3.5 said:
Night elf theme... I don't believe purple kittens are in the night elven race.
--donut3.5--

Night elfs ride on pathers...

submitted emoticons must be Night Elf themed, this does not mean it has to be strictly Night Elves, it can be any sort of unit from the Night Elf Wc3 faction.

NearbyHermit · Sep 14, 2007

Ok Raging I would be in,but how much time do we got?

[EDIT by Wolve]

ragingspeedhorn said:
Why don't you try reading the rules before posting dumb questions.

ragingspeedhorn said:
Contest Dates And Deadline

All emoticons must be complete and submited three weeks after the contest begins.
The contest shall begin on 08 September 2007 and conclude on

30 September 2007 0:00 AM, GMT

thisruoy · Sep 15, 2007

scary?

donut3.5 · Sep 15, 2007

HeretoDLstuff said:
Night elfs ride on pathers...

Those look nothing like the night elf panthers, but I guess I see your point.
--donut3.5--

HeretoDLstuff · Sep 15, 2007

A WIP....My computer is screwing up colors for me right now, so to ME this looks like a red and peach colored smily, does it look purple\pink to you? I know this awnser has been asked and awnsered many times but: How do I make them transeparent?

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 15, 2007

Yes, they are completely pink.

HeretoDLstuff · Sep 15, 2007

....There suppose to be purple not pink! Oh well..

Pyritie · Sep 16, 2007

They look just like 255/0/255 to me. And what program are you making them in?

DesKaladA · Sep 17, 2007

you know i will do it if i can but i suck at art so no
BUT i will take some of the emotocons and turn them into icons if the artists want
(and out them on my site see below)

CaveMan_Joe · Sep 19, 2007

Here's a second WIP.
:grin:

Transparencies are now working :grin:

EDIT: attachment moved

donut3.5 · Sep 19, 2007

I like those a lot. They seem quite detailed for the size you were given!
Good job!
--donut3.5--

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 19, 2007

Looks very good caveman_Joe, keep up the good work.

thisruoy · Sep 19, 2007

Wat program did you use to animate it?

HeretoDLstuff · Sep 19, 2007

Pyritie said:
They look just like 255/0/255 to me. And what program are you making them in?

The new moniter came today, so I should be able to fix them, im makeing them in corel paint shot pro 9. (Witch sucks IMO)

Also, does anybody have any idea how to do transeparensy? Or any good programs of animating?

CaveMan_Joe · Sep 19, 2007

Wat program did you use to animate it?

Or any good programs of animating?

I used a freeware game creation tool called Game Maker :xxd:

It can save animated .gif's, but it probably isnt worth wasting your time trying to figure out how to animate it with that though.

does anybody have any idea how to do transeparensy

If you have Gimp, switch through each frame (layer) and use the erase tool on areas that you want trasparent. On the background layer ( it should say the name of the layer on the lower part of the screen), click on Layer > Transparencies > Add Alpha Channel, and erase what you want transparent. There's probably an easier way to do this too, but this is all I could figure out.

HeretoDLstuff · Sep 19, 2007

If you have Gimp, switch through each frame (layer) and use the erase tool on areas that you want trasparent. On the background layer ( it should say the name of the layer on the lower part of the screen), click on Layer > Transparencies > Add Alpha Channel, and erase what you want transparent. There's probably an easier way to do this too, but this is all I could figure out.

As I said before, im useing corel paint shot pro 9, and thats the only thing I have. ('cept msn paint) But if GIMPS downloadible I could use it...

DesKaladA · Sep 19, 2007

I use gimp and it has a PLUGIN for anamation
also if freeware
and OPEN SOURCE
and that reminds me
you need to rm my avatar

CaveMan_Joe · Sep 19, 2007

If you haven't gotten Gimp yet, here's a link, I think the animation plugin is on there too. You should find it extremely useful.

HeretoDLstuff · Sep 20, 2007

Ok, I got GIMP now. Its very nice but... ITS SO CONFUSEING AT FIRST! It can seem to do everything BUT the simplest things. How do I chage the size of my brush, and how do I change the color? thats ALL I need to know!

lol...

CaveMan_Joe · Sep 20, 2007

Is there a window called "Tool Options" up? If not, on the main window (labled "The GIMP") click on file > Dialogs > Tool Options. If it is up, there should be a button beside the word "brush". Just click on it to choose the brush size.
Here's a WIP of the 40x33 icon:
EDIT: Sorry about the unmorph part, for some reason, the frames weren't being refreshed.
EDIT 2: attachment moved

donut3.5 · Sep 20, 2007

I don't like the unmorph, but the morph is really cool.
At first I thought this was keeper of the grove, not a druid of the claw!
--donut3.5--

ragingspeedhorn · Sep 20, 2007

Only 10 days left of the challenge!

Emoticon Challenge #1 - Night Elf

Introduction

Attachments

Attachments

Attachments

Attachments

Attachments