http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=byakuyawallpw1.jpg

This is my first attempt at making a wallpaper, so forgive the lack of quality. I found the Byakuya scan somewhere here in MT. Pls give any advice.

humm nice for first try really but i suppose critic will be better than praising

okay back to the wall
- the grass: well, about the nearer grass, color here isnot a good choice, it's too bright and the contrast isnot really good, you should try one light color and another darker for background color i suppose it should work well ^_^. secondly about the brush size, you'd better use various size of brush than only one like that, and the further, the smaller, various size will make your wall more real . when painting brush, tr your best to avoid seeing the grass plot ^_^, in the nearer grass it's hard to see( though i still can see it) but in the further grass, the one in the other bank of the river that's really a big problem. the further grass as i suppose should not be too big, i suggest you only 3~9px size is the best choices here ^_^, you can use blur for grass, it is nice, but dont abuse it, i feel like those blurry looks like a mess...same for the leaves, too much blur. the further grass should be thicker...you make me feel like there's one line of grass there, you also forgot the grass in the further side of the trees.

- water: nice, but next time be careful of the perspection, missing it, your river seem like only a piece of paper because the losing of 3D feeling.

- trees: also nice, quite normal but for the first try then it is nice, though i repeat with the leaves...what brush did you use for it? i suggest a long long thin one or there's default leaves brush in photoshop and remember this next time, in scenery, everything need to be various, the leaves in the tree can be left over but the blowing around, extremely needed to be in various size, or it'll look like some weird snowflakes flying around....

- scan: no idea ^_^, nice extraction, the quality isnot bad too

- sky: took too much space, then you should ring the grass and tree layer higher to shorter the sky , you also should add in a range of moutain far far away and some source of lightning. when the sky is too wide but there's no shine. is that weird? yes so next time lets remember ^_^. i also dont really like the inverse too, it seem to be the sky is in chao, or a signal of rain....and the pespertive isnot good too , i suggest you to use some clouds brush which you can find everywhere in the net. or when you get use with brush, you can playing around with only round brush but with the help of dodge tool, smudge tool and so on to create yourself an own sky ^_^. the sky is also lack of birds, birds brushes are not hard to find, it is used widely in MT too so it is not something really special.. but lack of it will gain bad result too *_*

that's enough for now ^_^, guess i said too much but you can really imrpove with your skill if this is really your first wallpaper
lets keep it up ^_^

I agree with nolove. The grass in the front just shocks. It is to bright. Just tone it down a bit.

I do like the trees and the depth you gave them. But lets get rid of the blowing leaves(green snow flakes).

Other than that GREAT FIRST WALLPAPER. Keep up the good work and it will get even better.

Later Daze and Laser Rays

Good try rit-san ^^ Pretty cool for a first timer
The background's a little bright though, especially the grass and the tree leaves. The water part is a little stiff looking, and some part of the clouds look a little watery somehow? But overall good try! And cool scan of Byakuya

I work a step at a time, that's just how it is.. In this one i tried to fix the grass near the foreground, and ONLY that, so ignore other bugs for the moment . Once everybody thinks it's good, then i'll get to fixing the others. ^^

merged: 09-03-2006 ~ 07:30am
--edit--
I also got rid of the "green snowflakes" as well..

merged: 09-03-2006 ~ 07:35am
Question: should i add some grass in FRONT of Byakuya?

merged: 09-03-2006 ~ 09:19am

and this is me having a go at the clouds.. used the smudge tool on this one..

merged: 09-03-2006 ~ 02:41pm

nevermind previous post.. this is me having a go at the water AND the clouds.. still, ignore the blurriness..

I'm always willing to give comment ^_^ so lets see
first i wanna say that i really adore your hard work especially because this is your first try at walling ^_^, but i'm sure you've get used with photoshop before if not i believe you cant create such lastest result ^_^

Back to the wall, lets see
- the water: too detailed , it may be good if a wall have enough details, not too less, but not too much, it seem like wood vain if you change the color to light brown, river should never have too muchh details like that, I suggest you to to use blur at lower than 40% opacity, i hardly check this for sure but i only use blur at very low opacity as 15~25 only. If not it might ruin your creation to something like magical clouds .
Do you see the blurrest area in the middle of the river? You should have notice that but i wonder why you still let it like that. This is the result of using too much blur, totally contradictory with the rest of the water. Even worse, it is the nearest area and if it's too blur...do you feel that it doesnt make sense?
I also suggest you to lighten the water color a lil bit ^_^, it is too dark and too sharp, not as light as your first version, but lighter than the lastest version...it is too much saturated, some more hue will be nice

- sky: impressive, it is not something perfect but i must admit that you successfully use distort. It is kinda still simple but I will not suggest you to add in anything since i feel like adding more thing may cause messy , it'll be too crowded if you didnt add in an artistic way....but let the cloud like that....well...think i guess it out ^_^. try a lens flare in the right corner, at lens flare in the sky layer or in a black layer and playing around with blending mode

- grass + leaves: i'm happy that you get rid of those snowflakes , even so, i still recommend some leaves(2~5 is enough ^^) but not in round shape, you can use default brushes of ps for that too . you should also try to rid of the flying leaves around the trees, carefully use erase to delete it ^_^, dont feel harsh it is not too much and you can make it better .
As for the grass, color is much better, but it is not really nice . the contrast between background and foreground color isnot enough. you should also choose lighter color in the left side of the color board, try use hue as less as possible, hue only fitted for abstract . the grass at the right corner isnot enough too, you should hide all the river with small size brush, it is not good seeing through grass like that .
the further grass, they're too blur, i said you should use blur, but next time try blur tool at most 25%opacity or use blur filter in a duplicated layer at 1~2 only dont just simply "blur" it. blur got a bad result if you didnt paint/use carefully . contrary, i dont know why you not paint blur at 100% opacity for the grass plot, blur untill you cant see it anymore, also blur the river at the further side a lil bit- just a lil bit. I recomend you to take a look at how to choose grass color and paint grass at *Lost the Way* by phamthuha , and how to blur grass at *Gentle side* by phamthuha . You'll sure can learn a lot experiences from these

I didnt say it the last time, but seem you need to be critic in a higher level , don't use the same trunks in one wall. You know, the fact is there never has tree with same trunk in reality, so try not to use it. furthermore, you can find more tree brush by searching the internet and changing it often. In *Lost the Way* by phamthuha prove that there're many kind of trees ^_^ so avoid using anything alike in scenery wall, unless viewer have no chance to realize it such as: cloud or something you can transform (unwritten rule )

I still keep my opinion that there should be moutain far away. if you can create one ^_^, then you can stock because it's far so it's hard to recognize the different between "real" and "illusion" ^_^. Now take a look at ~*The Gift of Life*~ by GundamZZ , *Summer Grape* by phamthuha ^_^

Answer your question, dont ever try to add grass in front of him. the grass field you didnt create can never reach to his knees. so dont make non sense

errmm, it's even longer than the previous post ^"^ but i hope you can improve from this

Yay! thanks a lot! i'll try and get to those as soon as i humanly can.. (which most likely will be next week due to school)

merged: 09-03-2006 ~ 11:15pm

and this is me trying my hand at making hills.. (i'm perfectly aware that there are some holes in the grass.. )
still haven't gotten to much else.. still struggling on different trees on a separate document. but i know i'll get there!1! ^^

omg, grass doesnt really look like hill at all but it is much better. once again, dont ever forget this , the further must be smaller and blurer . the brush size you used is too big
humm though it's still nice but it seem to make my view nearer. but as for the stop of the "hill" i still think you should try small size brush . the grass there's even bigger than those at the bank *___*

that's okay, you dont have to make this wall perfect just study step by step

lol.. i honestly just noticed it was too big when i tried it as my comp's background.. it looked fine on the psd..
okay, less talk, more work! ^^

merged: 09-04-2006 ~ 06:28pm
Okay, i made two different versions of the hills, both of which i think failed miserably, but i've decided to post all trials and errors (especially errors ).
this is the first:

and this is the second version:

i'll look forward to those beautiful (constructive) criticisms!

--edit--
the end result of the hills are supposed to be in the FAAAAR distance..

merged: 09-05-2006 ~ 05:16pm
crap, i just can't get how much i can blur it in PSD format and in JPEG format..

niice... still need work on hills thogh..

merged: 09-16-2006 ~ 07:52am
new tree~ lol.. also moved the overly blurred tree further back..

Great improvement from the first =) I love the sky.
The water: can be improved upon, I feel that the current 3D image of water you are using doesn\'t suit the 2D-ness of Byakuya and his surroundings.
Colour composition: perhaps you could make his rose more reddish, otherwise the picture would be just blues and greens.
Trees: Much better, although having 2 trunks for a tree looks weird. =)

Definately a lot of improvement on the first try sofar. I'm too lazy to read through everyone's comments heheh so if someone already mentioned this gomenasai ^_^*

On the far bank the grass looks like it is growng out of the water, the edge just isnt quite right. Other rhan that its looking great sofar, keep up the good work!

Here's me trying to trim some of the clouds, and adding in a sun.. (haven\'t seen how the sun looks in JPEG yet, though )..
and if anyone can tell me how/give me links to create 2D water.. and i also need advice on how to fix the far bank.. please and thank you. ^^

The concept you have is nice...but the scenery just doesn't match the sharp clear scan since its so blurry :O I think the things that really need work are the trees...unfortunatley I'm not sure how you would improve them. Also, there is a strange white spot in the upper right corner above one of the trees :s
Keep on trying, you'll get it totally awesome if you do!

alternate version.. new water and sky, and i removed the light effects as well... tell me what you all think. ^^

well, i like the new sky, it makes the "sun" a bit more visible, but it's still off..
and again, the grass seems to be sticking out of the water.. then there's the blurriness.. well, you can do it if you work on it! ^^

since there's no more reply, is this ready for the gallery or not? coz i personally don't think so