Afro Samurai

[Vangucci]

Getting the hang of photo filters and gradiant maps
Still not too good with the c4d/flow stuff, but I'll keep trying.
Text needs work, didn't know what to do.

[Kotora]

It's a little too... blank.

[Vangucci]

I suppose you mean the right side/background?

[Kotora]

No, I mean by the fact that you didn't posted a sig. :\

[Vangucci]

Edit: There we go.

[gr4ph1kP4ND4]

>.<
well..
his face is really lq, i know you did that on purpose tho in order to make the sword seem more in your face, but dont ever blur a face. faces are what people look at to tell emotions, to recognize features, to connect to and identify others. by taking that away you're taking away our ability to connect with your art.
the c4d on the other hand is over sharpened, and the point of using those kinds of c4d's is to kindof blend them in with the background to give your still image a sense of movement.
the color scheme is a little dull, it could use some brights especially on the afroman's person.
i definitely like the right side more than the left. the right side's got a lot of stuff that flows together really well, but the left side is blank and (again) oversharpened.
the bg should have been another color, there's way too much of that one color within the picture already. use more purples more yellows and even some greens to bring out the object of focus - the afroman dude. with the bg being the same color as he is, he kindof blends in.
text is a little boring, but oh well. i suck at text so... yeah idk i dont have much room to talk

i like how you're using the depth to your advantage. you chose to use something other than a face as your point of focus, and i applaud you for experimenting with it.
i absolutely really do love the c4d's youve got going on on the right side! they look amazing. they blend really well, colors work together and theres a good sense of flow and motion to them!

good job ^.^

[Vangucci]

I sent the psd file to myself via email to work on when I get home. Thanks a bunch for the CnC gr4ph1k

[gr4ph1kP4ND4]

no problemo ^.^
and just call me panda >.>
thats like a rule
D:< lol jk

[Kotora]

OK, now you posted it. ;3

CnC, first I'll start with the good. Your flow is great, and the use of C4D's is quite nice, everything seems to be blended quite nice with the render. BUT, the colors are absolutely horrible, they're all over the place. You seem to have yellow-ish as your primary color but then you see purple which stands out just as much as the yellow so it seems way out of place. Those white circles which you put on left and right sides of the sig, look blurred and low quality, there also seems to be 3 different light sources on the sig, so that makes it hard to tell which one is supposed to cast the light in the render(it should be the one on the left side of his head) but the other two distract that attention from it. The sizing is also an issue here due to the right side of the sig which makes it look empty in comparison to the rest of the sig, like you mentioned the text needs work, A LOT of work, it looks just tacked on for the sake of it.

Question, did you used the blur tool on this? Or was it a filter? Whatever it was go easy on it, the text looks blurry as hell and overall you're making some of the effects look very low quality.

There's still more, the sharpening is also poorly done, look at yellow C4D on your left side, it looks sharp as hell and that's the first thing that took my attention when I saw your sig and I'm fairly positive that isn't your focal. Lastly, your background. It's completely boring and unatractive and doens't blend with your effects nor render.

It won't be fair posting all this crap without telling you how to fix/improve, so here are my suggestions.

Use selective color! it's a filter which lets you change colors of your sig to your liking, this is to improve blending and contrast with the colors. I highly recommend sticking with gradients only for now, don't use photo filters just yet, just try to get accostumed to how gradient maps work, try different opacity levels, different blendings, such as color burn, lighten, pin light, etc, etc. Make sure the colors flow well with each other.

Be careful with your lighting! if you're making a light source, first try to see where the lighting is hitting your render, then make the light source so it looks as if it's actually casting the light on it.

Text is never easy. No matter how good you are, good text will still take a lot of time. My suggestion is going with simple fonts, do NOT try anything fancy as it takes attention away from your focal and also pick a color from your tag as the text color so it blends nice aswell. Most people pretty much just make the text as a finishing touch and don't spend more than a min. on it. If you're putting text on a sig, don't do that. Good text will take just as much time as the creation of your sig, if not more.

Sharpening and blurring are great tools, but you should never go far with them, I usually blur the background once and lower opacity so it doesn't look that blurred, and when I sharpen, I only sharpen my focal, this is obviously to make your focal stand out much more. As for your background, try smudged backgrounds perhaps? If you're using a smudged background however, ALWAYS make sure it flows with your render.

That's about it, there's more, but this should cover up the basics. ;3

[shiv96]

Agreed With the Paragraph Long CnC's Of Koto and Pandy