Much. Have you thought of thinning the bush/tree to the left of the house? Just a thought.

Uvah, I addressed that issue with you in a previous thread about resizing walls! Always start large and size down! You loose detail and quality when trying to size up and too many people posting walls do not know how to resize properly and you end up with an inferior image. Oblong moons and such are a real turnoff!

Well no,  I actually had to thicken it because seeing so much sky through the tree reduced the effect of darkness in the image. At one point I had completely removed it but that didn't work out too well!

I still work in 7...for a skinner there really isnt much in later versions that truly helps with skinning in general.They are a little better at some things but not much.

The biggest advances I see in PS lately are the painting tools...but skinners rarely paint...they mostly use shapes,vectors and layerstyles.(7 does all those perfectly fine and is faster at most of it)

There are some screen drawing improvements if you have a good enough graphics card to take advantage of them. Poor ole Brain is still on his emachines W3107...8600 gt.

Tho this is about to change sometime next year...time to build my own sportier model. yay

I had an emachine couple years back. Worked pretty good too. It was my first store bought and just to see how far I could push it I crashed XP inside of a week. Reloaded it and crashed it two more times. Then I quit playing around and found this place. Been going bonkers ever since.

Terrific painting. This could be a really awesome wall. I agree with your own critiques and I have beem using this as my desktop for a while now. I'd like ti suggest some things  might try if it was my own.

The joint of the mountains needs to be blurred, Maybe even shift the whole layer to the left. I am assuming the clouds will are on that layer also and will shift with it. It could give a better effect distancing the dark and the white

I would try making the angel a bit smaller and definitely "surrealize" the wand and fire. There seems to be wind blowing the fire. It's hard to find a direction as the shadows don't coincide, i.e. Car, safety guard. Road sign, etc.. Maybe blur the road sign except for Scientology Lounge, which I assume is part of the theme. PLEASE correct me if I am wrong.

The car looks like it hovering, edges are too crisp. Did you think of rounding the corners of the road? Maybe a duplicate layer and play with blending options, for the car that is.

I'm still going to keep it on my screen for a while, so I guess I'm complimenting you on your work. All of this pf course are just MHO and things I might try. Impulse dock and Object Dock fit right in, smooth. It looks much better on my screen. Thank you.

Just fooling around with skies right now. No more oblong moons and such. when it gets a little further on I'll post it.

hehehe...I was working on it ( actually I liked the blue tint glows idea) , but now my pc is giving me grief.  So I probably won't get to finish it for Halloween, but I will finish it and post it here!!  Thank you IR !!!  

Frankie, I love how your image turned out!!!

Uvah, keep plugging away.   As long as you are having fun, that is the most important part!!!

Catch you all later!!!

Thanks to all for the technical advice in making my wall a sucess! I learned some stuff.

You know, at the risk of making some enemies, and God knows I have enough, I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in the lack of participation in this thread. You would think that with all of the hoopla over the quality of what is being offered in the gallery the community would join together and try to offer good critical advice and that more folks would have utilized this opportunity to get or give help. As I look through the gallery today, I see many examples of things that are way too busy, a couple that have a high rate of pixalation, another few that the subject matter is getting a bit tedious and not one constructive comment in the lot. It reminds me of working side by side with your Boss all year thinking what a great job you are doing and then at the end of the year, you go in for your performance review and leave in tears because he proceeds to tell you how you are doing everything wrong. I know how hard it is to critique your own work because we all like to think everything we do is super, but if no one tells us different, then how are we to know? People here have become far too sensitive to anything the least bit negative being directed at their artwork and we have ended up with a whole crew of comment "whores" who go around saying how good everything is, even if they hate it. Personally, I would prefer an honest critique than a bunch of insincere hype or an extremely low rating without an explanation. Of course I am not promoting the "this is a piece of crap" type of comment but the sincere and diplomatic type of comment that makes one stop and listen and more closely examine the work in question. I am certainly not adverse to asking for help, but if I don't know that I need it, then I can't be expected to ask for it. Just a little food for thought, I guess, for anyone who reads this and truly wants to help all of us improve in what we have to offer.

Again, my sincere thanks to those who did participate and offered their advice and perspective. I would love to see this type of community effort become a permanent part of this site.

I certainly gained something from all this. Thanks to 'DA Brain' I learned how 'not' to start a wall. Plus how to look at my own work with more of an eye for what others will look at. What I need to do is work on my perspective as though seeing through someone elses eyes. Thanks I.R. for your critique.And Frankief and tbc (did she comment?) I have to go back and look. Anyway thanks to all who contributed and lets hope, like Frankief said that more will participate.

Frankie, some people aren't very good at articulating why they think something is of higher quality than others, so maybe the lack of participation has something to do with that--or maybe they just didn't care for your chosen subject matter in your work and so their comments would not have been constructive anyway, or maybe they just don't like delivering bad news.

I think you did a fantastic job on improving your work.  I, too, would like to see this thread continue.  I have something I'm working on that I hope to get out in the next day, that I would like critiqued.  This is what I have so far -- thoughts?

My God woman, that is a serious head wound that dude has there! It would be helpful to be able to view the actual size but from what I can see iit is quite gruesome and I assume that is what you are aiming for!

I was not so much speaking in regards to myself about the lack of participation, but in general to the lack of works posted and comments in general. I know I am not going to win any popularity contests here but it just is part of my personality. I am a perfectionist and believe in being brutally honest. It has plaqued me all of my adult life.

Edit: the page was displaying weird and there was no option to zoom this. Am off to view now!

I'm not sure I like the head wound.  Might be too much.

The wounds look very realistic to me. You need to do some clean up work around the guy and the front terrain is too straight edged  particulary on the right hand side and more BLOOD!

Hi Karen

If we are to believe the mist is following the guy and passing under his armpit, then the nist would be going in every direction incliding around the other side of the arm and over his right hand.The mist on the grass looks out of place a bit, or it needs more, all around over his arm, hand and the grass in front, which may be a better idea. I like your imagination in this piece. The  little green things hanging down need darkening to blend in better Great eyes. Just some food for thought. I'll have to follow this to see how it comes along.

Cheers Gary

The deal with the mist is that my idea here is that he's coming out of the ground, there is mist behind him and a little bit in front of him.  You really think the Spanish moss needs to be darkened?  In real life it's much lighter than the trees it hangs from...kind of a dusty gray color.

When I was writing the comment it was only showing 3/4 of the picture and when I finshed the entire pic was there. That was wierd. I stil have the same suggestions. I agree with Frankie also about working the corners, some blood would be a nice effect.  

That's what I thought, wouldn't the mist be coming over his shoulders and around the arms and over the hands in that case. I don't think the spanish moss is a big deal, it was my last thought. A zombie on all hallows eve coming to get us. Wonderful.

You're right about the mist, but here's my hesitation on adding more -- with the background blurred and the foreground clear, (at least on my new widescreen monitor) there is this fabulous 3-d kind of effect, like he's coming right out of my monitor.  If I add more mist, I'm going to lose the clarity in the foreground, which will diminish that effect. 

I guess I need to play around some more with this.  (DANG day job for getting in the way!) LOL

You need a little more in the foreground for depth. Change the focus (blur- use Lens blur or smart blur) and then some mist behind him and adjust the blur accordingly. Try a 'whispy smoke' brush or freehand for more depth and texture. ****You have mail

Okay, devils advocate again. Are you working in this small a resolution or is that just the preview shot? I thought he was crawling on the ground. If he is to be coming out of the ground should not your terrain be a bit more around his torso on the sides?

I used to come home from work and spend so much time dinking with my graphics at night that getting up in the morning was a chore! I would give anything to go back there again. Losing my job has devastated me mentally and physically.

I can be 'critical' when it comes to commenting on walls....

I can even be mildly 'diplomatic' in ascribing variations of 'this is crap'.

Or...

WHEN it's 'crap' I can always tell you it is crap.

I have to disagree a bit on that, If I can clearly see that the criticism is valid and has merits and is from what I consider a qualified individual, I try to learn from the critique instead of taking offense. It was not always that way, but I have long ago learned that I am not always my best critic. I would value your opinion at any time.