Sundown

Major Congrats. And looks like you really splurged on the cake... I mean, DYRL Max and all. That's gotta be the most expensive wedding cake topper ever.

Motorcycle outfits for everyone. Sigh. I miss spandex.

*Looks down* Where'd it go?! Aw... *Cries and cringes* Actually, it's easier to make unfunny self-effacing pee-pee jokes. But in all seriousness, making an unqualfied, unflattering statement that encompasses every male member on this board in order to get a reaction from one particular mod is sort of bad form. Bad form, like overplayed PMS jokes are bad form. I don't think you'd find it an acceptable if any of us were to disparage every female on a Rainbow Brite forum we both (hypothetically!) frequent, then claim that we were just trying to get you to respond in a timely fashion. Nor would any of the members of that board, I imagine.Plus I would think Roy would reply even more quickly if you were to question his manhood alone, not that I'm recommending you do that kind of thing. Anyway, here's how I see it. If someone responds only to insult and hostility, his response usually isn't one worth receiving in the first place. If he won't respond otherwise, that often says something about his character, and that may be the only response you need. And because I have to be fair... if one is willing to insult many (some whom might not even deserve it) just to get a response from a lone individual, that often says something about their character as well. Winning points, making friends, and garnering sympathy or not, I think there's still something to be said about civility and stating things fairly. And in all honesty, I can't really see how Rainbow Brite is Sci-Fi or Anime, even if it does happen to be an 80's TV show that I still remember the theme song to. It just doesn't naturally belong in the Anime/Sci-Fi forum. I'd still be amused by the existence of a thread covering it though, although it'd either find low interest here or end up going in a direction you really don't want it to go.

You mean like how some folks' kids/nephews here enjoy Macross?

Actually, looks like Steven Tyler....yikes!! 392809[/snapback] That was my other thought. Tyler or Mick Jagger, I couldn't decide which. But then again, I theorize they're actually the same person and Aerosmith and the Stones are really the same band.

Initial reaction. Ew. Another attempt at turning Star Wars into something more gritty and extreme to pander to our anti-iconic culture. Secondary reaction. Mild interest. Yes, the hero being yet another Skywalker is cheesy, and yes, the anti-hero archetype is overplayed, but then again, all story ideas are overplayed as are archetypes by their very definition. There aren't any original stories under the sun, and what really matters is a story's execution. If properly executed, I would be curious about this particular Skywalker and his exploits, but that's a giant if. Still, old ideas can still be well done and engaging, even if not particularly fresh. I do like the art and visual style in the few panels here, especially the character design plate in the lower right. The designs do feel Star Wars, albiet Star Wars with a dirty, bounty hunter, underworld bent. The pirate tattoo, although corny, is actually very reminiscent of Fett's own logo, and it does fit within certain stylistic themes of Star Wars. Unfortunately, the main character looks like Mick Jagger with a dye job. Is it gonna suck? Probably. But there's a small kernel of Star Wars authenticity I think I can almost detect. Unfortunately, the creator's penchant for the corny (or him being unversed in Star Wars lore) becomes apparent in his naming of characters and ships only after the most obvious of Star Wars creatures. I'm half expecting Cade's favorite cantina to be the "Thirsty Tauntaun", his favorite drink to be the "Chilly Wampa", and his favorite blaster to be named "Rancor". =P I don't think the Twi-lek looks especially wrong except for the fact that she's missing eyebrows and looks like she came out of Poser. The pose is okay, the design's not horrible, and the tats are actually kind of nice, but the (ew) Lens Flare and the Poser-ness of the rendering does scream "amateur". And the ship looks highly unimaginative, even if it sort of, kind of, not really works as something out of Star Trek or Wing Commander. But where's the bloody cockpit? Actually, I see a few posts mentioning whether the Twilek was a little trite and whether she was a little bit over the top, not to mention a flamewar over something or other between the actual writers and one poster. Yes, the creators are defensive and the regulars there lather sometimes cautious praise, but I seriously doubt we should expect them to pre-emptively pee on everything like we love to do here... *relieves bladder*

Great piece... but if you don't mind me saying, ditch the watermark. Whatever makes an image less appealing to steal also makes the image less appealing to look at.

It works pretty well on humans too. What were we talking about?

Actually, I know I love Macross SDF because some of it does look damn cool. The original character designs and certain episodes (and DYRL) show off what Macross can and should look like, and even if a particular episode looks like poop, it at least represents something that does give me goosebumps. So visually, Macross SDF is sort of something insanely great that repeatedly falls short, instead of something that never really gets there despite its efforts. At any rate, not a big fan of the pandering, and the character designs draw a big meh from me, because the old characters seem to be different for different's sake, rather than because the new designs work better. And I like Robotech. Was kind of hoping the other fella in the screenies was Rand. Too bad.

All the exposed busts makes me say a big friggin Meeh. I suppose I can understand it for Janice, since she's supposed to be an entertainment idol/android, and I'm amused that her exposed portions form the Macross kite... but doing that with the rest of the characters, ugh. I hate junk that panders.

I can only understand one word he's saying. My comprehension might be aided by the fact that he says that word a lot. And I found the caption describing the video on that page infinitely more humorous. But that's not difficult to achieve. Every year, I manage to catch a glimpse of the Chinese New Year Special from China because my parents insist on watching it. And every year, they have something like that... impressive, but it's always a display that focuses on cooperation, coordination, almost to the point of scrubbing away any individuality or personality of the performers. The intended message seems to be: "I Am Mao of Nine. We Ale One. You Wirr Be Assimirated. Lesistance Is Futire."

I hear ya... and then there's also the danger of design by comittee, where together everyone comes up with something no one hates, but no one really likes. =) I guess that's why you have a lead, who has a vision or can drive it, and can be the trump in any decisions that need to be made. I hadn't thought about the white field being hard to highlight, but I see what you're saying now. I think there are ways to make it look glassy and still white, but it would have to take a different approach and use a different technique than what you've already established in this theme. The blue set's looking pretty too.

Is the Destroid Kite for posts with New messages or is it the washed out one for old messages? I don't think it's the lack of field color that makes it look lifeless... it may be because the field is a dull off-white-grey instead of white and the kite itself is sort of this pink-ish faded red, when it might be better served with a real bright-medium-slightly-dark-red. Red on white might still work well if there's more contrast, and maybe if that thin white line in the kite showed up better.

Using the Destroid kites for something, say the hot topic, (or normal topic and the old kite for hot topic) would be brilliant. I'm really not a fan of a whole lot of colors but I suppose slightly different colored kite for polls and stickies only wouldn't kill me. No freaking Minmay Wraith and the old black skull is rough and hard on the eyes. >_< Unless they're both tweaked, neither fit within the scheme Js has got going here, and having a cluttered freaky little Minmay for the sake of having a cluttered freaky little Minmay doesn't do much for usability. =P If anything, a little Minmay doll for stickies or something might be nice, but it shouldn't be something that's all over the place.

Heck, I can see Monica Belluci, even now. Again, doesn't need to be some little young starlet to do Wonder Woman, but Belluci does at least have the strong, womanly features Carter had and can look the part even at a younger age. So not friends. I have to say Kate's got a lot more going on as a whole than most of the Maxim dressings posted here so far. Still, there are probably better choices out there especially unknowns, even if Kate beats "Freckles" from Lost who was rumored to have a shot at the part.

Again, height's really not an issue on screen. I mean we're able to make Elija Wood look 4 feet tall and John Rhys-Davies convincing as a dwarf. What matters most is their actual physique, muscle tone, and the way they carry themselves. But unknowns are good. I'd rather they speak perfect English, however. And that gal Exo posted has way too much stuff going on to be taken serously. We so cannot be friends. I actually find her consistently being the highlight of bad movies, and I'm always wondering what the heck she's even doing there in the first place. I'm probably one of the few that still thinks Wonder Woman should be more woman than girl, and should have just a tiny bit of a matriachial thing going on, but Durance... in that picture she's insanely cute. And Davalos was awesome, WW or not.

This would have been soo cool in the 80's.

Height's not a big deal. 5' 10" is plenty tall and we're not going to find any attractive actresses measuring at 6' 6". Height can also be compensated by what other actors/actresses are cast alongside the main actress, not to mention that Wonder Woman never looked freakishly tall in the comics. Lawless looked pretty decent in some of the shots I saw of her that were taken somewhat recently, and Alex Ross tends to portray WW a bit on the more mature side, anyway. It could work, except for our modern day obssession with cutesy teenage youth over statuesque womanliness. Some goes on the male side of things, where we have Superman portrayed as a skinny, metro post-teen instead of the stuff we had in a square-jawed Christopher Reeves. From the one picture I saw of Charisma, she looks nothing like Wonder Woman-- well at least nothing like the classic statuesque Wonder Woman portrayed through most of comics. But I think I could at least take Kate seriously for the role-- she's actually a solid actress with great physicality to boot.

I love Kate. And at least she's more the classical, statuesque beauty needed to play Wonder Woman than the other names mentioned. But I'd much rather see Lucy Lawless in the role. Come on, now there's Amazon if I've ever seen one.

I think it's fine to have separate icons for Hot Topic and Poll, with minor differences between them and Normal Topic. It'd be nice for flavor and make extended topics and polls distinguishable. However, the differences between these, whether they be increased intensity of color or brightness, or an actual minor change to the kite or icon graphics, should still be less noticable than the difference between new and old posts. So my philosophy is-- most noticeable difference between categories the user cares about first and most (usually best achieved by color), with less immediately noticeable differences for category differences the user might be interested in but is less concerned about.

JsARCLIGHT, in the end, I don't think you're going to find a set that pleases everyone perfecctly-- design by comittee doesn't work very well. You're going to have to be stubborn about what you're going for, and take feedback mainly as a sanity check and for the ideas that perfectly compiment your vision that you might have missed out on yourself. I think it's great that you're going for a cohesive theme that's not an eyesore to look at. It'll be a huge, huge improvement once we get these online. I hate the current icons and I hate the defaults we had before-- could never really intuitively tell what the different icons were for. Now for my two cents that totally disregards everything I said earlier-- I personally prefer one color scheme for all the no-new-posts icons, differentiated by the graphics themselves, and maybe by intensity of color acheived by a "glow" effect in photoshop, and then have new posts be highlighted by a different but related, brighter, "hotter" glowing color. Ie: Red kites for normal threads with no new posts. Red skulls or red glowing kites for hot topics with no new posts. Red something else for polls with no new posts. Yellow kites for normal threads with new posts. Yellow glowing kits for hot topics with new posts. Yellow something else for polls. The reason I like this scheme is that we end up with two related colors on the page rather than three somewhat complementary and slightly contrasting colors. The thing that stands out the most at first sight is which threads have new posts. That's probably the first thing he wants to know, rather than how popular a topic is. The current scheme uses three different colors, one for each type of thread, and it's giving me a bit of a headache.

Exactly. I can see UMD dying as a media for movies, but let's not fault the PSP itself for being able to play movies that no one wants to pay for. The platform still remains an excellent portable gaming system. It does however, need more compelling games. The DS's success isn't that it focuses on games. It's because it simply has better games to play, more of them, and they're marketed much better.

Actually, if anything, I'd say the VF-2 is to the VF-1 as the Excelsior is to the Constitution class (or maybe the movie Constitution to the TV series' Constitution). The VF-2 is a complete overhaul and design refinement (like it or not), not just a low-budget kitbash. And of course, the VF-0 would be the Enterprise from Enterprise, appearing strangely higher-tech for a prequel. *Twitches in geeking out so much in one single post* Nope, that's DYRL. *runs*

JsARCLIGHT, love your icons! Much better than what we've currently got. I am so anal about icons having a cohesive theme.

While Kawamori's designs don't resemble Gundams yet, I do agree that Kawamori's designs have changed from bold and simple to complex and cluttered. The shape of his old valkyries were iconic and readily identifiable, and their designs weren't packed with surface details that broke up the design's overall form. His new designs tend to adopt conventions from other anime mecha and in my opinion, lose some of the simple and unique elegance that drew me to Macross in the first place. Take a look at the VF-0S's head, for example. The VF-1S's head was bold, simple, and has been a favorite for years. The 0's head is the 1S head with all sorts of clutter thrown on top of it that obscures the original's beauty without adding much on its own. I do agree that even though the VF-2SS took the design in a different, but understandable direction, it still retains more of the original design's feel and styling. It's weird, but I almost feel that Kawamori's designs aren't consistent in themselves, especially when it comes ot battroid mode. Some folks might find this refreshing, but I'm not a fan of many of his designs aside from the YF-21. For some reason, his designs don't consistently compel me the way Shirow's or Miyataki's do, where I dig just about everything they do, rather than the few isolated designs here and there.