need help making a graphic

[martasfic]

I need a graphic for my interview with Dan tomorrow night - actually a photo, but I'm a bit uncomfortable passing pictures of myself around. I mean, I do it occasionally but I try to minimize it and keep it to friends. So I started playing around with an illustration of Smaug done by John Howe and some of my favorite quotes that might be appropriate to what I image Dan and I will be talking about.

Here are two possibilities I produced this afternoon. Nothing fancy, just cropping and text overlay in MS Paint:


1.

2.


I'm not particularly crazy about either one of them; the second quote is better, I think, but it was longer so I made the text smaller and am not sure how it works as a graphic.

Thoughts? Do you like them? Does anyone who has some time this afternoon and who is good at image-work think they can do better? I'd love to have someone more skilled than I am clean it up...

Comments

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to have a go if you like... Do you have a (link to a) textless version of the illustration?

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

I'd appreciate that. You can download the art from John Howe's webpage (linked above). I'm most interested in using the Hamlet quote, if you can do a better aesthetic job than I was able to. But I'd need whatever you can come up with by early tomorrow afternoon (U.S. Eastern time) at the latest.

Thanks!

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

I seem to have messed up putting in the link to Howe's original, above. Shall fix that now.

Here's the textless art: http://www.john-howe.com/portfolio/gallery/details.php?image_id=4&mode=search

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

Great, got it.

Umm, to save timezone headaches... how many hours from now do you need it? *g*

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

Fair point on the timezones! Why don't we say twenty hours from now?

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

(twenty hours = tomorrow 11:30 AM my time. That's a little earlier than I need it, so if you are running late there's a little wiggle-room, but it's probably a good target)

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

Have a look, and I'll see your comments in the morning...

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

No problem... That gives me more than enough time to make something, sleep, and see if I still like it in the morning *g*

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

Ugh, for some reason LJ is not keeping my replies in-thread...