Taken all of the comments in for the dark link thread, and considered them, to make this sig.



Used: Background, [1] [2]
Main: [1]

Worktime: 1 hour

It looks roughly the same, lots of distortion and C4D's. The blending is really poor, as the focal has too much red and gold to match the background well, and it's very bright and poorly blended-- the focal has the same effects on it as the background, and it's a bit disorienting. Overall, it's a pretty weak piece. Also, no text.

The render isn't blending good with the background. You over-distored the image, and the colors aren't matching well. The lightining isn't so good. I'll recommend you a signature composition tutorial: http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/viewto...p?f=14&t=40265.
Please read it all, and you'll get better. Good luck!

Depth is the main issue with this sig. The focal looks really flat against the background. Remember to use a light gaussian blur on the background of about 0.2-1.0 on the background.

The render looks quite distorted and sort of ugly as well.

It does still look like you've taken 2 c4ds and plonked a render on top. That's not how it works. Experiment with graident maps and other layer adjustments, pen tool, brightness/contrast, burn/dodge, smuges, clipping masks, stocks and fractals to vary your effects.

Remember to read up on tutorials. This guy has some fantastic ones which I thouroughly reccomend you try: http://www.peewee1002.co.uk/index.html.

Always think about depth, flow and lighting as well.

wow, than for the tutorials, they will help sooo much. and btw, I didn't plonk them together, I blured, added highlights and drew sketchmarks for a more un realistic detail look.

Check the tutorial that I gave to you and you'll get a good knowledge of signatures. Peewee1002's tuts are also good.