Hugi Ascii info-file Compo
Ok. Let's talk about info-stencils. An info-file with a logo is harder work than a file_id.diz picture, because the logo is often big and it takes more time to make it cute. I want to say that the diz compo contained a few more good entries, because a diz is smaller and takes less time, so the artist can draw it with more concentration and design every little peculiarity with a great zeal. When making some long-ascii, you often get tired before it ends and this takes its course. I know it, one of my latest works is 357-linear, and I've spent about 7-8 hours painting it. Of course, after finishing it I was only able to scroll it and to look at it, I could not even edit it anymore. So, the matter is, painting large asciis is harder than making dizes. So we can see, that most people sent in bad works. And, another bad thing... three people thought they could get good results making no work. Read about them downwards. It was confusing for me. I don't and don't want to understand such kind of people.
cxc01.nfo: Of course, this is not an info-header, because it's too homely and too simple. I would never choose it for my info-file. The font is very simple and plain. And I like frames. Not exactly frames, but so-called elegant cover of the ugly-fonted word. It gives some freshness to the whole picture, but it can't make me feel anything good about this pic because of the font. It's the second time that the artist needs to understand that he can't do a good font.
digi01.nfo: Oh... good work. I find it great. The main thing which makes it great is the font and the layout of the letters 'g' and 'i'. It was really well chosen. I also like the 'g' font, though it doesn't fit the other letters' font well. The background is made out of waving lines with little characters like points and apostrophes: good thing. This logo is one of the best, I suppose. All letters have different widths, but it isn't seen too distinctly. And, finally, thin lines of the letters - I like it and the majority of people like it. Good idea to make a logo this way, though it's a bit hard to.
digi02.nfo: Another work by the same artist. Almost no one entered the compo with two nfo-headers. It also shows you it's harder to make a good large logo. For me this work isn't better than the preceding one, but they both have various styles and if I didn't know, I wouldn't say they are by the same author. All letters weren't made in one style, I mean sizes, but they look like one whole picture, because each one has thick lines made out of thin lines with something between those thin lines. It looks pretty good. The letter 'h' has a mirror shape of the real letter 'h', the letter 'g' is again uppercase while all the others are lowercase. And for the last, the work has no background and some empty space in the right side. I think it'd be better to place the text in the center of the screen or to make something in the right side of the picture.
digi03.nfo: This work has good curves. I don't like the idea of putting everything in one square like this, because if you don't know what's written there, you'll never understand it. I couldn't exactly find the letter 'i', the letter 'u' is quite similar to 'g' and so on. This isn't the best work of the artist.
digi04.nfo: This ascii style is called smile-ascii because it's made out of the characters #1 and #2 - smile-characters. It's harder to make pics this way, because such characters get less place than a dollar-sign, so antialiasing is harder in this style. The forms are not that good, the letters 'g' and 'u' are similar. The letter 'i' is covered with 'g', so its shape is painted in a bad way. Finally, I like this pic, although it's a little weird.
digi05.nfo: Wow... this artist makes lots... we come to the last and... to the best. Yes, this work is the best of his entries, I suppose. I just very, very like the font. I like letters propping up each other, I like 'h' and 'u' connected - they have one common vertical stick, the upper-right stick of the letter 'g' is not very good, but the letter 'g' in whole is great, the letter 'i' is a very good step - it's 'I' and 'i' in one time. Yes, the slight background doesn't catch the eye, so the work gets very good. It impresses me. I like this entry, one of the best, I think.
don01.nfo: There is something in this work, but it seems somewhat unfinished. It's badly antialiased, so I can't even read what's written there. I like the letter 'i', but it seems unfinished too. If I were in his shoes, I'd give the letter's right side less slope, to make it look the same as the other letters. The letter 'g' can't be read at all - it looks like 'q'. 'h' is divided in two parts, so one can think there are two letters. No, no... Firstly I thought the vertical stick of 'h' was the frame's left cut-down. And I couldn't find the letter 'h' in the picture. In short this work is not a real piece of art, but it could have pretended to be. And the face over 'i' is in the wrong place. It even misfits all the picture. It has another style and another view.
kokki01.nfo: Again a "nothing special but good looking" picture. I don't even know what to say about it. The circle around '19' could be rounder. There's no need to use solid characters, you can make the circle out of points and equivalent signs, if you've started to. Letter 'h' has a little stick, but it looks only like 'h', not like 'n' or whatever. I like the letter 'g', because it looks similar to the same artist's diz-file's letters. The background isn't good enough, but adding something to it could make the work worse. In whole, the work is too simple. I mean, easy to realize, not to picture. It certainly deserves a good mark.
mad01.nfo: I won't write here anything about the ascii. You can read all my ideas about it in the 'file_id.diz' article. Why? Because the author used the same picture for the info-file, he only included 10-15 additional symbols. All I want to say is: A real ascii-painter, who respects his own works and respects ascii-art as a whole, will never go this way. I always tell my friends not to use even similar letters in two different works, but here I see the same picture, no character is replaced, nothing new is added. It's a real disorder for me. I don't like this attitude - making one thing for two purposes. The philosophy of an artist is to make everything oneself and make different things look different.
mctr01.nfo: First of all I don't like how the author mixed his own info and the info-file header's stuff. It looks insane and no one goes this way, I mean real ascii-artists. The second thing I want to mention is, he didn't work over the fonting. He has drawn something, but not exactly the thing he wanted to draw. In the beginning, he had some precise idea, but while drawing he lost all the forms, finishing every letter anyhow, just to finish it. And we see the result. Nothing interesting. The composition sucks - no one will draw numbers 19 vertical and 19 horizontal connected with each other so one can think these are not the digits, but something wrong. All the same, I wish the painter good luck at studying the mysteries of ascii art.
mctr02.nfo: This work gains the same indention of text, like the preceding one. Some more notes: 19 has the shadow behind, but that shadow doesn't repeat the form of its parent number. The shadow looks like being on the waving water and dancing, losing the original form. I bet, the artist didn't mean it to be so. No antialiasing, no font, no shape, nothing. Don't like nothing.
msw01.nfo: This guy also tried to spend his time on his own things, not for the hugi ascii-art compo. And his logo does not appear to be a good one. Firstly he takes his file_id.diz and puts it to the right side of the logo, then he draws a weird lass and puts it to the left side. Sorry, if I've made a mistake: I can't see whether it's a lass or a fellow. This work again contains lots of unnecessary info - long strings of pride for the group. And finally I don't think this picture took more than half of an hour. It's too easy to draw. Note, I'm talking about the easiness of making a picture only if the picture possesses any artistic value. Two of the previous works don't have any.
ns01.nfo: Finally I've found something interesting. This work has a good shape, it was really antialiased and it looks very good. I like the letter 'u', but one little criticism: if the symbol '$' between '&' and 'S' is replaced with 'j' the lower side of 'u' will look better. Of course, it looks perfect, but this very, very little remark still exists. Such things cannot be noticed by anyone... Did you notice it? I like the shape of the letter 'i', but the shape of its point isn't perfect yet. All in all the work looks very good, except I can't find the letter 'g'. I know, it's there between 'u' and 'i', but still I can't find it, can't determine its shape. The thing placed there doesn't resemble to me the real 'g' letter. Of course, when thinking about those two ultra-thin lines in this letter you understand that they make the letter 'g' seen more clearly, but...
prst01.nfo: Again: if you want to know my opinion about this work, read the 'dizes' article. Find there the description of the same author's diz and read it. Everything also applies to this work - no font, no shape, what's there above the word? People are skiving off...
sk01.nfo: This is the most upsetting info-file of all, because 99% of it is ripped. You can see it there in the file that it's the work of some other artist, who makes better pictures than others, including the young man who's taken his work - probably without his permission. I don't want to talk about it, even if the font in this work is the author's own. I'm too upset.
slash01.nfo: Again my work. It was supposed to look like a waving string. The font is too simple (I can say it as the author), but the way it appears on the screen isn't that easy to realize. No one can say the work has bad antialiasing, because this way the work is perfect, curves are great. Also this picture includes two different styles of making an ascii: one is solid on empty (almost all the pic is made this way) and the other is empty on solid (look at those balls and a thread running through both of them: the place where the thread is over each ball is made in this way). And, finally, I can say I like my pic better than almost any other.
slash02.nfo: This picture differs from all others. The text is unreadable, because it's made in a very weird manner - all letters are connected and look the same. It appears like a snake. Someone can think, the picture has lots of empty spaces, and I'll answer yes, it does. But, I tried to make them all be slightly unseen by adding two background frames. I like frames made out of points. Not real frames with solid characters meant specially for frames, but point-frames. When a picture looks empty add a frame... smiling...
styx01.nfo: Wow... super... this is how an info is not meant to be. Large and misshaped letters. Just look at the 'i'. Was ist das? It's a titty. Oh... I can't look at it. Every letter is made out of this ball and every letter sucks. No one ever makes such ugly letters, looking like tits. Nothing interesting is in this picture, absolutely nothing attractive. Shame...
zeroic01.nfo: Is it an ascii? No, this style died years ago. No one uses it now. I just can't even say anything about it - I don't know what to say. Ugly square letters, awful attempts at shading... terrible missized font, when one letter has sizes completely different from the others. No, I wouldn't participate with such work...
zix01.nfo: This is something unusual in the compo. Some large blot and a word over it saying 'hugi'. The idea isn't that new and wonderful, but the technique of making the ascii is great. You see, while you are looking at the picture, you can see some plain letters, but after spending some time watching this ascii, you can now see the picture has volume. It looks as if it lays on the very, very plain sphere, but the sphere is still a little 3d-ed, so the letters get volume. It looks very good. Finally, the work is greatly antialiased and the background is good - there's none except that blot. Yes, definitely again one of the best.
zl01.nfo: This work looks better than the majority of the other entries. But no ascii-technical features are implemented in this work or almost none of them. The letters are not straight, but the sloping of the letters is too common. They often call it ;I$-slope because just three characters are used. The headline 'hugi' itself isn't interesting at all (again like in the diz-file only four chars are used). The most interesting part of the picture is antialiased lines over it and on each side. I don't know why the artist used 'h' instead of 'H', but the left stick of the 'h' raises above the whole word and makes it impossible to make the pic all-symmetric. The antialiasing itself is not that bad, better than some of the others, but still I'd change some symbols into others, and the picture would look a bit smoother. I like this picture more than most others, but I wouldn't like it if it was 'self-presented without any compo'.
While reviewing all these asciis I've been getting them constantly, so I had a lot of time to think about each and every entry. First my opinion was that the dizes were better than the infos, then I thought the other way. Now, after the deadline, without any fear of getting some new entries, I can say that I like both compos equally much. I don't like the dizes more than the infos, and I like the infos just as much as the dizes. Yes, people are great... Thanks for participating...