Shizuka Wallpaper

[Sassy]

Your wallpapers have inspired me to try to make my own. This is my first try, so I know it's not perfect. I'd love some constructive criticism. :)
img39.photobucket.com/alb...lpaper.jpg (http://img39.photobucket.com/albums/v119/IceSk8er/shizwallpaper.jpg)

[Grace]

Hiya Sassy!

Yay for constructive criticism! First of all, great cut job of Shizuka. And I liked your choice of font.

This is where it gets hard - Having taken too many art classes to count ever since I was little, one question that I get asked often is: What is your goal? what is the concept? what were you trying to go for? - if we were creating our own artwork.

So I'm curious - what was your aim for this piece? LOL, sometimes it can be just "to look cool" or something. But I'd like to know why you chose the picture you did, and why the particular pattern of repeating her twice with two different colored, and also, kind of grained. If it was just to learn as an exercise, then that's fine.

LOL, I hope I'm not being harsh, I'm just curious - I think for a beginner, it's really quite good. I'm impressed.

I guess what I'm saying is I feel like it lacks a focus, an idea.

Sometimes it helps to take one thing - like a quote you like, and plan it out on your head on how you want it. Sometimes you see a pattern that would be cool to work off of.

One of my recent Tosca wallpapers I thought the colors of her dress were really vibrant - and I already knew i wanted somewhat of a modern look to it - and I mixed the two and made it pretty black, and vibrant with oranges, yellows but a black to contrast the orange - to give off the feel of "heat" - the quote I ended up giving was " can you feel the heat?" Not saying my wallpaper was good or anything - but it helps to have a focus, an idea, a goal.

I guess that's why I can't stand Mondrian (I think he did the plain squares and such) .. and much prefer Degas... but then again, even Pollack had a meaning to his chaos .. ok, I'm going off the deep end now, but I hope you get my drift - and maybe this will help many of you with your art work.

Maybe others who do art pieces can chime in as well.

All in all, a great start. I can't see what future graphics you come up with!!

~Grace

[angelofmine]

OK, I was going to reply earlier but I ran short on time and didn't want to do a halfassed job. Basically, I agree with Grace. This is a DAMN good wp for your first attempt (you should see mine, eeeeek!) -- the cut is especially good, and I like the text and the noise effects. But as a whole, I'm not sure it all fits together, you know? Each effect feels like its own separate element, instead of being just one part of the whole (the wp). Does that make any sense? As for learning what does fit and how to blend it seamlessly, it's just something you have to play around with and it'll come in time.

As far as specific constructive criticism, imho there's too many conflicting textures going on -- the background, and then the two Shizukas. It might've been better if you'd made the background a solid color, or at least a less busy pattern. I think the noise detracts too much from the foreground. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do with the colored Shizukas, but if you wanted to give your wp even more depth you could've faded one of them.

Anyway, like I said, this is a very very good wp for your first try! I really hope you keep making graphics and posting them here so we can see your progress. http://instagiber.net/smiliesdotcom/kao/msroom/m-pati.gif

[mkfanatics]

thats pretty awesome for a first try!
I won't give any criticism cause my graphics are so bad, thats what i need, not you, lol!

[Sassy]

Thank you all so much for your help! I appreciate all of your comments. I understand what you're saying, and I think you are right. I was really just playing around, and seeing what I could do...because I really haven't ever used this program much before. No point, really, just playing. I tend to like simple stuff, but this just didn't work for some reason.
I'm off to try again...:)

[michellejkittie]

Sassy, that's great!