Other General Wallpapers
End of Days
End of Days
By omni
- Submitted:
- 2y 39wk ago by omni
- Category:
- Other
- Official Creator:
- Type:
- General Wallpapers
- Resolution:
- 1,600x1,200
- Size:
- 1,614 kB
- Views/Downloads:
- 3,418/523
- Comments/Favorites:
- 19/29
This is the big secret I and Makhan have been keeping from you all for weeks.
First, I want to point out this is not a normal wallpaper submission from me.
That is because it is a cooperative. This is a collaboration between twins--Makhan created the background, and I worked on the mind-numbing detail and the foreground scan. Well, actually we both ended up working on these, but it was primarily me towards the end. We've decided that I'll submit this version, and if demand arises, a widescreen version will be submitted by her.
News from my end:
I first conceived of this wallpaper approximately... 33 weeks and 2 days ago, which the observant reader will notice is the time that I joined Minitokyo. Because I'd been thinking of doing something with the scan that I used in the foreground since that time, but not until now have I had the skill necessary to do what I properly wanted with it.
The notion didn't really come up again until not long before I... went missing from Minitokyo (a couple people here will know why I did), when I first came up with the idea for making a collaboritive effort with Makhan. However, shortly after that, we lost access to my school's edition of Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements 2.0 was nowhere near easy enough to use effectively to make it worthwhile.
Since I've come back, I have been using Photoshop Elements 3.0, which is significantly better, and, using which, I now know of nothing that I cannot do fairly easily that I could do fairly easily in Photoshop CS.
After Makhan started designing with it (about 7 weeks ago), I decided to bring the idea back up. She actually suggested the idea that we ended up using: A Zdzislaw Beksinski wallpaper.
That being said, we didn't actually use this, because I had already been thinking of using the aforementioned scan to use it, which was, naturally, a Yoshitaka Amano scan, but we coincidentally reached the same conclusion at roughly the same time. For my part, I decided to make it both, largely because I was going through the pictures that she'd saved to her school account and burned to disc before we went to our respective colleges and stumbled across a scan, I believe originally submitted by Kotter, though I fear it is long gone, due to the purge. It is a piece by Zdzislaw Beksinski entitled "Babel."
I being the strange, quasi-Christian nut that I am, immediately saw possibilities in it, but not as anything having to do with the Old Testament. Rather, like my second wall, I chose to focus on the ideas expressed by Revelations, but in a unique fashion this time.
At any rate, that is my story behind the creation of this wallpaper.
My specs: Probably at least 50 hours of work went in on my end of things. This includes planning, brooding, and communicating with Makhan about it. Layers? Uncountable, due to the crazy amounts of merging that kept taking place. One quotation, chosen by Makhan, decorates the top of the piece, which is extracted from a piece by Handel about [gasp] the Apocalypse!
Makhan's end of things:
Hello! This is Makhan speaking now! 
~
What to say that hasn't been said at extreme
length by omni? ^_^ Well, I originally wanted to make a Beksinski wallie, like
he mentioned, and when I came up with the idea of blending Amano and Beksinski
together, it was because in my first Beksinski wall, "Eterne," (which
was deleted because it wasn't anime enough 
), I'd originally thought of combining the two, but it didn't end up working.
This time, though, if we worked the other way around--used Beksinski as the
overriding factor, and Amano as a focal center, maybe it would work out
better...? Well, it did!
This is a realllly great wallie! I think it's better than anything else either of has done alone, personally, so I'm thinking twin power really is worth it! Ehehe.
Well, there was a lot of back and forth towards
the end, and we kept having to call each other and argue about what would look
better, and what would be better, and what the definition of better actually
was, ~
Over the last couple of days, omni decided to shut me out a little bit though--he said he wanted to figure out how to get the... I believe his exact words were how to get the "damned fucker actually look like he's in the fucking Beksinski!" He gets so frustrated sometimes. That's why I like him, it's fun to watch, :nya:
Anyway, I think he did a really good job! It
looks a little stand outish, but we wanted it to do that from the beginning. He
also extracted Amano. And not just Amano, but an Amano sketch. BOW TO HIM! HE HAS BECOME AN EXTRACTION GOD!
I think that's everything... aside from what my
dage already mentioned, XP. So download
the wallie! It's sooooooooo cool! Wondertwin powers!
I'm happy.
Oh, and specs, or whatever:
My end was probably about the same amount of
time as DaGe's, but I'm really bad at keeping track of time when it's all broken
up like that. Though I probably brooded less, that's omni's specialty,
.
Layers... like him, I have no idea. A lot.
Anything else? Can't think of it. So, anyway. Enjoy!
EDIT: To answer some of the question's we've been getting... No, the figure is
not a woman. It is, in fact, Amano's sketch of Vincent from FFVII.
The "black lines" "pointing" at the text are from the
original scan--it's an antenna poking out of the roof of the central tower.
The text isn't going to change, it's there for a very, very specific reason--and
it's positioned the way it is for that same reason. Believe me, we went through
tons of different possibilities for the
text. This was a mutual decision, and we decided it was actually much better
this way in the long run.
I'm sorry for any disappointments this may incur, but these elements are not
accidental, they were the result of much thought and discussion, so I hope
you'll give them a second chance. Thanks.
This image may not be published elsewhere without explicit permission from omni. Minitokyo, members and affiliates will do all to protect it's members from such copyright violation.
Only members can post comments, please register.
... I would guess who did the text but I don't want to just in case
I'm
thinking Makhan, but anyways :P
Firstly I love the rain~ (in general)... rain because I simply like it (in the literal sense) but here it's done exceptionally well... it's not that +filter w00t! rain... the colours and the palette are chosen well... and I was really surprised you remixed Yoshitaka Amano and Beksinski (God know what I was thinking. BAD typo >[) together... that was really interesting ~ worth the time and effort to put together *^-^*
The ambience in the wallpaper is really dark as well <3s darkness...
... this is insane
. No other way to put it... I'll think about saying more on it if it comes to
mind, but it's not in words at the moment @_@;;
well you guys definetely got balls combining Amano and Beksinski...
in a great way I have to say. I was never able to figure out what can I add or make out of Beksinski art. It always has been complete for me.
first off I have to say you two have great ideas about desktop designs with meaning and not your regular cutsey starrish crap... anyway off to critiques so brace yourself.
the thing that bothers me is mainly the filtering of the towers. It works great with the ones that are far (lower left) but the ones in the foreground can be much more detailed imo. Altough I can see your intention of making them to look covered in snow. which leads me to *mad props from me for the snow/rain effect*.
now since i am freak about text/fonts I have never really liked text on different places around the wall. more specifically i am talking about "Why am I still here" which looks kind of disconnected from all the other type and it uses different font. I guess done by omni since Makhan uses the typewriter one a lot. My suggestion is make all the text the same font and somewhat bring it together. the tiny text aura is perfect around the character and puts the viewer into more abstract mood other than scenic which is always good in my eyes...
weird texture square on the left hand side is what I cannot really figure out. I can see something like that right in her/his feet on the left but i still don't know why. I guess mainly because it presents some yellowish color it ruins the winter/cold atmosphere. keep it if you must but change the yellow/brown to the same blue i can see on her coat. I hope that makes sense.
imo you have to get rid of those lines pointing to the text. absolutely poking my eyes. Sorry...
So after all that ranting. I want to congratulate you for a wonderfull wallpaper and great perception of art. Please consider my comment very positive since I intended it as that. and stay away from those bloody filter options ok...
DCout~
Excellent! This is a frightening Work of Art! Dark and obscure. Great work!
woah, i have read shorter books then this tome :points way way upward:
merde, two of my top five artists of all time [thats from antiquity- can't relate to that alien artwork i keep hearing whispers about] conjoined in one wallpaper.
first off - omni knows im a stickler for giving credit on artwork.
go
figure.
Zdzislaw Beksinski scan originally submitted by Kotter can be found HERE oh yeah it was deleted way back since it wasn't Asian artwork.
Yoshitaka Amano scan from "Amano The Complete Prints" is HERE.
note: the cloaked figure isn't a lady as i assumed at first but Vincent from FF7.
wall: well to be honest it took a minute or two just to collect my thoughts to formulate an opinion. this wall is very dark and fitting for winter. actually i didn't regognize that character as Vincent until i was told so. Vincent [great job on extraction] fits well into the Beksinski bg.
My crits: like DC im a huge stickler for text- imo it should be used sparingly at most. the text starting directly above Vincent's head would be better removed i believe. this massive amount of text leaves the left unbalanced. also the perpective of the 3 tower from the left seems a little off due to the heavy use of various filters. a little less would have been better.
all in all a very good job and collaboration.
Hello Makhan and Omni...
First of all... I like this wallpaper... it is very original... and i can see you spent a lot of time on it...
Excellent extraction of the character... I know how difficult it is to extract Amano's art.
I don't want to repeat everything that has been said already... but the texture square with this weird brown/yellowish color... why is it there? i don't understand! It doesn't look right... it's the same at the bottom of the wallpaper next to the character. But the squared one is really most distracting...
I agree what has been said on the text. "Why am I still here" looks pretty lonely... and all the text around Vincent...I am not too sure about that... So I also suggest bringing the text together to one place, preferably not around the character...
Then the snow or rain effect... it's a little bit too much in my point of view. I must admit that I am no fan of these effects... so when someone wants to use it... okay then fine... but he or she shouldn't exaggerate... and I have that impression on your wallpaper...
And these black lines... above the tower in the middle... do they have to be there? In my opinion... no...I would get rid of them.
Apart from that... very nice... the combination of two artists turned out really well... Maybe you should do such collaborations more often... And I totally enjoyed reading the description.
looking forward to your next submissions... ^_^
I'm loving the whole dark atmosphere to this. Great Work!
whoa..lots of description @.@
the title really suit the bg atmosphere..dark and crumbling^^
a result of great partnership..
well i'm going to have to agree with dc on this one. i do like the text aura, but the choice of text is too fine for the purpose that i am assuming. if a different, more illegible text was used for that section it would be even better. from further back, at a small size the lines above the smoke stacks looked like they were part of some official diagram or layout. but when i clicked to see the larger image the just didn't work. rid those lines
Okay, well, I don't want you to be annoyed by this or anything...
But I really still don't like the text choice >>; and the area is rather odd considering the main focus is in the bottom right portion of the wallpaper. Besides that, I love the dark/gothic feel to this. You guys are really improving, both of you, and really starting to evolve into a unique art style. I love it. My favorite part of the wallpaper is the rain! You can never get enough rain in a wallpaper, and then the scan is very nice as well. The city backround fits perfectly as well.. generally your best wallpaper yet guys.
Great job you two, keep up the really good work!
i feel desolated by this wall....amazing detail of somewhat despair and desolation. I must say it is a worthwhile piece to fav, i wonder how i missed good stuff like these...
must have been blind. This is good.
This is great.
Love the darkness. It looks really awesome.
Good work!
The colour choosen suit well with the theme of 'Gothic'. The wallpaper has a unique style to it...people have already mentioned things about the text...I think there should be a little less text...other than that its a really nice wallpaper and dark too ^^-Shira
no wonder the scan of amano's work looks familiar, it's vincent. ^^
well, at first, I really wanna congratulate to both of you for making this... this... wallpaper. uuhh... *scratches head* who's bensinski? yes, me being the noob one dunno anything. but mixing that with yoshitaka amano's work is definitely hard and to see that you two managed to blend them all in to form a really really dark and incomprehenible work, is something which is really worth the praise. it's really very well done, i really like the text especially, and at first i was having a hard time searching for vincent in the wall, if you know what i mean... the blackness kinda mixed everything up, but the results are really good. ^^
but misa mentioned something about rain... i love those rains, in cotrast to the blackness of the wall, which kinda makes me think that the blackness is against the whiteness, or something like that. just like that yin yang energy.
but something that bugs me a lot is the black spots? on top of the building... i dunno what you two were up to, but i guess that dots can be removed though...
but overall, it's still an amazing display of gothic.
really nice! i love the art work
everybody is leaving long comments... but I would just like to say "wow". That is a very well designed wall, and I can appreciate all the time you took on it, nice work /no1
this is very nice.. great effort! its simple yet when i look at it it can cure loneliness.. makes you relate to the person in that wall.. its a great work of art.. congrats!
very nice piece of work.
i like it... has a nice dark fell to it.
omfg! this wallpaper is in a class of its own. i know this is wayyyy late from when you submitted this but i wanted to tell you that i usually sort my wallpaper by series or in the "other wallpapers" but... your guys' wallie got put somewhere SPECIAL! =)