Laxaria

Its not that bad, but perspective errors need to be fixed, as stated above. For a light source, that candle is sure very very bright.

Good job on not wanting me to participate after seeing those anymore. =D> :wall:

I honestly think the border and the text killed it. Its not too bad, but its not spectacular. =/

First one I like the composition. However, the text on the top left is too "white" and it is stealing something away from the focal. It needs some lighting and some more depth. The weird C4D on the right seems to be cutting her arm, so fix that perhaps? Second one The smudging on the bottom is much too messy and much too distracting. The orange thing on the left needs to be either smudged out more or faded out a little bit. As it is brighter than the focal, it seems to be stealing some of the focal. The text... Im not good at text placement at all, but it doesn't contribute much to the overal composition of the sig. Third one Don't really like the text. It is also very messy.

Generally, I hate all the borders. Remove them. As for the first one, the text is really out of place. Don't use text effects, as they are really cliched and overrated. I like the flow in sig, but there is too much blue in the left as compared to the colors on the right. The smudging is boring and quite bland. The lighting is weird as the pentooling is "glowing" yet it doesn't affect the focal. You need to move the focal a bit to the left to fit into the rule of thirds. Composition and concept is there though. For the second one.... Overused and overcliched. Try something different instead of replicate old effects!

wow. I got 2 votes more than expected. I vote for LB and, I think, effectively end the competition.

The new ones look a lot better than the old ones. :)

What jopie said! Fine detailing needs some more work though. The left most sail's lower edge is ver pixellated and same with the right side on the middle sail. The blending on the sails from the light could be a bit better, since its not a very good reflective surface. Now excuse me while I stop myself from nitpicking at minute details. :wall:

Being a beginner is no reason to shrug off criticism or flaws in your work. Sounds harsh, but its the fact. As for your sig, it looks ok~ish, but lets face it. No one really likes work which seems so tutorial heavy. Nonetheless, it shows some good grasp at the tools that GIMP offers. Go to GIMPTalk and read up on some more Sig Tutorials. :)

The odd thing on her clothes (the purple splat) doesn't look tidy. If it looks like a splat, it should be more splat like. If it isn't a splat, get rid of it. Then again im just nitpicking at small details.... Glad I could help.

Is the true focal her face or her boobs? I can't really tell, as the face is cut off and the chest area is lying just around the rule of thirds area.... Anyways it seems a bit bright. The blending looks nice but it seems quite monotone. Add in some more colors like reds or oranges to provide some variety. Lacking flow. The C4Ds around her hair seem very out of place to me. The smudging is good though.

Not digging the border. Try to read up on some smudging tutorials. I just sent Ouchy one which I found on dA for GIMP. It was very very useful. Now for your smudge tage. Its quite bland with no sense of focal or flow or direction or anything for that matter. The colors are ok but needs more variety. The smudging seems quite bland as there is a lack of darker/lighter shades of the same color. Take out the border. I think.

+1 The lighting seems very awkward and weird. You have a bright spot on the bottom left, yet it doesn't seem to be affecting any bit more of the sig. The background is too messy, as stated. The compositiion is good, but it is lacking flow and good lighting. Work on the rule of thirds for this one as most of the sig is empty space with no special effect to compliment the focal, so the focal needs to be shifted a little to the left. Colors seem nice, but they don't show a lot of variance. Try to add some reds and purples in there instead of just pink, white and black. The odd flying things in the right are a little distracting, but that's just me. Its not too bad for a "first real thing", but keep at it nonetheless.

IE: Try smudging it out or something?

IMO the focal is blending in waaay too much. Remove some of the color over the face and add some lighting and so on to it. It is not standing out very much. The weird shadowy thingy on the left in the background is distracting in very out of place.

^ That. The first one seems to be lacking flow and depth and its quite bland and boring to be honest. Im guessing its because of the color. It doesn't help at all that Altair's clothes are predominantly white/grey, so monochroming a sig with him in it tends to look off in the most part. Second one seems good, but the focal is being badly distracted by the effects around it. The color on the focal seems weird and the whole thing seemse very messy. There seems to be a "floating head" problem as you don't see any of his body and its kidna creepy. The border doesn't help it much. The third one is fine. Fourther one. Text is.... =/ Color is monotoneish and there is flow, but its quite bland and boring still. Text is starting to steal focal, so be wary of that.

Wow that looks amazing! Needs some Antia aliasing on some of the sails, it seems very rough.

Oh yea that is so much better. Interesting perspective. :)

So very true.

OMG XCFS! Thanks a lot! Time to rip.... I mean.... Learn. :P

lol i reckon littleboy will win this hands down (:P) Meh not that fond of making Anime/Manga sigs, so unless I come up with something in the next three hours... EDIT: Lol Jopie I found your render! :P Talk about random searching yielding random results. Edit 2: [b] Laxaria [/b] [img=http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o456/Laxaria/Signatures/edward2.png]

Died. =/

Alpha to selection the render and then delete the highlighted selected area on the smudging/blurring layers? Or something?

That's quite nice. :)

^ I agree with the comment on taking out the white blur over her face. Splat out the C4D on the Butterfly Girl one and blend it in better. Add some depth, flow or try to bend it such that she is sitting on something and there is a wall behind her. Work on the composition and design. The colors match too well with the focal, which is both good and bad. Tone out the colors and, as suggested, try to remove some of the unused, blank space. As for the Second one... The background isn't too bad, but the color choice isn't too bad. The render is quite a "realistic" feel, so the background should try to reflect that and not look "fantasy like". Once again, remove the white screened things over their heads. Try using overlay blending for lighting,