[Gallery] [→ x x k a y l a b b y gallery ★ ]

[xxkaylabby]

[→ x x k a y l a b b y gallery ★ ]

i got told to make an art gallery so here it is. i've used gimp and i've just started to use photoshop in the past year to make art work for tumblr and my blog. i'll try to post my new artwork whenever i can and make updates

→Avatars:

Spoiler:

→Tags:

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→Banners:

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→Texts:

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→Userbars

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→iPhone Wallpapers

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→Drawings

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→Timeline Banners

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★✰★

thanks to Derozio for giving amazing critique
thanks for everyone for viewing my gallery
© xxkaylabby @pokecommunity.com

[Ęℓαчиıı]

The avatars are lovely, dear.

They've got a simplistic tone to them, and that is what I like. I like the adjustment layers that have been used on them, but, there is always room for improvement! I haven't made an avatar or signature in the longest time, so, my knowledge on things are bound to be a bit.... shabby. However, if you're wanting to do more professional signatures, I would keep to one main focal point. However, you have done well in keeping them organized; they all have a main color scheme which is very nice. The texts are nice; a bit too flashy for me, but it works.

I think with enough practice you'll be an amazing signature creator, keep it up!

[Vαηєℓℓσρє]

I love how simple and adorable they all are, and the perfect tone of all the colors. Nice work lol.

My favorites are the avatars~

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by Ęℓαчиıı

The avatars are lovely, dear.

They've got a simplistic tone to them, and that is what I like. I like the adjustment layers that have been used on them, but, there is always room for improvement! I haven't made an avatar or signature in the longest time, so, my knowledge on things are bound to be a bit.... shabby. However, if you're wanting to do more professional signatures, I would keep to one main focal point. However, you have done well in keeping them organized; they all have a main color scheme which is very nice. The texts are nice; a bit too flashy for me, but it works.

I think with enough practice you'll be an amazing signature creator, keep it up!

thank you so much yeah i use to use gimp for a while and the past year i have photoshop. i'm taking graphic design in college. lol sorry the texts are a bit sparkley xD

Originally Posted by Vαηєℓℓσρє

I love how simple and adorable they all are, and the perfect tone of all the colors. Nice work lol.

My favorites are the avatars~

yeah i usually keep my avatars simple. (:

~added a snow white avatar & chun li render

[xxkaylabby]

added a banner to the banner section ~

added a new text to the text section ~

[Derozio]

I hope you don't mind me being a little harsh. If I come off as rude anywhere in this post, I apologize in advance. Well, here we go~

Alright, first we'll talk about the icons. The whites are a little too bright. All the colors in an icons are supposed to be balanced. If a single color overpowers other colors, it pretty much spells the doom of the icon. I'm not saying those icons are bad, no. In fact, compared to what I used to make with similar amount of experience as you, you're doing much better. But they can be made much better if you learn to balance all the colors. Maybe, instead of focusing only on the whites and trying to bring out the contrast, try using selective colors? They work really well. And if you find that strengthening specific colors in the icon messes the balance and makes it all weird, try gradient maps.

I mean, for example, you're working on a stock which comprises of a lot of red. And then you've placed a blue bookeh over it. Now you went on increasing the intensity of both red and blue. You'll find that the outcome doesn't look as good as it should look because there is a lack of flow between the two colors due to overwhelming disparity. Gradient maps might help you in those cases. Try to avoid text in icons as well. The text in your first icon, although not bad, doesn't help the icon, imo. Text placement, if it works, really looks good. But if it doesn't, well, it might end up hurting the icon by making it look a little too busy. Not the case with your icons, but yeah, just worth putting it out there.

Oh, and in case you're using a light color as a background, you can use a little bit of the burn tool set to 'highlights'. That'll be able to burn some corners and will generally help you out with the lighting in the icon. Something like this and this. See the dark corners? Yeah, those have been done using the burn tool. Without those, I dunno if those two tags would look as decent as they look as of now. :p

I guess that's enough for icons. Moving on to tags, well, for starters, you ought to work on your depth. And the effects. And a little bit on lighting as well. It'll probably take a lot of time if I go tag by tag, but lemme see how much I can write without tiring myself.

qp2i4y.jpg
Well, this work here basically share the same problem as the icon. Lack of balance in the coloring department. But since it is a tag, it has another problem going. Lack of focus. You've got three. You're supposed to have only one. You may have more than one stock in a tag, but there's a specific part of the tag that should make other peoples' eyes automatically get directed towards it. That's the focus. It generally tends to be sharper than other stuff in the tag. Or the other stuff is supposed to be blurred. None of it here. So yes, it is a bit flat. :[

I'm not really gonna comment on the second one since it looks like all you did was paste the render on a background and add some text to it.

wtvpy9.jpg
This one suffers from lack of depth and lighting. And non-variety of effects. All the effects are in the background and are similar in structure. You're supposed to add some variety since, you know, variety is the spice of life. :p Anyway, yeah, bring moar variety! You need moar effects going on in it. Plus, try to use multiple colors. This tag here basically comprises of black and yellow - monotonous. Monotone isn't bad in every case. But you need to have depth so that it looks good even if it is monotone. But this work here lacks depth owing to lack of sharpening, blurring and appropriate lighting.

Out of all your works, I like the chun-li tag the most. It can be made much better by a few tweaks very easily. You can burn up some corners, give it a light source, make the stock less uhh..out of proportions? Chun-li looks weird here, for some reason. Anyway, yeah, apart from that, you have the effects going in the background. Just add some foreground effects, blur some background ones and you'll probably be looking at a much better looking tag. At least when seen from my eyes. :p

Hopefully, that was of some help. Seriously, tell me if I was too harsh, okay? I really wanna see you improve, you know. ;_;

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by Derozio

I hope you don't mind me being a little harsh. If I come off as rude anywhere in this post, I apologize in advance. Well, here we go~

Alright, first we'll talk about the icons. The whites are a little too bright. All the colors in an icons are supposed to be balanced. If a single color overpowers other colors, it pretty much spells the doom of the icon. I'm not saying those icons are bad, no. In fact, compared to what I used to make with similar amount of experience as you, you're doing much better. But they can be made much better if you learn to balance all the colors. Maybe, instead of focusing only on the whites and trying to bring out the contrast, try using selective colors? They work really well. And if you find that strengthening specific colors in the icon messes the balance and makes it all weird, try gradient maps.

I mean, for example, you're working on a stock which comprises of a lot of red. And then you've placed a blue bookeh over it. Now you went on increasing the intensity of both red and blue. You'll find that the outcome doesn't look as good as it should look because there is a lack of flow between the two colors due to overwhelming disparity. Gradient maps might help you in those cases. Try to avoid text in icons as well. The text in your first icon, although not bad, doesn't help the icon, imo. Text placement, if it works, really looks good. But if it doesn't, well, it might end up hurting the icon by making it look a little too busy. Not the case with your icons, but yeah, just worth putting it out there.

Oh, and in case you're using a light color as a background, you can use a little bit of the burn tool set to 'highlights'. That'll be able to burn some corners and will generally help you out with the lighting in the icon. Something like this and this. See the dark corners? Yeah, those have been done using the burn tool. Without those, I dunno if those two tags would look as decent as they look as of now. :p

I guess that's enough for icons. Moving on to tags, well, for starters, you ought to work on your depth. And the effects. And a little bit on lighting as well. It'll probably take a lot of time if I go tag by tag, but lemme see how much I can write without tiring myself.

qp2i4y.jpg
Well, this work here basically share the same problem as the icon. Lack of balance in the coloring department. But since it is a tag, it has another problem going. Lack of focus. You've got three. You're supposed to have only one. You may have more than one stock in a tag, but there's a specific part of the tag that should make other peoples' eyes automatically get directed towards it. That's the focus. It generally tends to be sharper than other stuff in the tag. Or the other stuff is supposed to be blurred. None of it here. So yes, it is a bit flat. :[

I'm not really gonna comment on the second one since it looks like all you did was paste the render on a background and add some text to it.

wtvpy9.jpg
This one suffers from lack of depth and lighting. And non-variety of effects. All the effects are in the background and are similar in structure. You're supposed to add some variety since, you know, variety is the spice of life. :p Anyway, yeah, bring moar variety! You need moar effects going on in it. Plus, try to use multiple colors. This tag here basically comprises of black and yellow - monotonous. Monotone isn't bad in every case. But you need to have depth so that it looks good even if it is monotone. But this work here lacks depth owing to lack of sharpening, blurring and appropriate lighting.

Out of all your works, I like the chun-li tag the most. It can be made much better by a few tweaks very easily. You can burn up some corners, give it a light source, make the stock less uhh..out of proportions? Chun-li looks weird here, for some reason. Anyway, yeah, apart from that, you have the effects going in the background. Just add some foreground effects, blur some background ones and you'll probably be looking at a much better looking tag. At least when seen from my eyes. :p

Hopefully, that was of some help. Seriously, tell me if I was too harsh, okay? I really wanna see you improve, you know. ;_;

it does help(: thank you! im not use to doing a lot of renders. im use to doing just text banners, re colors, and just banners (: i do like the burn corner idea. i think the chun li is the best render i've done.
thank you ~

[xxkaylabby]

added a new banner (two different versions) to the banner section~

[Cirno]

Ooh, these are so good! I love your font placements in the banner and how well everything seems to be integrated together. The only thing that really gets me right now is your newer Lyra/Espeon banner; it's really hard to look at for me since the borders of the stripes in the background look really pixelated.

Your work is wonderful, though! I love the top banner especially, the colors are beautiful! :D

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by Cirno

Ooh, these are so good! I love your font placements in the banner and how well everything seems to be integrated together. The only thing that really gets me right now is your newer Lyra/Espeon banner; it's really hard to look at for me since the borders of the stripes in the background look really pixelated.

Your work is wonderful, though! I love the top banner especially, the colors are beautiful! :D

lol after you said that i redid my signature and avatar lol. thank you for the comments (:

added two new banners and an avatar ~

[Derozio]

http://i46.tinypic.com/2n8q3k0.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/1pcxvq.jpg

These two are, in my eyes, massive improvements. But I have to ask..is the render like that in the first image? Or have you tried to alter its dimensions in order to forcefully make it fit? I mean, it looks really weird as it is.

Anyway, like I said - BIG improvements over your previous works. I can see you've heard me when I told you to work on lighting and foreground effects. I don't really have much time as of now, so I'll probably post a detailed version of this post later; but for now, fantastic job! I was, at first, taken aback. I was THAT surprised you made them! You made me proud! :)

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by Derozio

http://i46.tinypic.com/2n8q3k0.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/1pcxvq.jpg

These two are, in my eyes, massive improvements. But I have to ask..is the render like that in the first image? Or have you tried to alter its dimensions in order to forcefully make it fit? I mean, it looks really weird as it is.

Anyway, like I said - BIG improvements over your previous works. I can see you've heard me when I told you to work on lighting and foreground effects. I don't really have much time as of now, so I'll probably post a detailed version of this post later; but for now, fantastic job! I was, at first, taken aback. I was THAT surprised you made them! You made me proud!

heh thank you. i took your advice and practiced more i feel accomplished lol. i have to alter them so the image fits inside the tag so it looks a little weird. i need to figure that out now xD
thank you so much~

[q_byrd03]

xxkaylabby, those arts are really nice I remember when I first started my arts.... they were similar to yours but with practice I got better and you will too .

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by q_byrd03

xxkaylabby, those arts are really nice I remember when I first started my arts.... they were similar to yours but with practice I got better and you will too .

thank you so much~ i love your artwork (:

[xxkaylabby]

added a new banner to the banner section (:

[xxkaylabby]

added an iphone background to the random section~

[Gideon Jeremiah]

Oh I absolutely adore these!

They have a very "chipper" overtone that makes it enjoyable to look at them.
Lacking in the color imagery that inspires negatives feeling, overall; lovely!

[xxkaylabby]

thank you for the comment (:
added a new banner and two new avatars

[Urugamosu]

Wow, I love these so much!~

I love the simplistic style, and it makes it look so....awesome for me.
Keep it up, and don't give up! :3

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by Urugamosu

Wow, I love these so much!~

I love the simplistic style, and it makes it look so....awesome for me.
Keep it up, and don't give up! :3

thank you so much :3 i'll keep working and practicing

i finally added css (=

update! made an animated text icon. havent done one of these in a while;;

[xxkaylabby]

added a new tag to the banners section;;


update;;
added two icons:

[Derozio]

Some nifty CSS work here. ;D

Anyway, I'll start with the icons. A major problem, according to me, that has been much more prevalent in your works as of late is the over-sharpening of stock. It doesn't look good because your stuff tends to appear pixelated. Take this, for instance. I like the placement to a degree and I think you could've done a better job with the colors - fiddling around with a few selective color layers would've done it good, yes. But what kills the icon for me is the oversharpened girl. Parts around her head and her legs look really pixelated - when sharpening, take care not to go overboard. Too much of anything is disadvantageous. On another note, this looks good but I wish you had gone for different placement. I'd have preferred the espeon to a little right of its current position. But yeah, as much as I like the greens and blues, I wish you had lit up the icon a bit. The contrast between the dark blue and florescent green is a little too much, imo. The dark blues could've been changed a bit is what I'm sayin'. 'Curves' would've helped you here, imo.

Your new banners are a victim of your over-sharpening habit as well. ;; I'm liking the effects that you use but the text and the over-sharpening of your stock/render really takes away a lot of yummy goodness from your works. :c Take this, for instance - The stock has been sharpened a lot. Now, it would've been fine to a degree if you had sharpened only parts of it and not the whole thing. But you went ahead with sharpening everything and the result is a little messy. The part near her breasts is just..chaotic, to say it in simple terms. I don't think it would look as chaotic if it weren't sharpened as much as it has been done right now. But yeah, talking about positives - I like the colors you've used in here to a certain degree. Liking the fact that you're trying to improve your lighting too - it shows in here. :D I'd advise you to use more c4ds and less brushes, though. If those are what you're using right now, that is. And yes, text. I'd advise you to make versions with and without text everytime. The positioning of text in most of your works is just not doing it for me. They're a little too far away from the focal and serve as a distraction. Text should never distract from focal. A good placement in this tag would be around her left hand (right side). For this, I'd say that you should try to be a little more wary of the light sources you create. Lighting is a little messed up in here. :c Remember, proper lighting can go a long way in improving a tag! ;]

But yes, some really good stuff from you. You've improved so much from the previous time you opened a gallery in here. Heck, your works now differ a lot from the works you initially posted in this very thread. I think you know the basics - all you need is a little more practice to refine all that stuff. :]

[xxkaylabby]

Originally Posted by Derozio

Some nifty CSS work here. ;D

Anyway, I'll start with the icons. A major problem, according to me, that has been much more prevalent in your works as of late is the over-sharpening of stock. It doesn't look good because your stuff tends to appear pixelated. Take this, for instance. I like the placement to a degree and I think you could've done a better job with the colors - fiddling around with a few selective color layers would've done it good, yes. But what kills the icon for me is the oversharpened girl. Parts around her head and her legs look really pixelated - when sharpening, take care not to go overboard. Too much of anything is disadvantageous. On another note, this looks good but I wish you had gone for different placement. I'd have preferred the espeon to a little right of its current position. But yeah, as much as I like the greens and blues, I wish you had lit up the icon a bit. The contrast between the dark blue and florescent green is a little too much, imo. The dark blues could've been changed a bit is what I'm sayin'. 'Curves' would've helped you here, imo.

Your new banners are a victim of your over-sharpening habit as well. ;; I'm liking the effects that you use but the text and the over-sharpening of your stock/render really takes away a lot of yummy goodness from your works. :c Take this, for instance - The stock has been sharpened a lot. Now, it would've been fine to a degree if you had sharpened only parts of it and not the whole thing. But you went ahead with sharpening everything and the result is a little messy. The part near her breasts is just..chaotic, to say it in simple terms. I don't think it would look as chaotic if it weren't sharpened as much as it has been done right now. But yeah, talking about positives - I like the colors you've used in here to a certain degree. Liking the fact that you're trying to improve your lighting too - it shows in here. :D I'd advise you to use more c4ds and less brushes, though. If those are what you're using right now, that is. And yes, text. I'd advise you to make versions with and without text everytime. The positioning of text in most of your works is just not doing it for me. They're a little too far away from the focal and serve as a distraction. Text should never distract from focal. A good placement in this tag would be around her left hand (right side). For this, I'd say that you should try to be a little more wary of the light sources you create. Lighting is a little messed up in here. :c Remember, proper lighting can go a long way in improving a tag! ;]

But yes, some really good stuff from you. You've improved so much from the previous time you opened a gallery in here. Heck, your works now differ a lot from the works you initially posted in this very thread. I think you know the basics - all you need is a little more practice to refine all that stuff. :]

lol i agree about the sharpening. i have to practice sharpening some stuff and not the whole thing; i'll practice some more tonight.
i need to learn to perfect my texts just like you (=
thank you so much

[xxkaylabby]

added timeline banner section~

[xxkaylabby]

added two new texts to the text section~