Wallpaper feedback please

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Himither

Himither

H~I~H

WARNING------------------------------------(...)
This first post is way to wordy and it's 90% sure I'll submit this wallpaper shortly so ignore it please.
The pictures alone pretty much tell the process, but I tried to put it into words with too much detail and it ended up in a big mess. -_-
WARNING------------------------------------(...)

Hiho,

after posting the final version of this, while waiting for feedback I was already working on another wallpaper.
And yesterday, after a brutal final lasting hours after hours I finally got to the point where I would love to ask for your opinions.

This is the scan I used

Spoiler (show)

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/03.02.15/iffpysbh75r.png

It started with paint.net until Lina looked all orange/red-ish, around that time I only changed colors, saturation, contrast and stuff nothing more, but especially the hair turned out pretty good and it left me with something to work on, in photoshop that is.
That version is sadly lost, because I didn't think about keeping track around that time, but in the next version you can still see how the hair turned out.
The differences are :
I colored her skin, made the earrings look more yellow-ish and made here shirt look more red-ish.

Lookit! xD
[spoiler]http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/03.02.15/ynlf1sljc2de.jpg


(Sry in advance, I don't know the english names)
After using the swipe-finger tool -> oil paint filter -> diffuser/blur tool
it turned into this

Spoiler (show)

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/03.02.15/5qz4xbg5fm4p.jpg


After this I tried fixing the little light points and used the blur tool on the earring too.
Then the muse of photoshop made me find the "Replace Color" under
Image/Adjustments -> Third from bottom
After some more blur tool on the hair and shirt to mix the colors this was the result

Spoiler (show)

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/03.02.15/kq4y3anqq21n.jpg


Now I used the polygon-lasso tool to copy the shadow areas and played around with "Replace Colors" to create the shadows in color until I found a setting that I liked which was
Tolerance 80
Shade 0
Saturation 15
Brightness -15

Finally I decided to cut out Lina and create my own background.
I created three auras in different ways for Lina,
a black one,a dark-red and a yellow/white one,
too make her fit in better with the new background.

For the background I used a monocolored base, three brushes that come with photoshop (grass and two different leaf brushes) and the stars from this scan.
It didn't take long and it turned into something I was satisfied with, but I'm worried I was satisfied tooo fast. >_<

Anyway,I came up with this

Spoiler (show)

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/03.02.15/n59dx4gtege.jpg


Sadly until this point I was working 1920x1080, but I believe the wallpaper survives the 2560x1440 resize pretty good, but what do you think?

So I created a separate 2560x1440 .psd and added my tiny sig at the right bottom, searched for all kind of nice fonts and tried to come up with a text.
Finally I found the HDR option and played around with it to create the latest version.

I'll play around with the HDR options a bit more to get a better result (kinda to bright right now in my opinion) and the light points need some more fixing,
but other that that I'm really happy with how this turned out to be.

But that's me, what about you guys? o,O

H~I~H

Signature Image

it looks nice but i the snowflakes/ light rbs are only seen on the Character so i would suggest to darken the BG so the Flakes/Orbs can bees seen on the whole wallpaper more

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Hmm, yeah the light orbs started to bug me, too.
In the manga scene they're simple there to show "Look how cute I can be!" *smile*", but like this they're simply in the way.
I guess'll try taking them out, doesn't seem too hard.

H~I~H

Signature Image

you could play around with some effects on it or change the colormode.

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Hiho,

I completely removed the light orbs afterall. *sweatdrop*


Other updates:

Fixed the white edges of the sleaves
Fixed the white line in the middle of the shirt
Drew the bottom line on the right hand more smooth
Slightly changed the shirt texture (a bit shaper and brighter)
Changed the bandana texture

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/05.02.15/td4ug4wtvh.jpg

Around this time I'm finally convinced this is good to go. Any thoughts and/or ideas? Shall I do it? xD

H~I~H

Signature Image

It looks better, definitly, maybe you could try making her hair less intense, a lighter brown tone could looks better.

Alenas

Retired Moderator

Alenas

Gone.

Holy crack, so many...edits and updates...Perhaps it would be good to add all your updates and edits separately in new posts after you get feedback 'cause right now, I'm not even sure what to click on anymore. >_>

Anyway, I agree that the hair is a bit too intense compared to the rest. Also, maybe I skipped it in your first post but can we see what image you based that wallpaper on? Was it a scan/screenshot? Textures are fun but I must admit I'm not too fond of those textures/effects/filters(?) on the hair; it makes the edges look kind of frizzy and fuzzy. Also, I would ditch those grass brushes you used on the left side since they also look pretty odd like that - I mean, you can tell that the roots seemingly sprout out of nowhere, giving the impression that the grass is cut off midway. Those brushes are handy but only if done right. The leaves are kinda random, too; you also have that texture in the background and that text so there's enough going on in the wall. If you want to add something more to the wall instead of leaves and grass, you can add some subtle (and I do mean subtle) bokeh effects scattered around (those round transparent-ish circles/orbs like HERE) to spice things up. If you also want that left corner to look less empty, I suggest lowering that typography a bit more to the bottom and to the right, in the same line as Lina's earring (HER right earring).

These are just my suggestions, you don't have to follow them. This looks nice as it is and has potential; I really like the typography so good luck and keep it up!

Signature Image

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Hmm, I have to agree the first post is a total mess, better clean that up later on and make it more overseeable.

Here's the scan, which was hidden in that mess. :P Sorry.

Spoiler (show)

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/03.02.15/iffpysbh75r.png

I'll try and see how it looks with the hair less intense/more brownish, should be easy. To begin with the orginal Lina has brownish/brunette hair, too.
Maybe the hair texture will look better that way, too. If not a bit more transparency maybe. Let's see~

Regarding the leafes and grass, I rather would like to keep them.

But now that you said it, the grass really seems to come from nowhere. I have to do something about that, make it look like there's ground/soil.
And maaaybe if it find some fitting image of a tree, I could add that to the top left corner to make it look like the leafes are falling down from it,
but there's no much space for that kinda thing and I don't know much about perspective. But'll give it a try.

Thanks for the feedbacks, time to work again. >_<

H~I~H

Signature Image

As i see from your original scan you could make character a little bit smaller so it doent feel crowded also i would try removing the textures of the character i think it looks kinda unclean.

the text could also stick a liitle bit more out likea border to the text maybe,
Thats my opinion so theres no reason to consider my advice but i would at least try it out just to see some difference

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

I fear the amount of work it would take to resize what I have now and match the rest from the scan. OTL
But I shall try and see if I can handle it, this wallpaper is almost like like a testground to begin with, a testground for new techniques and stuff.
And a bit more space could be nice.

Regarding textures:
I guess I could make a version with no textures for people who don't like them. Like here.
Or is that a feature for more/longer active people? Please say no. o.o

I'll try playing with the text, haven't touched the layer fx stuff yet, even though I always excessively used it back then...strange.

But still,I never thought I would work so hard on wallpapers again after almost 10 years. xD
Again no gaming for me today, but I better make use of this insane drive right now.

H~I~H

Signature Image

its great to work on things you love :)

About that feature, i think its more like you can see previouse versions which where added/Updated after the first version was submitted in the Gallery.
Sometimes Wallers use that featuere to add a alternative version of the same wall like a Monochrome Version or a textless version

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Hiho,

I made some changes:

-different background texure
-used a gradient on the background to make the area with the grass darker and more level so it looks more like ground
-changed the background color a bit
-made the background behind and around the text darker, so it's better to read (the layer fx don't seem to work well on this font)
-cleaned up the shirt (noticed that it's wasn't evenly colored when making the version without textures on the character
-reduced the opacity of the character textures
-widened the aura around the character and filled it with a bit of texture

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/09.02.15/abwr59l3jwtr.jpg http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/09.02.15/1s2mcztzu8mj.jpg

Well there was other stuff I wanted to do, but I must admit by now I've gotten a bit tired of working on this so this is very likely the final version. >.<
I'll wait a day or two and see if my mind drastically changes, if not it's time to submit.
I guess it's time to set my sights back on the sketchbook wallpaper.

Thanks for all the feedback guys/girls. :)

H~I~H

Signature Image

Sometimes its better to move to the next one then spending to much time on one and the.
Not every Scan/Pictures can be made into a wallpaper, sometimes its possible due to skills or mood like you said to give it sometime and then decide.

my Comment for this one i have to say you might change the Aura back also i noticed that you older Versions were sharper then Those two ;)

pandemonium91

Retired Moderator, Tagger

pandemonium91

Well, if you're still working on it, I'd honestly advise to get rid of the maple leaves and patches of grass. Perhaps add some red bokeh spots to the background as well, so they match Lina. The coloring is nice, buut I'd suggest copying the layer with the original scan, putting it on top of the colored version of Lina and setting it to something like 10% opacity on Color Burn or Multiply; as it is, the image looks too smudged and blurry, it needs a bit of sharpening.

For the background there're plenty of grunge-ish textures out there you can combine. sirius-sdz is a goldmine for pretty textures; grab a few and play with blending modes, erasing parts of them etc. This texture in particular I can see looking really nice in the background, behind Lina (with the "busier" part on the right of the screen, not covered up by her).

If you can't handle me at my best, then you don't deserve me at my worst!

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Man that texture sure would fit nice, I'll keep that one and sirius-sdz generally in mind.

After getting the wallpaper of my mind for a day, I've decided to let it rest for now, work on the sketchbook one and come back later.
Thinking about it carefully, what wants to prevent my further working on this wallpaper is simply laziness and lack of endurance. I shall not succumb to those. >_<
Submitting now would be a waste, I want my first wallpaper after years to leave me satisfied. xD

Especially when I see the white parts of the sleaves and the center part of the shirt, which I redraw later on when I've gotten kinda better, I just know how much sharper Lina could...nah should be. o.o
I also had to learn the hard way, that it's better too use too many layers as a beginner than otherwise while working on this wallpaper.
So much stuff I can't edit anymore like I want to without having to work my ass of unnecessary.

It's like a game without autosave, which crashes after playing 6 hours straight. Best to take a bigger break and let it rest, before redoing it.
At least I don't have to redo the whole game.

H~I~H

Signature Image

I i make a break with a wallpaper and start another then usually i wont touch it again ever but your right you have to be satisfied so why dont you browse for the gallery for now for new ideas about backgrounds and Textures.
In thze beghinning i worked like that too but i choose scan where i could make some extantions like the Sky and make a rtistic feeling to it by overlaying it with a texture.

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Don't scare me. xD
Well, let's see wether or not it will be different for me.

H~I~H

PS: Find the easteregg. xD

Signature Image

Hello there. ^^ I really like this scan and judging by what you have already done I think it can work out as a wallpaper (if you are still interested).
I am not a pro at making wallpapers but I have some thoughts and suggestions. Hope that they can be useful.

As for Lina herself, I think that she looks the best in this version except for the hair color. I find it more appealing here but if I were you I would make it just slightly darker or a little bit less saturated.

I agree with the idea that the backgroud is kinda off here. Why not try to add something more character-related? Since it is Lina, I would recommend to put some golden coins and treasures on the background. ^^ I'm sure that it is possible to Google some suitable textures or brushes. Any tasty food, especially meat, could also work out because Lina looks quite dreamy here but I doubt that you need a comic effect. ^^ At the very least, you can just try putting some sparkles to show that Lina is trying to look cute.

I like how you merged the words "Slayers" and "smile". I'm not sure but probably it would look good if you tried crossing Lina's name with the word "smile" because "Lina" has "i" and "Inverse" has "e"... Not sure that this can work out but I think it is worth trying. Just a suggestion.

And one more thing, I recommend you to avoid using standard and well-known brushes and fonts. That's a thing that I myself was told and now I understand that this is a good piece of advice. It's not that stars and leaves on your most recent versions of this wallpaper are bad but they are too common. I wonder if there is a person who uses Photoshop and who haven't seen them too often. ^^' If you want to make something more interesting it is better to search for custom brushes, textures and fonts and to choose something that can really fit the character.

Good luck to you anyway!

current anime obsession: K Project (since 2012)

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Urgh...just wanna mention, I just lost another way too wordy post thx to firefox messing around. xxD
But that might be good, now I want too keep it short(er):

Buyed a graphics tablet, learning how to use it now. This will probably take a good amount of time.
As soon as feel confident I'll trace Lina from the scan and draw the upper part of her head/hair myself.
I actually already did that on real paper, by tracing directly from the display, and it looks good. (was bored while waiting for the tablet xD)

Than I'll do the same for some slayers-/lina-related background, color it once more and see what you guys think.

Anyway, just wanna say I'm not dead yet and I didn't lose interest or something,
but it'll be quite some time until the next update since I decided to go a bit further with this whole business then actually planned.

@Aliceblond
Oh, cool to see someone who actually knows more about Lina/Slayers here. xD
I'll keep Linas hair brighter next time and, as I said, something more related for the background is already planned.
Regarding the text, I actually have a version where the I from "smile" and L from "Lina" are connected, but wasn't to happy with that.
I'll give that some more thought later on.
And, "Yeah..." retrospectively it really seems strange to use those default brushes, especially when I already made the effort and searched through so many different fonts and textures. o_O

H~I~H

Signature Image

Lina Inverse is still one of my most favourite characters so I'm looking forward to see a nice wallpaper featuring this strong little girl. ^^
It's nice that you've got a tablet now, this thing is a very big help whenever you draw, or vector, or edit a picture in some way. I've bought a tablet about a month and a half ago and I am so happy that I have it now. Actually it helped me to finish my very first wallpaper to be added in the MT gallery. I'm sure that you'll learn how to work with the tablet quite soon and it will be useful in your work. Make sure to check out different programs, tablets work well not only with PS but with SAI too, for example. I think that SAI could be a good option for tracing since it is possible to make vector-tracing there, if I remember correctly.
So, good luck to you again and I'll try to monitor this tread from time to time to see your progress. ^^

current anime obsession: K Project (since 2012)

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

Yeah Lina...or rather Slayers is among my all time favourites.
Actually I would say it's my most favorite, since it's the first big anime I saw outside of the regular stuff on TV, also the first time listening to the greatness of japanese voice acting. Add two first times to a show that's great to begin with and you get something you'll remember. xD

But, while there is a lot of artwork of Slayers to be fund there isn't too much HD-stuff around, that has to change.
Hopefully I'll have something worthy to offer later on.

I'm already getting used to the tablet the hardcore-way, plugged out my logitech mouse and now I'm only using the pen to do everything. xxD
It's just crazy how easy and fun it is to control the flow, size and all kind of other stuff just with how much pressure you use on the tip of some plastic stick. o.O

Oh and you might like this: To learn using the pen and brushes I actually scanned the outer cover of a Slayers Artbook I've got and tried to fix it up so it can be used as a (plain) wallpaper.

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/20.02.15/qi6b35wbl7sd.jpghttp://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/20.02.15/u1lw3a74l51.jpg

Man, that text on the bottom! Sun of a beach! O_o

Maybe I'll actually debind it later on to scan the whole thing, since on the whole web there ain't a set off good & complete scans from it and the same goes for the second artbook.
But not with this crappy scanner, gotta do something about that first. >_<

I'll check out this vector-tracing business, too.

H~I~H

Signature Image

Well in my case I had to watch Slayers fan-dubbed bc there were no other options at that moment (oh those early 2000s). But at least I had a chance to hear and admire all the songs, especially the ones by Hayashibara Megumi-san. ^^

As for your training with fixing the cover scan, I'd say that you did a good job. I think that you removed all the text from the characters quite well. But, on the other note, the background looks kinda dirty. I'd recommend to erase all the background and replace it with a new layer with a color fill. Or maybe add some textures on the existing version of the pic to hide all the dirty places. Both ways of fixing this thing could be useful for further training. ^^
(I hope you don't mind that someone who is an amateur herself gives you recommendations and suggestions what to do)

Also, if you will actually scan the artbook and other Slayers-related stuff I'm sure that it will be appreciated. ^^ And of course I would like to see any new versions of your Slayers wallpaper if there is any progress yet. ^^

current anime obsession: K Project (since 2012)

Himither

Himither

H~I~H

What, go rewatch Slayers subbed right now! xD Megumi's amazing voice is good enough already, but there's also Hikaru for Zelgadis.
Aw heck they're all good, proven by the fact that when they got together once again for Slayers Revolution you couldn't hear a difference. รด.O

Regarding the scan, thanks. I cleaned up the background a bit but didn't recolor it, too lazy. xxxxD
If this every turns into a wallpaper I'll do it.

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/24.02.15/ar76lum3ja95.gif

So I decided to not use vectors on this Slayers wallpaper, I'll also keep the close-up of Lina instead of using the whole scan, too lazy again.
I also tell myself the excuse: "The title is smile, so the focus needs to be on the face!". :p

Instead I'm thinning/sharpening all the lines to get closer to the scan once again. I swear: "I'LL NEVER USE HDR- & OIL-FILTER AGAIN!". xxD
Also erased the stupid standart brushes, brigthened the hair and added the thinges on her eyes that got lost somewhere.

But I didn't the forsace vectors, actually I'm working with vectors on a revamp of an old school rumble wallpaper I made years ago. Since I'm working on both the progress is a bit slow, especially since I'm slow to begin with. xxD
(Sorry my poor Sketchbook wallpaper, I'll get back to you afterwards T_T)

And regarding the artbook, a friend will lend me his scanner next weekend so I can try my hands on that. But I still didn't debind the book, although I already saw/read about all kinds of tutorials on that topic it's still kinda hard to actually try it. :P

H~I~H

Signature Image

I think you just got the habit of using more the Software effects then actually looking for tutorial to show you some combination for effects. the filter wont help you much improving Wallpapers sotry your luck the Path tool to make a abstract image maybe since it would fit the scan

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