Layer Tennis eve’ — Disappointing!

If you have watched tonite’s game of Layer Tennis, you might know what i am speaking of. First half semmed to me like a battle between copy­writers instead of layer/graphic artists and who is the most skilled copy­pas­ter of pre-prepped work. 

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I must add: i have nothing against using your archive (pre-prepped stuff like i called it), but i think it should somehow stay in focus with the theme (what’s between the lines) of the match and should be incor­por­ated or remixed into the existing work, not just be placed as a new topmost layer.

As much as i like Scott’s and Rob’s work, this game awfully hurted. Not really portfolio material. Volley 8 anyone? Sure, i under­stand how hard such a game could be. And fifteen minutes? That’s like nothing — i totally under­stand that “com­plex­ity”. I guess i must explain myself:

My in deep examination

First off, i was dis­s­a­poin­ted by Scotts’ serv. I love Scotts’ work, i really do. ISO50 was one of the first sites i saw when that whole internet thing dawned on me, and i was stunned that there are people out there with blogs who share the same kind of love for such styles.

But i do not approve Scotts’ serv because honestly, i think he can do much better (but you know, that is just my personal taste), and you have some time for prepping the serv, don’t you? And then came Robs’ reply, which was cool; the char­ac­ters looked like fisher-price-scissor cutted, but it had really not much in common with the serv, except maybe a lin­guistic reply to “game is on” — totally, dude!

Volley 3 tried to stay in focus with the concept, a merger between v1 and v2, but it didn’t impress me really, but thats just personal taste again i guess.

But look at v4 now. If Rob made that up in fifteen minutes: My hat’s off, sir! But what is it? I mean art and graffity doesn’t need to be clearview enabled, but i have a hard time seeing anything there in the blended character soup (except Marge Simpson and some Springfield eyes flying around).

I mean i am really doing ok de-hieroglyphing street and tram graf­fit­ies, but ecxept a few char­ac­ters i can’t make my mind up what this is about. And if that was something pre-prepped, which is ok for me, look at the wolves and sheep from Shaun vs. Kevin, than this was just not fitting well enough to toss it in there, and besides that, it just looks like a placed layer above the previous volley, nothing more — where is the connection?

Volley 5, the stereo gorilla, looks like another serv, except that a some bits of Robs’ hiero­glyphs shine through.

Volley 6 is actually kinda cool. The thinking gorilla (to be an ape, or not to be an ape, that’s the question) who likes to move on. But now comes Scott with bear vs. bird, and ignores the previous volley. Rob tried to give the canvas new room for fresh chalk, but Scott com­pletely whipes it out, except the foot­prints and starts over on his own. Another serv? Keeping the foot­prints only? C’mon man. Too easy, too little. Using archived stuff is ok i guess, but shouldn’t there be some kind of a theme, a story line, that should at least roughly be followed by remixing it or something? This was not a grph­ic­wise reply, nor a lin­guistic one.

Probably Rob was puzzled now, thrown back into the mayhem of before moving on, and saw no other escape but making a joke in reply to the versus vs. versus. Could have been funny, but mate, that font, as much as it is loved by a bus full of hippies, is like Comic Sans bigger brother. How was that fitting into the path and “i try to be the theme here”-theme? No way i can let that go. Noooo way, really not!

Now the friendly lizard from frisco want’s to evolve. A second one shouting help buy saying “moving on”, just with other words? Rob must have been giving up by now, ‘cos v10 can’t be taken seriously as well, now can it?

To make one thing clear: I like Robs’ and Scotts’ work, and i am sorry for all saying this and dissing it, but i really fucking do. I wish i were as good as them — but this game, i don’t know why it happend, was big bullocks.

Last words

Sorry Scott and sorry Rob for being so honest — but remember, this is just my oppinion about the game, nothing personal, and not a critique on your skills and talents. Bad friday, blame the stars or something.

Maybe i take that whole game too serious, but watching these guys is like meeting my favorite movie stars so to say. Coudal should think about that regarding the rules. This is our x-games.