Posted 05 January 2009 - 21:54
Hmmm, it isn't bad but there are several changes that could be made.
1/ Sadly I disagree with Dr on the BG. It's far to busy for what is a static render. You have a spiral[ish] vector, something that appears to be runes/japanese writing overlapped by a smashed fractal, which imo doesn't work and is compositional murder on the eyes.
2/ The render is massively undersized for the signature width. I would have suggested using a larger version with less body and more face/chest and then cropping out the turret and making more of it. Alternatively you could've have duplicated the turret and perhaps used it as a "tight in" backdrop to the main engineer. 3 or 4 turrets pointing each way from behind the engineer and then used the C4d/fractal or vector brushes to highlight that.
3/ Scan lines can work, but should always be used sparingly when you have little depth in the signature. Also I would suggest never placing them over a cutout render.
4/ Clipping masks aren't great for cutouts as it will take ages to fine tune the pixels. Now you have too much bleed spilling with your outer glow and it doesn't look clean enough [imo]. In future find the layer that has the BG and ctrl+a, new layer then fill. If necessary duplicate the render and place on top or move the scans underneath.
5/ Colouration. Too much red. I'd suggest throwing in some yellow as it does form quite an obvious part of the engineers uniform.
6/ Focus. This has none. You have your render separated and name even further which makes this sig too spaced out. Always, always try and keep your name as close to the focus of the art as you can. And NEVER use arial [iirc that is, although I stand to be corrected]. As a rule always use century gothic unless you have a piece that requires the use of a certain stylised font ie CnC sig with ZH font.
I hope some of that helps? You have shown some skillz none-the-less.