My SoTW entry.

[Dom]

Hello guys.
Newest piece of work, not the best in my opinion, DEFFINANTLY would look better without all the text but may as well post it up.


Comments/Critique welcome.

[Bob_magic]

it's simple, it glows but the text doesnt fit. idk. it's good i guess.

[bluesgurl]

Nice and simple tag. My suggestion, a better background. And yeah I agree the text could be way better or just be taken off.

[Stiggeh]

Seems like you're using a LQ image, it doesn't blend whatsoever and the sig as a whole doesn't really imply 'War' to me. Mainly because of the background - it doesn't fit. This may sound harsh, but I think you need to have some tutorials on blending, C4D placement, etc. The only thing I can say is that you're getting the hang of text placement.

I don't like it, tbf.

[Vel]

Srry, it's not for me. Looks like you stuck a low quality image on top of another low quality image (crappy c4d maybe?) and then put text on it, which doesn't fit it either. Not to mention the size is weird and it doesn't agree with my eyes. Sorry bro, better luck next time.

[Dom]

To be fair though, the critique is amazing but this is only like my 7th signature. I do need to read up tutorials on blending and C4D placement etc but if you read reviews on my other tags it's all been said already. But thanks anyway I guess. It's nice that you give critique but you have to be constructive about it, tell me what parts I could change not just say "That bit is bad" tell me why it's bad and how to change it. I don't use CS3 often and when I do make signatures most of them are bad... It's practice makes perfect. The stock was low quality, I agree but you know I only know one resource site for renders/stocks.

[MarkPancake]

www.sxc.hu.com
www.planetrenders.net
www.photobucket.com
http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/c...cks/?start=400

Need any more? I would critique but I don't wanna be an A hole :S

[Dom]

No, Splinter, please do give me critique, be as harsh as you want, as long as you can give you point of view across clearly, give me some suggestions on how to improve I don't care. Not going to get better without critique but I can't get better with people just saying they don't like parts of it and not saying what they would do. Do you get what I mean?

[MarkPancake]

Ok I'll put it in points to save reading time.

1. The render looks extremely LQ. And badly cut for that matter too. Find more render sites or use the ones I gave you above, they are great for HQ.

2. Effect wise, I don't see much happening. It may be there but nobody can see it. Play around with the C4D settings more, perhaps try some smudging. For example paint down a color, smudge it then maybe liquify it too. Anything to make it stand out. Your C4Ds seem to be put on a black background on overlay or something, which will get you nowhere. Try Linear dodge, hue, linear light, screen, lighten. Vary it, develop new techniques perhaps.

3. The text. I highly suggest you read papas text tutorial. The link is here:
http://www.gfxvoid.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45209
Work on your placement and coloring. Grey stands out more then the render does and also if you're gonna do an entire line of text, pressing enter for a new line is the WRONG route to go. Make a new layer so you can put it closer, instead of spacing it out across the signature. Also the coloring. The signature tutorial by Papa will help you alot with this. Also if you want an easy thing to do is set it to white, maybe put on overlay, and lower the opacity. Over time you'll learn it but you gotta work on it.

5. Color palette. The final critique. Basically, black doesn't compliment the renders colors of cream/brown/green. Neither does grey. Find a color scheme that works with the sig, that makes it fit in and not distract you or make something stand out too much. At the moment it makes every aspect stand out and you have no idea where to look, especially with the random 2 white dots on either side of his head. Every sig needs a color scheme.

Red on green is a no, just so you know..

[Jeff]

Red on green is a no, just so you know..

This isn't true. They're complimentary colors. It just depends on how they're used, like any combination of colors.

For a 7th sig ever, this is great.

When people say "needs blending," they mean that the guy should look like he's part of the image. Lighting is one thing you need to keep in mind when you want to get this. Look at the way the shadows and highlights are on the guy. It looks like the light source is coming from the top left (based on the bright highlights on his helmet and where they are on his hand), but the lighting on your background doesn't agree with that, so he looks out of place. So basically, there should be something in the background that agrees with that lighting, so it should be brighter near the top area, and stay dark around the bottom.

You'll also want to pay attention to the subtleties of the coloring--the "atmosphere" and mood they can create. The guy looks "warm," but the background isn't consistent with that warmth. A good way to adjust these subtleties is with adjustment layers, which can be used by selecting the black/white circle button in the layers panel. Photo filters are good for warmth and coolness, color balance layers give you more control. Gradient maps may also give useful results. You'll want to play with the blending modes of these adjustment layers as well. Experiment with the results.