Quote (Tetu_880 @ Apr 7 2015 10:36am)
It's certainly an improvement but it has a lot of the same downfalls. Too many effects that add nothing, and poor execution of lighting. There is some serious drop shadow abuse here for no reason that I can tell. The squiggles, again I would simply not include them until they are very sharp, all of their curvature is relative and actually smooth, and they can actually lend to the piece and not detract. I'm guessing you are going for leather texture everywhere? The main one is pretty off but this is a problem due to your lighting.
The top border suggests a top white light source that isn't very strong. The quest label suggests a yellow and very strong but small light source from the top left. The main background would suggest a light blue light source that is radial and quite weak, but the leather would suggest that somehow the indents are linear while the rest of the leather is a curved surface? Then the brown leather buttons go back to having a slight left top weak white light. This makes it all seem very slapped together. I'm guessing this is either because you copy/pasted patterns from google with established light and didn't follow that established light, or you used multiple different tutorials that suggested different lighting angles and gradients.
Again, this is why I tried to stress that copying a tutorial verbatim is not he goal, you want to understand what each step/filter/blending achieves so you can better understand how to apply them together. Don;t get me wrong, this is a substantial improvement form the original one even if the only thing you have picked up is using more subtle blending filters, but you still need to better understand how lighting affects your designs and the incredible impact it has in making multiple pieces look like they actually belong.
Keep practicing, it takes time.
Thanks!
I used only two textures, both labeled for reuse with modification. But no dominant light source was apparent in either. Also I didn't use any tutorials, I just went by what I thought would look good.
All of these are only components that would then be placed accordingly to make a desired window, like for example an inventory or something. So yes right now I agree things look simply slapped on but that's because they are. This is just showing the components.
Also I sized it down by 50% to post here, but even at full size I can only do so much to get the curves sharp due to pixel limitations... but also i'm using a tablet and i'm not really too good at drawing.
And of course the text is just placeholder text, so the drop-shadows on those are just to make it look a little better...
So that's exactly what i'll do next, I'll look up some good lighting tutorials and apply them next time.
Don't be afraid to tell me what you think guys, i can certainly take constructive criticism.