Didn't take me too long, and i'm quite happy with it.

Man! I was looking for that stock to use for my Galadriel sig. XD Yours looks great! You are definitely improving. You've got the feathering technique down, and your background is really cool looking. I came up with a list of three things that you can work on-

1. The colors in the background don't compliment Galadriel's face. It's too bright and way too orange. Don't worry, you can do a number of things to fix this. First you might want to try lowering the opacity of the brushes you used. That way, they won't stand out as much. next, you can try lowering the brightness of the sig as a whole. Finally, the best tool for you to use when matching a subject and a background is "Match Color". If you use photoshop, I can give you instructions on where to find it.

2. The text is very difficult to read. This problem might be solved once you make the background darker; I'm not sure. You might also want to try and find a different font for the subtext. Instead of changing the font color to make text more visible, you should try and play with text effects. I usually give my text a little shadow, which makes it pop off the image and stand out. You can also make text glow and other such things.

3. The white flourish on top of Galadriel just doesn't fit with the rest of the sig. It's also not really a good idea to cover up your subject, in my opinion. I think if you changed the color to a light yellow, put it behind Galadriel, and lowered the opacity, it would look just fine.

I hope that helps. =]

Right, it looks much better know. I'm not sure if that is enough dropshadow, though.



and the old one for comparison:

That is actually very cool, and you've definitely improved. The only things that don't really fit in are galadriel and the text, really. Galadriel doesn't blend, she's tooo big and the colours are ruined with her. That's really a shame, because the bg looks very nice, and so do the effects. The text is distracting, and it'd look better without it really.

So, yeah, maybe try removing galadriel and adding a different render/stock. Maybe anime, just something that fits. I prfer the first version, the vibrancy fits.

You've got these effects done nicely, but their arrangement needs to be improved. try arranging them to create some flow, and look more appealing, instead of just lying around randomly.

It's a great style, just keep working and experimenting with your arrangement and compostion a bit, and it'd look really good!

So, good job, I think your best yet!

Is that for the second version or the first...

Well, you did a great job with the second version, but Beefy is right. Colors that would work well with Galadriel are white and pale yellow, not orange. The background looks awesome, so you might want to look for a subject that has orange/bright yellow colors. I do like that picture of Galadriel, so maybe you should try a different sig with a different color background. I would also try making the backgruond more elegant looking, to go with the whole Elven-theme.

But you did do an awesome job on fixing the initial version. You are definitely improving A LOT. =]

Yeah. I'm just stuck with what backgrounds to use that are abstract and only one colour range.

Like this? Washed ot background, less pattern, bit of elvish script.



Also, do you happen to know of any brushes that have elven patterns?