Shace's GFX test

[Shaissa]

So these are my first GFX ever so just remember that while looking at them

 

[The Welsh Paddy]

Well they're a heck of a lot better than the stuff I made when I first started. I'm interested in seeing how you progress with this!

Colourwise, the first piece works very well. I just don't like how intense the brushwork on the bottom left and top right corners are. It's the same with the coloured areas on your second piece, although I do like how you made the image look like it's glowing.

Things I would suggest. Using softer brushes. One thing you can do is alter the 'Hardness' of the brush when using the paintbrush or eraser tool. The less hardness, the softer the mark basically. It's a good way of making it look like the brushwork is fading into the rest of the image. On the first piece, the yellow-ish glow around the text is too square. If you use the eraser with a low hardness and go around the edges, it will help blend it in a little bit better.

Using layers. You know when you work on an image, you have it all in layers? Well, use that to your advantage. There's some really cool things you can do simply by duplicating layers and changing the blending options.

Textures and filters. I know you used the zoom effect on the background for the first piece. That's good. Carry on experimenting with those, there's some really neat stuff there. With textures, this would apply to making the most of layers as well. You can either make use of various brushes, or simply by searching for pre-made textures on Google or something. Again, there are many things you can do simply by placing a texture over an image and changing the blending option.

But seriously, for a first attempt? Good job! I look forwards to seeing some more!

Also you should credit yourself for the sig as well because you did half the work on it.

 

[Shaissa]

Here is one more a Final Fantasy one

 

[Squid]

You need to work on your blending! I get that you're new and stuff so thats cool but you can see the white lines and stuff around the renders.
Something you could try (keeping in mind that I am not the best at blending haha) Is putting another layer (a transparant one) over the top of your render then with a soft brush close to the colour of your background, at any opacity, (though I like 50%) and colour around the edges of your render (still on the new layer you made) then set the layer to 'soft light' or whatever the equivalent is on Gimp and BAM your render is a little better blended.

You can also put another layer underneath your render and copy your render underneath (so you have two exact copies of your render) then blur the render underneath a little. maybe 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever looks good. It makes it look a little more blended I think

Anyway, they're just some easy little things you could try. Nice work though I hope you stick at it!

 

[Big Casino]

The only real advice that can be offered to someone whos starting out is to go and read tutorials. I know some people cant be bothered with them but your gunna learn 100 times faster reading tutorials than just doing it by yourself. Its easy for people to say oh you need to work on this and this etc etc but that doesnt matter if you dont know how to do that. Google some sig tutorials for beginners and work through them and youl see a huge difference =)

 

[Shaissa]

Thanks for the tips guys

Hopefully I'll improve the more I do!

Also

Last one for the night... This one I actually like

 

[Dion]

You're getting better, but you should work on your blending. Blending is really important so that it doesn't look like you just tacked on a random piece of art to a background. You should also focus on making sure your colors work with your stock so that it helps with blending. Like most everyone said, you should look at some more tutorials to help with progress. You're getting there!

 

[The Welsh Paddy]

If you use the magic wand tool and select around the image of Simba and then expand that selection by one or two pixels, you could easily get rid of the white around that render.

But, I can already see an improvement in your stuff here. Good job!

 

[Shaissa]

Day two of really doing this, hope these are better than my first few... learned a lot about trying to get rid of the crappy white background in pictures..though I still couldn't do it for Simba

I wanna do more with both of these, just kinda stuck with my level of skill, learning a lot when I think of what I want, and tutorials help a lot

 

[Steve-O]

nice stuff shace, liking the background, you need to work on your blending, the render should look like it meant to be with the background..... atm the render don't look like it should. try using the rubber tool around the edge of the render..... it a very basic blending techique but it a good way to start

http://www.sigtutorials.com/ - that is a great site to start on, it gives some great tutorials on different kind of sigs, i was glued to this sight when I started, it also hold some good example psd's for you to look at as well as stocks and renders

 

[The Welsh Paddy]

I like the background in the Sonic image. It goes nicely with the render. All you need is to blend it a bit more, and make the text stand out some more.

The keyblade piece is awesome! One thing I would suggest, it rather than have that dark background, make it transparent! Not 100% sure how you do that on gimp though. But then I would have the text in a completely different font and colour. Something a lot more bold/fancy and stand out-ish. White, with a drop shadow effect would probably be awesome.

 

[Shaissa]

@The Welsh Paddy

I changed the Keyblade one, the one I posted in your wall and this one... I didn't think the Transparent background work too well, so I decided to change the background a little, and added the words on the bottom.

Also Fixed Simba, made it so he really did blend into the background

 

[Shaissa]

Here is one of Edward Elric From FullMetal Alchemist!

First one I tried to make the name look more...flashy, but it didn't turn out so well

Second one is just his name in normal letters with a shadow.