New rank structure

[Acey]

Hm, the very noticeable differences in the final two ranks definitely give an added incentive to achieve that status.

[lwf58]

...Haven't the faintest idea about what to do for the three royal ranks or admin/mod graphics.

For admin and mod, I suppose I could do five stripes of different colors than the rank images, with the word "Administrator" or "Moderator" on top of 'em. But the royals?

[Acey]

Well, I can't speak for Pat, Mitsu or Stag, but I'm not opposed to simply having the symbol that corresponds to my post count. Then again, they did have special graphics last time about (Pat's Artemis eyes, Stag's Luna eyes and Mitsu's Xellos eyes).

Maybe seeing as my rank is "Moon Queen Emeritus", I could have the skirt graphic of the Moon Queen but with a different number/colour of bars behind?

I'm okay with whatever is easiest for you, Larry.

[Spokavriel]

I don't see why there's a need to keep any bars with the changed skirts. And how about for the Royal Ranks you have 3 different sizes and qualities of crowns? The Moon tiara for Moon Princess. The eternal hair ornaments and a larger crown for Queen and a full crown for Empress?

Edit: I was just thinking of something. If someone could get a full list of belts including examples of showing Dan Ranks on Belts maybe it would be better to use them for the ranks instead of bronze silver and gold bars. It would be a way to bring Martial Arts back into it.

Edit again: Found a bit of info that may help if the belt idea gets any favor in place of stripes. History of Karate belt colors

[Spokavriel]

Just to give an example for thought on the belt colors Vs just bars here's your image with those earlier bars replaced by belt shades. It would make things more colorful. I left most of the image unaltered for a clearer comparison. I also think a dark background might work better with those later skirts.

Edit: Oops I think I got the blue and brown backwards. But you can still get the idea without me redoing it right?

[lwf58]

One problem with that is the fact that different color belts marking progress is an American invention. Traditional Japanese martial arts schools didn't have such a thing. As the character Mr. Miyagi said in Karate Kid: "In Okinawa, belt mean no need rope to hold up pants." More accurately, the cloth belt is used only for holding the gi top closed.

Now, that did change. The Japanese in fairly recent times adopted the system because martial arts students there have become impatient about seeing signs of progress like we are. But the Saotome and Tendo schools are traditional, and don't use artificial ranks like that, AFAIK.

Another problem is that we end up with large, blank spaces on most of the images, which the bars were meant to fill.

Still... I'll give that a try, using less opacity on the colors. If I leave them as is, when I eliminate the white background from the skirt images, the blue will be lost against dark backgrounds.

[lwf58]

Here is another shot of the rank images, this time using colored backgrounds and with the white space behind the skirts removed.

I made up a possible image for Moon Princess. The problem with using crowns for the royal ranks arises from the fact that neither queen or princess Serenity were shown wearing one. Instead, they had the crescent moon diadems, and their distinctive hairstyle. Since the hairstyle can't be used on a rank graphic....

[Crescent Pulsar]

Crescent moon looks nice. Maybe a scepter for another? Or the ginzuishou itself?

[lwf58]

The problem with using a scepter is that I never saw a decent one in the series. Just the various wands they gave Usagi to promote toy sales.

The crystal might work... except that at 25 pixels high, the details that make an image look good are lost.

I was planning on going for a simpler solution, which is to add to the crescent to make it more elaborate:



This needs work, though. The side decorations are overwhelming the crescent.

[lwf58]

Making the side decorations each 1 pixel smaller, bringing the crescent up to the fore, and a couple of other tweaks gives us this as the possible Moon Queen graphic:

[Crescent Pulsar]

Don't overwhelm me. X_X

But, yeah, making a ginzuishou at that size would be tough. Perhaps add wings to the crescent?

[lwf58]

If you can find a nice set of wings, I'm willing to look at 'em.

Following the trend, if I use simple decorations then Empress of the Moon would look like this:



Other shapes besides balls can be used instead, like maybe stars. Other decorations may be doable, but if you want to suggest them, provide graphics. Hunting for them all by myself is very time consuming.

[lwf58]

Queen Serenity always wears a simple moon crescent on a chain as a diadem in all the pictures I've seen so far. I did find a few pictures of Usagi as Neo Queen Serenity wearing a tiara in addition to the crescent moon... and it's a real eyesore:

http://www.geocities.com/sailormoonimages2001/neoq5.jpg

[Crescent Pulsar]

How about sprites from games?
You can find wings, those hair ornaments, transformation pen, the grail, and perhaps some other things.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

When I try clicking on the ImageShack graphics link, I just get a page that lets me register and upload.