Well, its back.
Baka:
🙂 Transparency
🙂 Layout
🙂 Splashy Aquatic Feel
😐 Excessive Text
🙁 Lack of visible effort.
Pittman:
🙂 Vertical Sig- Works well
🙂 Atlas References
🙂 Mystical Feel
😐 Text
🙁 Lack of visible effort
Winner: Pittman
Why: I was expecting a bit more from both parties. Baka's transparency was nice, it was bit too blockish imo. The distortion effects were nice as well, but it was a bit overcluttered. I like Pittman's vertical layout much better, as it not only allowe you to see more of the render, but enhanced the verticality of it as well. Its kind of cheesy to repeat the render like that, but puting it in the sphere gave it a different feel. I felt both entries were trying to be simplistic and Pittman's better achieved this.
But props to Baka on nice clean gif edges.
Great job BakaXero, I really did like you design. Thank you Alliance for you judging and great critique, I can see why you work is so good with an eye like that. Really nailed my design. I felt that going to busy would loose out on all the detail in the water and the render but hard to make it seem too plain. This was a tuff one for me and great pic.