my little gallery

[july6]

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[Rockéttes]

Not too bad, but you could use a little work in a few areas. You've already proved that you know how to use Photoshop, but that's only the beginning. Now comes the hard part; the actual understanding of graphic design. It's not just chucking images onto a canvas and calling yourself on artist; there's actually various techniques you need to learn and master to progress, such as color, design, lighting, effects, and composition. Check out a few tutorials. I'm sure you'll greatly benefit from it.

Anyway, as I said before, you're not horrible. We all have to start somewhere, and it's good to see you're not giving up. Keep up the hard work!

 

[Azonic]

You've got the basics down pretty well, but now you have to truly understand what looks good in graphic design, as Rockets said. I'll give you a rundown on some of the most notable problems I see in your work.

Renders
Some of your renders and base image are just terrible quality. Most notably, I am referring to your last banner with Maxie / Archie (Autumn). It's just terrible, flat, and pixely for your banner. You need to choose good quality renders. Good renders include most of the following traits.

1. Can't be pixely. Pixely means very blocky and ridgy in the outlines and interior lines. It's very bumpy where it should be smooth. You can definitely see the difference in quality between the renders in Autumn and Battle Castle. Battle Castle's render is so much more smooth and prettier than the one in Autumn, which is extremely blocky, pixely, and rough.
2. A smooth, clean look. This means that it should never have any gray specs or pixels that surround the render. It shouldn't have those extra pixels that make the image look lesser quality. Those pixels can be seen in a JPEG image, usually. This is a good example of a bad quality image. It's not really a render, but you can clearly see the extra dull pixels that have been added. The red text was originally bright red, but now its dull. This is hard to explain, but get what I'm saying?
3. Can't be blurry. Blurry pictures are terrible to work with, and are hard to figure out. Sharpening doesn't always work, because you sometimes get a very pixely image if you sharpen it. Avoid blurry pictures and pictures with bad quality. This can definitely include anime screenshots, etc.
4. Usually saved in a .PNG file format. .PNG files have the best quality; their quality is MUCH better than JPEG. Sometimes, JPEG images aren't so bad. The majority of JPEG images are pretty bad quality.

So you might ask; where do you get all these "good quality" images? Well, there are many sites for this. One more notable and famous one is PlanetRenders. You do need to register before downloading their renders, but its worth it, and sparing a couple of seconds to register won't hurt at all will it? Many other official websites have a lot of graphics resources. You can view some of the resources in the Graphics Resources thread, stickied at the top of the page. A few notable ones are Celestial Star and Aethereality.

Focals
Your render needs to attract the MOST attention from every part of the banner you're making. The render is the focal of the banner, and it should always attract attention. Most notable of these problems reside in Pike Queen Lucy and Power of the Sea. The renders have an effect in the way that they do not attract much attention at all. In Pike Queen Lucy, the text is far too bright comparing to the rest of the banner, and distracts all the attention from the render to the text. The text in a banner should not be noticable, but we'll get into that more later. There are many ways to attract attention to the banner. Here are some pretty popular ways.

1. Sharpening the render and blurring the background can attract more attention to the render. The human eye naturally would look at the more sharp things first, because they are more detailed and stand out more. Separating the distant objects vs. close objects vs. extremely close objects also helps in the quality of your banner.
2. Lightening the background behind the render helps too. The human eye naturally is attracted to what looks brighter, so more attention is drawn of you lighten the background of the render around it. Lightening doesn't mean stroking the render though. Make it look more natural, like a big soft brush on overlay, etc. Also this works vice versa, by darkening the background far away from the renders such as the edges, etc. This can cause problems with blending though, so don't make the background behind the render too bright, or it will sting your eyes / throw off the blending of the render vs. background.
3. Simply contrasting the render more or making it brighter. It should also have some effects around it that attract attention to it. Making it more detailed than the other parts of the banner is always a way. Just any way to make it stand out from the background should work pretty well to attract attention to it. There are many ways, but these are the most important.

While we're on the subject of renders, I can barely make out that the render is a Kyogre on the Power of the Sea. It took me a while just staring at it until I knew what it was.

Text
Text is of course, a very vital element to banner making. It often expresses the meaning of the banner, or just arranges words to make it clever or catchy saying. They shouldn't attract the most attention. Try blending in the text with the banner more. Most of your text in your banners are far too noticeable and attract attention away from the banner. I know, some of them look "cool" with their effects and all, but blending is more important. The background vs. render is what should look cool; text is just icing on the cake. There are specific guidelines on what not to do with text. Here are some to start off with.

1. Don't make it too noticeable, as I previously stated. The attention should always be drawn to the render more. The text should be readable and blended in with the banner. A few ways to do this are to reduce the opacity of the text or putting it on overlay. Overlay definitely helps blending a lot more, too.
2. Avoid long sentences. Graphic makers try to avoid long sentences because it clutters the banner. Text isn't very ~pretty~ or anything, and the more you put the more ugly it gets. No one wants to see a run on sentence in a pretty little tag. It just clutters and ruins the banner. Avoid those run-on sentences and stick to some short, witty sayings.
3. Don't make it big. Text should be only a little bigger or smaller than the standard text size (which is what I'm typing in) usually. This way, more attention will go to the content of your banner instead of the text.
4. Use fonts that fit to the environment of the tag you are making. For example, you don't want to put a very grungy font like Epoxy History on a classic and smooth looking theme. You don't want to put a very fancy cursive font on a vector banner either. Stick to their respective environments and choose a good font. Ordinary fonts like Trebuchet MS, Arial, Times, and Copperplate should only be used on occasion. They can look pretty good sometimes if it's small font, and rarely looks good when typed up huge in big block letters.

~Well, that's all the advice I have for now. I could go on to blending your render into the background, but it seems like you're already pretty good at that. Basically what that is is erasing the edges of your render with a soft brush / choosing a color scheme from your render to match that of your background. :3 Good luck with your graphics!

 

[july6]

oh I now... my works are orrible XP, I do them when I don't have anything to do...

 

[Ruphire]

Nice work!!!! I really like the Kyogre fan one!!!!!

 

[july6]

XDDDDD it isn't mine! I don't do it.... my works are the horrible ones XP

 

[THIRTY-SIX]

Seems like your typography is the focal on your signatures, mainly because the sizes you are using. It is nice that you are thinking about it rather than randomly sticking it anywhere. Well from what I can see you are.

Also about the size of the text. The larger it is the smaller the weight can be.

Try working on your composition as a whole rather than the composition of the text only. Well the only ones that have typographical composition are whose side are you on and Beauty Queen.

Your render needs to attract the MOST attention from every part of the banner you're making. The render is the focal of the banner, and it should always attract attention.

Who says the render has to be the focal? o.o'

Some of your renders and base image are just terrible quality. Most notably, I am referring to your last banner with Maxie / Archie (Autumn). It's just terrible, flat, and pixely for your banner. You need to choose good quality renders.

I believe the maxi/archie image is pixel art. o.o'
Also it looks a similar style to that of the mario football game art.
Though the choppy edges on the leaves are :<

Don't make it too noticeable, as I previously stated. The attention should always be drawn to the render more.

Type as a focal. o.o'

A few ways to do this are to reduce the opacity of the text or putting it on overlay. Overlay definitely helps blending a lot more, too.

Never do that unless you want type as image.

.PNG files have the best quality; their quality is MUCH better than JPEG.

Wrong again. It depends on your save settings. o.o'
It was even proven by Sawyer a few years ago on this site. xD
But do save your work as a png file as these are just signatures.

Try using blur and sharpen tools. to get a clearer picture of what is in the foreground and what is the background.
Work on your effects first then a type last, unless you want it as a focal.
2z9mqyv.png Is the best one there.

 

[Zebra Thunderhead]

Renders should always be the focal unless it's a type based piece. I generally prefer Soft Light over Overlay. JPEG DOES have better image quality, but always use PNG for things that are going to be on the web.

Overall, these need a lot of work. I recommend using the tutorials thread here to get a good handle on your program.

 

[Loki]

Next time you've got an update, please wait a substantial amount of time before posting again, and put your new material in your update post. :/

Otherwise, it counts as a bump/double post, and thus, I've deleted that particular post.

 

[july6]

please don't be cruel this is the first time that I recolor a scan

Spoiler:

 

[Zebra Thunderhead]

The edges are extremely choppy. ;; When recoloring scans, I try to go for this feel:

Less water colory and more bright. Did you color it on the computer? It looks really pixely and grainy.

 

[july6]

I know XDDD but it'only the first time!

 

[july6]

orrible work again T^T

it's a rquest from my best friend so I've respected her request