Vania Wars First Attempt
Entry by Jamie
Submitted 12/26/2011
It’s finally done! I’ve admittedly had the files to work on this project for over a year (sorry, Carrie!), but I’ve not worked on it consistently– hence my uncertainty about the hours I spent on it. Anyway, I actually didn’t use the text to help me create the spread; I only had the FPO of Carrie’s final comp to guide me. I decided to go with a different color palette, and had a lot of fun playing around with it. I hope you all like it, and I can’t wait to get some feedback. 
Way to go, Jamie!!!! You did an amazing job, very clean. The liner strip very nice texture and the cakes, too. The hair silo; very nicely done. I’m impressed.
If I had to nit pick a little I would say maybe the Beauty and the lifestyle need to be a little bit lighter, they seem a bit dark and contrasty. But overall what a great job!
This is fantastic Jamie. Absolutely love it.
Nice Job Jamie!!! You’ve really done great…. I’m very proud of your efforts,enthusiasm, and development as a professional…. Cheers to you! -Jack
Not too shabby for a first round. All the comments are without seeing the unretouched art of knowing the overall brief.
The skin work is nice. I agree that it’s too dark and contrasty, particularly the hair.
The nails look a bit faked. The silo is ok on the hair but could use further refinement – most likely would be ok as a magazine spread but could look a tad better if it was printed large.
The background of the main beauty visual is very noisy and should more closely match the beauty image – this could be said for the entire image. The, I’m guessing, out of focus areas of the lifestyle background look very unreal and gaussian blurred. That and the blurring itself doesn’t accurately represent reality as far as out of focus areas would work (depth of field). The perspective is off on the crosswalk and I know it’s tricky with the layout and such, but the lifestyle is stepping on what would be a very weird angle in regards to the street.
I like the color palette of the makeup cakes, but the lower left cake’s shadow is too saturated. See the others. Looks like a color layer. The pink stripe has an unattractive and odd man out ridge that the others do not have.
Oh man, those eyebrows. (I don’t think I need to say more).
Parts of the hair mask from the main beauty appear to have drawn hairs. Also, in regards to all of the elements, it’s not JUST about masking things out well. Elements need to be INTEGRATED. This would apply to the hair, the entire silo of the lifestyle, etc. It’s not enough to have nice edges, color and shading is needed for elements to ‘live’ together.
Overall: good effort. I could see this image maybe 3 more times and probably approve.
Excellent critique, Mr Nit! (I wanna steal that name!! I’d be Ms, of course)
I agree with everything, except maybe the cross walk. Nobody in NY walks straight across the crosswalk, always crossing right in front of everybody else!
But great critique. Yes, I think she got a little “creative” with the nails; they look a bit solarized. And the blur on the right side of the background is banding up making it look unnatural. As I said, I agree with everything you said and I think Jamie should be proud that such a keen eyed gentleman believes he could get her to approval in 3 more rounds!
Very very good comments, kind Sir
Great work Jamie! I think everyone else nailed the small stuff already. I had to hunt for a while and be super picky to find anything to correct, I guess thats a good thing
The only thing I see that hasn’t been mentioned already is a little tiny line at the bottom of the specular highlight on the upper lip. I’d smooth the transition just a bit. It looks fine as is but might be more noticeable on a larger output. One other thing that I might take a look at little closer is the small amount of fringing in the background image on the right, most noticeable between the white lines and the pavement. Other than that I agree its almost ready for approval! Great job!
I just realized there is a profile problem with the submitted images. They are showing much darker and saturated than they actually are. If you look at my image at the top of the Vania Wars page it is much brighter and more neutral than my submitted images. So actually Jamie’s image is not displaying well ‘color-wise’ here.
Hope to have this resolved shortly