Posted by Ivy

My original post:

Spoiler

Some of the hats reviews are colored so they stand out.
Club crypt:

The hats are extremely dull. They tend to lack depth and the colors used often don't look great together. This year's hats had colors that didn't really fit together. (Ex: look at the eyeball hat and the color used to shade it. They are oversimplified and look more like children's drawings than cartoony.
A majority of the hats are also in the wrong perspective.

-Eyeball hat continued:
The lightsource is kind of weird for Graal, especially because the shadow was put on the top. Eyeballs aren't made out of flat, dull colors. It should have a shinier look to it so it is more lively! I would suggest referencing the eyeball hat that Drea Azari made last year. You can find his profile in the guild (Azari) if you'd like to see a collection of his work. It's displayed inside of his house.

-Some of the hats look good/adequate in the front view, and absolutely horrid in the side view.
(the skeleton hood looks like a severely deformed marshmallow on the side view). Sure, side views may not be the easiest thing for some artists, but you could always reference a hat that already exists on the server! (Coco makes some pretty sexy hoods). The other views are fine, and the front is obviously the cutest!

Next, we have the pumpkin hat with the 3 leaves on top. (this pumpkin has been cut just right to fit nobody's head! )
-the leaves look like plastic
-the colors are over saturated
-the hat turns from a pumpkin with awkward highlighting on the edges in the front, to a deformed basketball that procreated with a pear.(isn't Rick Ross supposed to be controlling the pear population?) oh, and be back view is way too massive. It doesn't even compare with the size of the front view.

Third, we have the pumpkin hat beanie (a stylish pumpkin hat for your trash can). The lines used for shading the creases are too thick, and look like they were drawn by a 4th grader in washable markers. The shading color that is meant to give it depth is too subtle, and almost unnoticeable.
The pumpkin itself could be a tad less saturated, but it isn't all that bad. The line art is really jaggy though.
-the green thing under it is too thick, and makes the perspective look odd. It's boxy on the bottom and doesn't really have appealing colors used in general.

Forth, we have the straw hat. This hat is adorable, and is fine in every view. However, the yellow used as the base color is far over saturated and kind of takes away from the leaves.

5th, we have the straw hat. Not really sure what it's supposed to resemble, but the perspective looks odd and the ear holes leave an empty space for anyone not using a head based directly off of the noob head... The colors used are unappealing,
And the hat is misaligned on every view.
-move the front down
-sides and back need to be moved up

6th, there is the demon horns. These are cute, and I mainly bought them because leah was rocking them. However, the shading color could be a little more contrasted, and maybe a highlight could be used to give the hat a bit more depth.

The tombstone top hat... This hat is just really ugly (to me personally) and lacks any depth. It's not even close to the proper perspective, and the front looks like a cardboard cut out. The brim of the hat should just be removed, as it makes it look even less appealing. I'd personally suggest adding some tufts of grass there (tip: don't outline the bottom of the grass so it can look like it grows from the players head)
-make the highlight on the top much larger (just widen it form the top to a few pixels down. the concept isn't bad (if you exclude a poor attempt at turning it into a top hat)

the jewel spider hat simply doesn't fit my personal taste. I don't really see anything wrong with it other then the alignment of the side view being pushed too far forward.


The skull crown is an interesting concept, and if revamped if could probably look nice. The perspective is done very well.
However, the hat overall lacks any distinguishing details that would make it clear that it is a skull crown (sadly)

The colors used are too contrasted and should probably have used the colors on the bone furniture set. It looks more like a crown made of rolled up paper that's bent at the ends(this isn't meant to be mean or offensive).



The cat ears are well made and cute, they seem to be aligned well and fit on the majority of heads! They could come in more colors, but I'm not really upset about that lol
-the use of black inside of them looks bad. It didn't ruin the hat, but I feel like t watered down the quality. In my opinion, it would have made sense to stick with a better contrasting shading color than the one used (not the black), then Use a darker shade to make shadowy areas around the bottom of the sides (inside of ear, because it's a curved shape).
(I use them as wolf ears because they are generic, which isn't a bad thing!)

Bone bird top hat:
Not bad at all! Consistent in the other views and perspective is done properly.
Colors used are kind of dull, and the little skull on the front looks really weird. (It has no shading on it ._.)
The hands/antlers coming off of the sides look kind of unusual on the front view, but it doesn't ruin the hat. doesn't really fit my personal taste so I would be purchasing it, but you can't please everyone.

candle top hat: pretty cute! Colors used arent bad at all.
The animation is bad. However, I'm not saying that I could do better myself (especially when my laptop randomly decides it cant run gimp), but I honestly thought the "flames" were just really poorly made feathers flapping around. (The animation isn't really smooth either...
The little button on top is a cute touch that makes the hat unique, but it is a bit too large. Maybe making it a bit smaller (vertically) by moving the top up a pixel or two would help.
-The side view should be moved up a few pixels and maybe pushed further back.


Pumpkin patch hat: this is way too saturated. However, the design itself is cute. The lines used for he creases are jaggy, and too dark. They blend in with the eyes, and not in an appealing way.

Purple Wizard hat: really unappealing colors. The shading color is way too contrasted from the base color, which looks unattractive on its own.
-The side views look the best, the front looks awkward and gross, while the back looks like it could have been good, but it looks like a piece of purple poop is hanging off of the back.


Spooky mask: cute hat, colors not bad, but something about the way it's shaded throws me off. The face on it is cool . My personal opinion on the colors is that they aren't really that appealing (to me, others may love them) and they are a tad too dark.
-I'm not really into masks; so maybe I judged this one a little more critically. However, I am a fan of the masks in the style of that ookami mask from nexus (most of them were like that). This mask is in that style, but the design is obviously far different. Its design isn't necessarily unique, but you can only come up with so many things for a holiday after a few years.



Afterthoughts:
-hopefully some of the advice I gave may be taken into consideration, and at least some of the hats may be edited/fixed.

-I know like I came off as harsh and ignorant in my earlier posts and want to apologize for it.

- I am aware of the mean spirited humor sprinkled in this post.

-I will probably be doing edits of the hats (some) because I have free time and it would probably be a fun project

-I would rate the hats on the number scale, but I feel like that would be kind of pointless, and would be affected by my personal preferences anyway.

-sorry 4 the wall of text fam

Note:
I'm too lazy to critique the hats in the other rooms. I'm sure this wall of text is plenty to read, if you actually bother.

This review isn't meant to be mean spirited, and is merely a reflection of my own thoughts. I have included ways to improve the hats(most anyway), But I know that some of the suggestions I made were worded a bit more like complaints. This wasn't intentional, but because I'm typing on an iPhone (with a cracked top of the screen) I'm really not trying to go back and fix all of it

Some of the punctuation may be incorrect, but I typed a pretty massive wall of text and really don't want to scroll up a tiny text box to find these errors.

edit #1
Didn't really bother trying to make a whole new back because chances are it won't be used for anything, and having to edit the hat to what I have in mind would be tedious af.

Process:

Spoiler

Just an example of the differences between what some of the current staff have been pushing out vs how I would have done it.
(It's an edit, but if I didn't include the original image you'd probably think I'd made it from scratch. All of the colors have changed, and none the line art is in the same place.
The only part I left even remotely smilar to the original was the bottom part, but obviously I made it thinner so it wouldn't look awkward and massive on the players head...)

My version isn't that great looking overall, but I haven't touched artstudio in months. (Aside from finishing a recolor of my head) I'm also lazy and decided it was ok enough for the public eye after several hours  

Posted by Zetectic

don't ****ing lie bro =.=;; im tellin' brenda bout dis.

I vaguely remember one that was 14 years old. Not that big of a difference. Most are in the 16-17 range when they start. Above 18 is less common. They often are the ones who administrated for a couple years.

Anyway that's what I got out of it.  

Posted by TD*

I vaguely remember one that was 14 years old. Not that big of a difference. Most are in the 16-17 range when they start. Above 18 is less common. They often are the ones who administrated for a couple years.

Anyway that's what I got out of it.

aDymain Pl0x Hir3 m3 wIl1 b b3ST aDym4n evar I sWEr on M3 mUm  

should i b admin yes(102103) no(3)  

Where do you sign up for gp again  

Posted by Alexmo

Where do you sign up for gp again

http://graalonlineclassic.com/gpapp.php  

Thanks  

Posted by TD*

I vaguely remember one that was 14 years old. Not that big of a difference. Most are in the 16-17 range when they start. Above 18 is less common. They often are the ones who administrated for a couple years.

Anyway that's what I got out of it.

They tell you they're older than they are. I'm 14 and I don't think I'm admin material whatsoever but anyway, my voice is deeper than a lot of 16 year olds.
Moral is, it's easy to lie.  

Back when i first started in 2010 99% of the staff was 16+

Then two slightly younger people were hired

Pavilion75 was 16 i think
and LordofPi13 was 13.

These were the only cases of staff being younger than 16 that i can remember. And it stayed that way for a long time. Pre 2012 i cant remember many problems with staff age. But around 2012 is when a problem started to arise.

Pav and Pi were amazing at what they did and were incredible mature for their age.  

Posted by Basi

Back when i first started in 2010 99% of the staff was 16+

Then two slightly younger people were hired

Pavilion75 was 16 i think
and LordofPi13 was 13.

These were the only cases of staff being younger than 16 that i can remember. And it stayed that way for a long time. Pre 2012 i cant remember many problems with staff age. But around 2012 is when a problem started to arise.

Pav and Pi were amazing at what they did and were incredible mature for their age.

Graphics staff have always had a couple 13/14 year olds. Though, they usually don't last for more than a few weeks.  

I was 13 when I was I was LAT, Graphics Admin, Police Chief, web designer, developer. I was 14 when I co-created the first Pay-Server with Stefan, and Game Master. I'll admit a certain maturity is lacking at certain ages, but I think more than anything I find the dryness of a person's personality to be less conducive to gameplay. It appears that since I left 15 years ago, not a single server has been created with any real rich, innovative creativity; really, you want an admin with personality—not a hardass who can produce without entertaining. I guarantee if Graal hired me today it would be 10 times better in 6 months; not that I am applying—but what I am saying is that I can attest that I potential, whereas many around today simply see business opportunities.  

Posted by antago

I was 13 when I was I was LAT, Graphics Admin, Police Chief, web designer, developer. I was 14 when I co-created the first Pay-Server with Stefan, and Game Master.

wtfffff  

Posted by DoubleliftGraal

Why on earth does Graal Classic and the rest of servers hire without some real background check? Is there ANY other game that does this or is it just graal? I feel like using these admins don't help at all and there's no exact requirement of maturity or any other factors.

because people don't actually get "hired", genius  

Posted by antago

I was 13 when I was I was LAT, Graphics Admin, Police Chief, web designer, developer. I was 14 when I co-created the first Pay-Server with Stefan, and Game Master. I'll admit a certain maturity is lacking at certain ages, but I think more than anything I find the dryness of a person's personality to be less conducive to gameplay. It appears that since I left 15 years ago, not a single server has been created with any real rich, innovative creativity; really, you want an admin with personality—not a hardass who can produce without entertaining. I guarantee if Graal hired me today it would be 10 times better in 6 months; not that I am applying—but what I am saying is that I can attest that I potential, whereas many around today simply see business opportunities.

You also were working on a server of a much smaller scale in a time when quality in the game was not at the same level. It's completely different now and you can't compare it, so don't try to.  

Posted by Ivy

Just an example of the differences between what some of the current staff have been pushing out vs how I would have done it.

But could you have pushed out 20 of those within a deadline? and then be able to turn around and make 40 more for Christmas?