That was no where near logical.
and it wasn't even a funny kind of illogical.
/backontopic.
The cup in itself is bad.
its a 3d cylinder, with a 3d handle.
meaning you could have shaded the handle.
and your shading is just bad.
the fuck man.
second.
If you cant draw a background
dont fucking use some random clip art.
oh god this would be ten times worse if there was no background.
I would suggest penciling shit out on paper(if you know how) and scanning it//taking a picture and transferring it to your comp, because the linework on this is just BAD.
The skull is slightly better since there isn't a disgusting rusty background or whatever.
but you still don't understand shading.
shadows don't do this.
just putting this here cause you obviously need it :
Light comes from a source usually above your object, meaning that shadows are cast in the opposite direction of the light.
Examples :
Selling Heads
Nice, but you don't shade with black and white other colors (common mistake)
Try shading the sphere with a range of blues that go from dark to light. Shading with the dodge/burn tool won't help you improve with your shading (use a brush and experiment with colors) You need to think 3D, your sphere doesn't look like it because you didn't shade it properly. The highlight wasn't marked and the transition between the shadows and light doesn't look quite well when they change from dark to light.
(This might help)
There's a selection thing in GIMP similar to the one in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjFk7...e_gdata_player
Im on my phone so I can't search more stuff :s