fullMETAL

Finished these for 20LEgend: http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/DEAD_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/DEADWorld.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/DEAD_KO_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/DEADKO.jpg

Weapons of Mass DISTRACTION! HA

That first one's very nice looking, but I worry about the eagle's wings when the belt gets worn over and over (something similar results in the TNA Title being sent in for repairs WAY too often). Kinda kidding, awesome belts. I especially like the shape of the 2nd belt's center.

I was pre-emptively requesting that nobody flame him about it, because there will inevitably be the "that's ReapeR's belt, you just put a ribbon logo on it" complaint. Sometimes verb tense gets lost in type. (shrug)

A good place to start for centerpieces is to Google Image Search the terms "globe stencil", "eagle stencil", and "lion stencil"--since those are the most common centerpieces on belts. "Barbed Wire" yields some pretty usable results. Then you can expand beyond stencils, try to find other variations, other birds, other large cats (maybe large dogs), and play around with your filters to make them look belt-able (like using Bas Relief, Find Edges/Glowing Edges, Posterize/Poster Edges, Cutout, etc.). In Fireworks though, you've gotta use more ingenuity with your filtering (and get Xenofex and Alien Skin, seriously) to get good results. But regardless of which gfx prog you use, gradients ARE indeed your friend. Experiment with the other types (besides Linear/Reflect), like how ReapeR makes his shine using the Angle gradient and some Adobe-Fu. Sometimes I use Contour gradients (Fireworks) and Fireworks-Fu, but mostly on the strap. Sometimes subtle texturing for the strap is best (but not so subtle that you can't see it when it shrinks to a 200x100 belt pic), but there was a giant 10MB PNG a page or 2 back that had a bunch of Leather textures on it that you could use to good effect. Also, shape layers rather than bitmap layers, because paths are editable after you finish and you'll have to almost start from scratch with rasterized layers.

Excellent logo work, laz (though you can tell rather easily that the logo ribbon was just pasted on, you'll have to work on that). You may just have gotten your start in Beltensteining. (Please, nobody flame him for modding a ReapeR belt, he's just doing a logo mod, that's all)

Payne, you never cease to amaze. Someday, I'LL be a big enough belt maker here for you and Reap to hijack MY belt threads. :lol:

That's a pretty nice first effort! And yeah, some color alterations (along with some playing-around-with of gradients) would really make it POP.

Hey 20LEgend, you've still got a couple of belt requests with me that need filling. PM me with what 2 belts you want me to make for you.

Finished these for BobInc's "Wrestling Queens" mod: http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/RoseofRoses_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/RRRoseofRoses.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/BouquetofRoses_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/RRBouquetofRoses.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/DOAWomens_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/DOAWomens.jpg And this one for the FPC (Fire Pro Club): http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/FPCPPWorld_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/FPC-PPWorld.jpg

And just for fun, a spreadable meme GIF I made myself. http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/Copenhagen.gif

Going back to trying the Original belts. Finished Original 06 last night, and I gotta say, it was the most ANNOYING one to date to do so far, even WITH the almost-viewable source pic right behind the other layers. Original Belt 06 http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/Original06_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Original06.jpg

Finished 2 more renders over the past week. Gonna get back to my "SvR Belt" work when the mood strikes me. USWA Tag Team Titles http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/USWATag_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/USWATagTeam.jpg WWE-ECW 2008 Title http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/FTW_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/FTWWorldECW.jpg As with all my "new-style" belt renders, they can be easily modded by me for whatever fed one needs them for. (that leather on the ECW belt was a bitch to get shaped just right though...)

I was gonna go "Har-har-har-dee-har-har", but then I saw you have 420 posts now and it made me chuckle. You just earned yourself a free pre-opening-of-requests belt request, "HempShock420".

...I think that was my bad, for directing him over here to post his requests. He put a request in my gfx thread over in 2005 Discussion and I told him to come here. :?

That's a class-looking belt right there, Stu.

INSANE WORRIER :cool:

That Original 04 is class, Lin. Also, this: http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/BeltTest01.jpg A preliminary test render for the default strap texture on my "SvR Belt" prop that I will soon be making available. I'm working on the texture bits this week (it seems I may need to use somewhere between 4 and 6 textures across the model at the moment to get it done the way I want), and I should hopefully be finished with the first official pack-in texture by this weekend. If all goes well, I'll first make it (with plates) available here, then post it on Renderosity and/or ShareCG.

I forgot about posting these 2 renders here when I posted them in the Render Thread. a prelim render for a belt model I'm working on ("SvR Belt" with custom material zones and custom plates) in Poser 4 and a prelim render for my character Axl Evermore, testing some new duds out in Poser 8. http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/BeltTest3.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/AxlEvermore-1stRenderM4inP8.png

Just finished this last night (these days, it takes an average of 2 nights of work to finish a larger job like this) and thought I'd put it up on display: Bob Backlund's "Big Green" http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/Renders/BigGreen_lg.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Belts/BigGreen.jpg A couple things need to be changed (I meant to use the Australian flag on the bottom-right inner, and that's certainly not Australia; plus, the belt-holding guy in the middle is totally not the right one, but it's the only one I had on me at the time), but this is a pretty good 1st version in my opinion.

I figured if anybody else wanted to take a crack at the Original 10 Belts, here they are: http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt01.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt02.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt03.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt04.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt05.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt06.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt07.jpghttp://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt08.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/originalbelt09.jpg That's odd, I thought there were 10. Here are larger pics of some that I had on my hard drive. http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/Original02.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/Original06.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/Original08.jpg http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx166/FullMetalitia/Miscellaneous/Original09.jpg

I think making the "Key City" text black (or even red, like I use, or blue) would also make it pop after the shrinkage. As it is, you can't be entirely sure what the text says if you're viewing it on higher-res monitors.

Plus, you can take brushes and cool-looking stuff and warp them by making them a stroke for a line. Ever seen a thick-ass leaf get warped in a circular way and then laugh? Illustrator. It's what the pros use, you know. ;D

DUDE...AWESOME!!! :)

I've been fixing the filenames more and more lately just to combat filename overwriting (a problem I have as well when getting other people's graphics more than occasionally). Yup, Fireworks (I use Alien Skin: Chrome, so it's kinda cheating--but it still works). I could basically be considered the FW expert for belts here (ReapeR and Payne for PhotoShop, Linsolv for InkScape, etc.) unless someone else more experienced and well-versed wants to step up?