The Art Gallery
These are all the banners/avatars I have created using Paint Shop Pro 7; special thanks go to Snypa from the The Gaming Universe for helping me learn how to make my own banners after he made so many for me
Banners
Magical Sasami
This was the first banner I ever made. I used to be obsessed with Sasami... as you will see in the next few images. I did not know how to blend images very well, nor did I know the existence of masks. It came out pretty good for my first banner, but still, it needs some work. I learned how to use layers here, the big facial picture of Pretty Sammy on the left is using a blended layer, which would look pretty cool if the leaf wasn't cut off like that so suddenly. The text is pretty neat though.
Kul'thran, Troll Hunter
My first World of Warcraft banner. Made during Beta of WoW (around October 2004) of my Troll Hunter, Kul'thran. I need to make a new one of him... and not use so many images. :p Again, I used layers, but Snypa taught me how to make masks and blend my images, it's hard to tell in this banner as I did not really do the blending well, but its not bad. I will have to make a new banner for Kul'thran some day.
Merry Christmas 2004 from Sasami-chan!
Yes, this was my third banner. Can you believe it??? Wow, it's just so... much better than the past two. I made the background myself by taking a red gem-like texture and inverting the colors and then lowering the brightness a bit to create a snowy effect. Then I just used masks to blend in the images on the sides. The image in the middle used a layer which matched with the background colors and also used a mask. The text is great. How on earth am I going to make a better one for 2005 Christmas?
Happy Valentine's Day 2005 and Happy Sasami Day!
Sasami was born on Feb. 14th... Valentine's day! Perfect for the cutest anime girl in the universe! ^_^ I got a lot of "wows" when I posted this on the GU. The background was a real pain in the neck to make. I started out using just a pink, flowery texture as a background and then used the gem effect and then I think mirror to make it look like flower petals! I had to download some special shapes in order to get the heart in the center, but it was worth it! Came out great!
Appreciation For Aruna
Made this on my birthday, November 21st of 2005... months after the Valentine's Day banner. It's obvious that I'm rusty, but Aruna liked it. Yes, I made it for someone else, not me. Aruna is a good friend of mine who I appreciate and I wanted to make her something special. Getting the border was the biggest pain in the neck ever and I disliked the colors of the banner, but Aruna loved it and that is what counts.
In Honor of Therista
After leaving World of Warcraft I found that I missed my warrior, Therista Whisperleaf the most. She was fun to play and role-play. Hence I made this banner for her. It has some flaws, the text is a little hard to read, but I think it looks pretty good. I may remake it sometime.
Samus Aran - Metroid Fusion
Aruna told me once that Therista reminded her of Samus Aran. So I went and made a banner about it; about Samus's change in Metroid Fusion. The font is Azerothian Cryllic and the quote and images are directly from the game's introduction!
Kul'thran, Troll Valewalker
Finally, a banner to Kul'thran's name that is really cool.
Cecil - If you are a true Paladin...
Well, I wanted to make a banner to Cecil from Final Fantasy IV because Cecil originally inspired the creation of Aegis Runestone. So, he is my first hero. FF4 was also the first RPG video game I ever played; so I have a liking towards it.
Now, the banner is Crystal-Shaped because the four crystals of the elements (Fire, Wind, Water, Earth) and the Dark Crystals are key to FF4's storyline. So I thought that to make the banner unique, I ought to make it Crystal-shaped. The picture here is from FF4 advance with Cecil bracing himself as his Dark Side unleashes a Dark Wave upon him--very dramatic.
Soma Cruz - The Power didn't return...
More than 5 attempts was made on this banner. I originally wanted to have a banner with Soma completing a magic seal from the introduction movie of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, and two other pictures--the one shown being one of them. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way, so Soma Banners #1 through #5 were made. #5 is probably the best of the five attempts posted/made. Only #1 is almost as good as #5. So a lot of work was taken to make this banner. x.x;
Zero Ryoko
Ugh... it seems I'm getting worse and worse at banner making. >_<; This is the best I could pull for a Tenchi Muyo! banner. I chose Zero Ryoko because I like Zero and I wanted to throw everyone off with a non-Sasami banner (unfortunately, I might make another one soon).
Why Tenchi? I got back into Tenchi recently (as of August 2007). Stungun fixed the other text for me while I made the inner text.
Sasami Fight!
Now, I've gotten out of the box, literally and pulled off something cool. While it got cut due to the original frames, I'm happy to say that this is my first box-less banner. This is themed around Sasami's fight with Mashsiu in Episode 5 of OAV 3. The background pic is Sasami removing her hairbeads to turn into a staff, which is in her hand in the front picture.
Josherz removed a lot of pixelation for me voluntarily.
Shadow the Hedgehog
The Final Banner:
Ever since I saw Super Mario Bros. Z. I wanted to get back into the Sonic world. Although I said he is, I realize that Cecil was not my first hero; he was my second, Sonic the Hedgehog was my first. But I dropped out of the Sonic world at a young age. Finally, I decided to go back, I haven't gotten through much, but I have a new favorite character in Sonic's world: Shadow the Hedgehog. I got a hold of a GBA game called Sonic Battle and I love playing Shadow. He's just awesome, so... I decided to make a theme and a banner based on it. There was a first and second banner made earlier, but they didn't capture what I wanted to capture, also, there were pixelation problems and other things that have been fixed using the best of my ability. The quote is directly from Sonic Battle; You hear Shadow say it when a battle begins.
Shadow the Hedgehog Version 2
Ironically, after finding the art, I made this one in about 60 minutes, compared to all the time I spent on the older version. This banner is a lot better. The only error it has is that it seems to have a bar on the right side. Whoops. Oh well. Shadow is glowing blue to represent his "Chaos Control" Powers since in his game, Shadow the Hedgehog he glows blue when he's ready to use Chaos Control.
For Lady Ry'en
I made this for Lady Ry'en of the GU. She provided me with her pictures and I decided to do a double side that matched the background of each picture. She loved it. :)
Alph and Lucia - Promise me...
I recently got addicted to Luminous Arc, a FFT-like game for the DS. It's excellent and I love the relationship between Alph and Lucia (pronounced Loo-sha). At this time (Feb 2008), it is coming close to Valentine's day, so a romantic theme was fitting. Lucia is my favorite character in the game, I couldn't get any still shots of her on her own, besides a few shots from the intro movie, so I went for a combined Alph and Lucia theme. If you've gone far enough in the game, you know this combo works. ;)
Miles 'Tails' Prower
Guess who my second favorite Sonic character is! XD I had writer's block one day and I was bored. So, I decided to swap my avatar & sig theme at GU. I had some fun looking for the images (found them in Sega's Official Art Archive) and making the banner. The border and BG came out nicely. So I'm quite pleased.
All Hail Shadow
Yup, a third Shadow theme. This one was inspired by Crush 40's version of \"All Hail Shadow.\" I wanted something really grand so, I asked for help. Kaiser Infinity and Greo gave me some great ideas, the only problem was source images. I went around dA asking for requests for this banner. I wanted it to represent Shadow's power. The problem is, most "All Hail Shadow" art is Shadow as a King. That wasn't what I was looking for.
Well, I got impatient and decided to use the GBA Sonic Battle Concept art pieces for the banner instead of asking for requests on deviantArt (though that might change when a certain artist returns on the 27th). I'm actually quite surprised and pleased with how it came out. I was able to represent Shadow's power in the banner.
'Avast!' - Pirate Shadow
I didn't make this for GU, just another board for ikariam.com for my alliance. We role-play a pirate-crew. Arr... It's not the best of my banners (it's probably my worst!), but I thought it was fitting enough. I wanted Shadow and some treasure.
SonicMaster23 was the one who drew this picture of Shadow as a pirate. He said I could use it if I gave proper credit, and thanked me for asking first.
Overall, I'm getting bored of Shadow, and really need something new.
Duran of Forcena - Seiken Densetsu 3
Finally! Something NEW! And it's my 20th Banner made! WOO!
Man, that's a tiny banner, lol. I had to to get the old man out of the picture (if only I had clone stamp from Photoshop!) >.>
So yeah, I've been playing too much Seiken Densetsu 3, and my favorite character is Duran. This is him as a Swordsmaster (or Swordmaster?), one of his final classes in the game, and my favorite. So, I decided to make a theme. I think it's decent, it took me awhile to get a good background gradient (I took colors from Duran's armor). There's not much art on the net for Duran, none for the Swordmaster, except the Status Screen picture, so the best I could do was work with the sprites. I spent about 3-4 hours on this one.
Aegis Runestone - The Magi Warrior of Mytherdia
Yumakami decided to color the image she drew me two years ago for my birthday! :D Isn't it sweet? I was given multiple versions of the image. The original image was much bigger, and she also gave me a no background image.
What does this mean?
BANNER TIME.
About time Aegis got something for himself, eh?
Yeah, it's a huge banner this time. I felt I wanted people to see as much of the image as possible. Also, note the Runestone Family Crest in the corner of the banner there. B)
Serve the Hive...
I was getting excited for Starcraft 2, and I wanted to make a new theme based off of it. So, I grabbed some Starcraft 2 art, used it, and made a banner out of it. The first few banners were not eye-friendly, but I made this second one (above) to clear it up thanks to Smokin' D.'s suggestions.
Alucard - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
My most recent addition (as of 07/2010) is Symphony of the Night. Alucard, the son of Dracula is the main character and one of my favorites. The quote in the middle is something he says in the game. I really like Alucard, so I wanted to make a theme off of him.
This banner went through several changes. It started out pretty simple with just a blue BG and two Alucard pictures (the same you see above). Except it only had his name in the lower right corner. The second one had the quote in it, but it was misaligned. The third one had the text as seen above, but no castle, nor moon, but it had very distracting crescent moons in the corners. Thanks to the suggestions of Chris Miller, Lethes, Stungun, and Greo, I was able to make this masterpiece above, which includes the Castle image from the intro of the game and an image of the moon. I think this is one of my best banners yet.
Kheldrun - Agent of the Swarm
I made a variation of my "Serve the Hive..." banner when Salirth from Sc2mapster.com made me Kheldrun, my hydralisk hero from my StarCraft I and II campaigns as models, images, portraits, etc. I made the working hero, he changed the look. The glowing Hydralisk here is Kheldrun, a psionic Hydralisk, son of the Overmind. I don't want to tell much about Kheldrun as it'll spoil the campaign, but he's an Anti-Hero like Shadow, but much more vicious. This is my first banner in Photoshop. And 24th banner!
Bringing Sasami Back!
Since I got Photoshop, I wanted to do something awesome with Sasami, since she's my obsession. ^_^; Anyway, I went through several iterations of this banner, trying many photoshop techniques, one tutorial, and some of my own, and it just wasn't coming out right. So... I went online, and found the tutorial for this current version's background. It was amazing, so amazing that I kept it. With the help of Lethes, and Phoenix Gamma from GU, I managed to finish this banner. And what you see above is the final result. Made in October of 2010, this is my 25th banner. Jus' bringing Sasami back.
Cecil - A Paladin's Heart Knows No Malice...
Made with Photoshop. This is banner 26. I wanted to remake the FF4 banner I made earlier with the DS graphics set. It took me a long time to get the right background as I toured many, many YouTube videos, taking screenshots. Finally, Stungun had taken a screenshot of Cecil facing his Dark Side from the DS version and gave it to me. Using the same crystal-shape banner I had before, I made the above. It's not my best work, and I want to improve it, if I can.
Tidus
My 27th banner. It's still undergoing changes as I work on it. I got addicted to Final Fantasy X after Christmas 2010, and I found Tidus to be one of my favorite characters. So, I wanted to make a banner on him. I searched for many water texture tutorials, and what I have here is the best (for now). I'm okay with the background, but it needs some work.
Ezio - The truth is written in blood
I made this banner recently (3/2011). I was getting into Assassin's Creed II, and I just like Ezio as a character. I had some help with this, but it was mostly me who came up with the concept of the background, etc. The typeface is "Trajan", the font most closely identified with the Assassin's Creed typeface. It was a fun banner to make, it's even more fun to look at.
Gifts From Others
These are banners/avatars/art that people like Snypa and others have made for me. Almost all of them are from the GU... what do ya know?
First Sasami Banner From Snypa
This is the first banner Snypa made for me. I thought it was cool, though there's too many pictures jammed into it, but that was my fault for sending them all in. Shows how skilled Snypa is with Photoshop!
Second Sasami Banner From Snypa
This is the second one he made me; another one jam packed with pictures. After this... I sort of stopped sending in so many--he's really good though.
Third Sasami Banner From Snypa
This one is pure awesomeness and pure cuteness. I love the 'shifting' faces of Sasami to Pretty Sammy, not as many pictures, but better in my opinion. After this one, I started making my own banners.
Anime/Video Game Crossover Banner
Also made by Snypa--this was an RPG I was running at the GU and this was my character. Currently as of February, 2007 I'm running another in which I do not have a main character.
Dark Sammy
Also made by Snypa, I thought it'd be pretty scary for Halloween at GU in '04 or '05 to have Sasami turned evil as my theme.
A Drawing Gift from Zanji on GU
Zanji from GU drew this for me. He is an awesome artist.
Samantha Mericas From Snypa and others
When I had left WoW, Snypa and his friends had this as a gift for me; I was depressed and this cheered me up. See Samantha Mericas under Profiles to know more about the character.
The Runestone Family Sword by Mystara
Mystara is great at pixel art. She made 10 Fantasy Swords that looked cool, and I asked her if she could do the Runestone Family sword. She produced this, save the glow around the blade. I added the glow. This is currently up in my dA account.
Avatars
Personal Avatars
These are my personal avatar collection that I've used over the years. I think I missed a few, but this is the majority of them. The last one listed is the most recent avatar I'm using.
GU Avatars
The following are avatars I've made for the Gaming Universe
Disclaimer: The Final Fantasy IV Advance Avatars belong to Square-ENIX. They drew them, I just ripped them for others' enjoyment. I DID NOT draw the avatars.