ACiD #77 - score: 7.5 out of 10

Atom:
[this review is based on the release on www.acid.org, and not the archived version.

The following introduction about Night Crawler is not endorsed by hirez.org and does not reflect our opinions in any way (except for Atom). Night Crawler is free to email me (mongi) his response and it will get posted. -ed]

Before I even start, I want to get this out: I do harbor a bias here. Not against acid, but against one of their new artists, Night Crawler. In as few words as possible:

<N-Crawler> all you guys do is photomanips
<N-Crawler> that takes no skill just photoshop knowledge
You were kicked by N-Crawler (ai!)[ come hell or highwater i aint unbanning you] (ai!) Session Ident: N-Crawler (n-crawler@dynip-216.44.107.73.nyct.net)
[10:56] <N-Crawler> watch your back
[10:56] <atom128> ill be looking out for scary fat men without pants
[10:56] <N-Crawler> no
[10:56] <N-Crawler> i would disconnect little bitch
[10:56] <N-Crawler> and watch my back
[10:56] <N-Crawler> cuz your modem should be catching fire soon
[10:57] <atom128> wow this sounds familiar
[10:57] <N-Crawler> plus
[10:57] <N-Crawler> i would watch your channel too
[10:57] <N-Crawler> have a nice day
[10:57] <atom128> which one
[10:57] <atom128> i have 7
[10:57] <N-Crawler> hahaha
[10:57] <N-Crawler> Listen kid
[10:57] <N-Crawler> your an arrogant little fuck
[10:58] <N-Crawler> and im gonna solve that problem
[10:58] <N-Crawler> you should learn who to piss off
[10:58] <N-Crawler> and who not to

A few minutes later all my downloads ceased and my bandwidth was filled with garbage. I pinged out of IRC, and was disconnected. I reconnected, got a firewall set up, and haven't had a problem since. He denies responsibility. That's not the complete session, but you can get the idea why we don't quite see things straight. So that's out of the way.

The pack starts out with three pics by AXB. The first one would've been much cooler if there wasn't that filter on top. The shading and atmosphere is great, but the filter just killed it. His second pic, of a cross section (sorta) of a face, however, is really good. The shading and detail are top notch, as is the concept. AXB's quality really jumps around here. His third picture is of some flat (rendered?) flowers, than smeared with the smudge tool on a high contrast background. Not very good, no focus or anything.

Blup's pic has a synthetic feeling that doesn't work to well in a gothic atmosphere. Parts of it, such as the stairway, might even been renderings, but I'm not sure. Her clothes look too shiny, as if they are made of a synthetic plastic-like fabric, and the folds in the cloth hanging to the right look too stiff. Her hand is messed up too. I know you can do better, Blup.

Catbones' airbrush is alright, the water on the lily is excellent however, but on a darker background, and without the acid font, the pic would've been much better in my opinion.

The film promo by Digital Interface is OK, the renderings are all good, but the font and lensflare don't work. I would've done something different with the white text as well.

Grim's pic rocks. The texture and ambience is wonderful, of a man sitting on a park bench next to a refinery of some sort. I'm in awe. The grim logo would make Sprocket proud, as well.

Jason's work has always been a mixed bag for me. In kivakukka, I really like the background, the colors are nice, but the foreground flower doesn't work for me. Space flower, I like a lot, but the background texture/noise doesn't work. It would've been better smooth.

Lk's graffiti pic is good-for a graf pic. I've never been much of a fan of small logos (though I do love large murals) but his use of color here and the sketchiness of the lines is pretty nice. His second pic, using primarily the smudge tool, is pretty cool. The use of the circles, which reminds me a bit of Catbones, is good, but I really like the use of the squares and circles, as seen in the lower right corner.

The cartoon colly by Night Crawler isn't too good. His proportions are poor, even for cartoons, the top right character's face and hand are pretty mutilated. The best one is the one in the left corner, with the turtle (who reminds me of the koopa from Mario Bros.) eating a diskette. Oddly, the lines are very sharp and not anti-aliased in this one, in contrast to the others. Just doesn't fit. Thirdly, the layout is terrible. He should take a lesson from Sprocket in how to layout collys. The graffiti logo I just don't understand. He probably drew it during class or something. You'd think that people had enough pride in their work to clean it up after they scanned it from lined paper, maybe smooth the shading. He could've at least layermasked the edges of the paper so it wasn't such a sharp edge where the lines end at the bottom. Acid is a _digital_ art group for crying out loud, not a class doodle group. Also, after going to all that trouble to draw an acid font, why did he sign it with a graffiti-esque TTF (brooklyn kid)?

Optik Nurv's pics aren't too good either. Essence, which appears to be a photomanip (sorta) is extremely muddy, and disorganized. There are blurry right angles which just don't work. Lotus is a graffiti logo with neon colors inside, on top of a dsb flux background (radial mosaic). Too bright/halluginogenic for me. His joint, with lms (?) is similar, very muddy. The cartoons are alright, with their sharp edges, but the shading is non existent, with colors all over the place, that look like they are on exclusion or difference layers just airbrushed on top.

Sc00p is a new member to Acid, I think. I've known him from #photoshop (which I am banned from thanks to one N-Crawler), and #hirez. His first piece, acidfilter, has a nice layout, but the cartoon is very pencily, which doesn't fit with the smoothness of everything else. It's also a bit irregular, but these are minor complaints. Mindstorm is good, the splatter-ness (if that's a word) around the text works very well, as does the eye and the mosaic. I could see this on a rave flyer, defiantly. Neo-Junky isn't as good, the face is only fairly drawn. The font is well done, though.

SunnyJim in Acid… The end of civilization as we know it. (heh. /me pokes sunny)… Another #photoshop op makes his way to the artscene (scoop, nc, and him, all in this pack). Had I made this pic, I wouldn't have depended so much on the photo of the girl, and incorporated other elements. It's too simplistic, for a lack of a better term. His second pic is of a girl sitting, looking at a city, in a surreal, futuristic world. Sunny takes the opposite approach to photomanip as I, he tries to create a scene, while I try to create an emotion. Of course I prefer my approach better (duh, it's mine), but his is not half bad. My complaint is that the elements still feel very separate, as if they were after thoughts.

V3ngance has what appears to be an oil pastel. It's similar to his other stuff, down to the color usage. Not much to say really, but I prefer his computer pieces, with sharper edges.

Zozzy seriously kicks ass. His painterly style is great, with a convincing atmosphere. Alone really matches the quote of "sooner or later we are all alone". In breakthrough, he has drawn the most convincing metal texture I have seen in a long, long time. The reflections are near perfect. Even the lensflare in this pic is well drawn. Overflow is incredibly detailed. Every line is sharp, enough to make me wonder if he pixeled it. The lower lip is a little off, though, but it's minor. Wildthoughts is amazing. The colors and detail are excellent, and this is easily the highlight of the pack.

I really like madASScow's sculpture, Nazi Scum. It has a lot of emotion, and the flower at the bottom is a nice touch. The Patch Kids image would be a little more appropriate for the Project, if you ask me.

The Acid logo (unsigned) is interesting, the background is interesting, but overall very dark on my monitor.

Ffathom's piece, eyes, is very nice, an excellent use of whatever program he uses (I know its not Photoshop, he told me once, it's all smudge tool). The shading, proportions, lighting, etc. are all top notch.

score: 7.5