My second in a while, I really like this one for some reason! I took on board the constructive criticism of my last posted tag, and have hopefully made this one a bit better. I'd like to here more criticism this time, I dont mind how harsh, as long as you validly explain the point you make.
too strong of a light source for me text is lame cant read it and it looks like some smudge is over it. looks like the flow it top to bottom on the left but from left to right on the right side. The c4d effects r choppy.
Okay well you have a few problems here, I'll try and help you fix them. Hope you take my critique well I'm just saying it to help improve your work Render: Basically you've made your signature to big for how little you made her face, you want to leave the image that theres a body attached to the head so what you would do is leave a connection to the bottom of the tag to leave this impression, also the render is supposed to be your focal point ( atleast in this signature ) and making it the smallest part in the signature isn't exactly the best way to do this unless your doing a sprite tag. Color: Now you have a variety of color which is a good thing, except when you don't mix and blend them together. You just placed the colors there like they just work, unfortunately they don't, even though sometimes this may help a tag out as in to help pick out depth and other things, but you have a smudgey background and effects so just making certain parts white then green don't really help it just throws the flow off. Lighting: Well you do have the idea down using a white brush, but you don't really know how to use it yet. So i'll help you out here, notice my signature, the whitest part of my lighting is at the very edge, it is bright but look at how i disperse the white coloring, by using realistic lighting. No light is just pure white, it's mainly a yellow tinge or a blue tinge. Now that doesn't mean use FF blue ( 255 or the bluest blue you can possibly get ) and form it around the white light. Also never place lighting over your render UNLESS you need to create lighting on the render, usually it's best to use the lighting that's already there. - These are my directions on how to use it effectively ( when you get used to adding lighting you'll learn a few things that WILL improve this, I'm just giving you a basic way to add lighting ) - Directions: • Take a 50-100px Soft Brush, select a light shade of a color ( ie. I used a lighter shade of orange/yellow in my tag ) • Set brush opacity ( not layer ) to 20% then lightly add coloring over entire tag ( Use a 10% eraser where needed ) - IF color is overwhelming then change layer style, Preferably screen, lighten, or soft light • Take 20-40px Soft brush, select white. • Set brush opacity ( not layer ) to 30% and have about half of the brush in the negative area around you tag ( in PS it's usually a tan color ) • Mess around with lighting positions, and you should have a pretty good lighting source. Background: You actually have a pretty good background, my only true complaints are the way you have the white area on the right. You did using blurring and I'm guessing you were trying to creat depth, which is a very good idea, BUT you don't want to use a HIGH level of blur when you don't have a SOLID edged area. ie. my tag again the wall on the left side its a solid object, blurring that makes sense because its a object infront of the view you're eyes being focused on. Blurring that smokish effected as much as you did doesn't give the same effect especially when you fade the blur away. Also one thing I just noticed is there's a bit of the white on her face that is erased, it would be better to have it not touch the render, and just cut it off to make it look like its going behind her. Text: You have a pretty good sense of positioning, just you not on the spot yet. If you ever read my comments I say this repeatedly because it's pretty much the #1 problem with every artist and there signatures whether it be a skilled designer or not. It's a very important part of a tag that can possibly completely ruin the signature. I myself still struggle with text when it comes to placing it and making it compliment the signature. So when coming to this cross road, ALWAYS no matter what attempt to place a text into your signature, but if you have a doubt about the text post a version with it and without it, so you and others can compare whether it looks better with or without. Thats all I have right now, work on it and I'll comment on the reply as well P.S. incase I remove my signature, This is what I'm referring to in this post:
