Well, it certainly fluffs my feathers to see so many positive comments on my banner. I knew there was no way to please everybody, so a vast majority of approval is high praise indeed.
@Bryant: I had the black background on the header area on this forum in mind when I made the image. I wanted the background to be just that...background, so I made it all dark to match. I wanted the musicians to be front and center and command attention.
@Wyvern: I would've liked to make Priest more prominent as well. I couldn't find the photo to support it though. I knew I wanted Halford, Tipton and Downing in the photo, and I knew I wanted an old 70s photo from around the Hell Bent for Leather days. This was the best photo I could find and the original was small and grainy. To make up for the lack of size and impact, I put Priest FIRST in line. I was hoping that would be enough to show that I wasn't dissing them intentionally. Unfortunately, I was at the mercy of the available pictures on google.
@FredB: I almost did use Eddie in the background! But it was too much of a distraction. But if you look closely some of you might recognize the background image...its a stage set from one of the Iron Maiden tours (not sure which one).
@wdiv: I would've loved to put a few underground bands in there as well (really wanted to add Awaken the Guardia-era Fates Warning) but I had to draw the line somewhere. There was such a limited space to work with, I could only feature six or seven bands/musicians. I decided to go with the "pioneers" of old school metal since they paved the way for later bands. I figured that would be the path of least resistance when it came to popularity of the graphic!
Thanks again for all the praise, you guys! I'm glad you all love it.
