Erm..... I thought I would post it up for critique, anyway. No, there are no mechs in it. It's just that I've been trying to figure out how to do a number of things, and I wanted to try my hand at something of a self portrait that said a little bit about me, and my interests.....

Personally, I can't say I'm all that thrilled with this thing, but perhaps some of you who are more versed in photoshop can tell me where I went wrong.


Oh, and sorry if it's a bit large. It started out as an 8x10 but I backed it down to roughly a 5x7.



EDIT: WOAH, NELLIE!!!! Big is one thing, but that was a monster! Lemme try this size thing again

Ok, let's see if this is any better:

There isn't a single thing I can add. You are so far beyond my meager skills it's not even funny.

That is a sweet image.

Thanks, Catz. I keep thinking there are things I want to change, but right now, I just don't know how.....

Hiya Fury, this is Ivy, Bec's wife...

What may be making you unhappy is your conflicting light source. With the light where it is, your stonehenge would be in total silhouette...you wouldn't be seeing all those lovely details. As it stands, the bright light rather detracts from the rest of the image. My suggestion would be to consider moving it to the left side of the image, flip your profile around, and still it so the light is on the left side, so then the profile, the horse and then stonehenge would all have a more definitely defined lightsource that is consistant within the entire group.

I really like what you've started here, I think with a little tweaking it would be excellent.

My 2 cents, for what they're worth...

Ivy

Thanks loads, Ivy! I will definitely give that a try.

Another thing is that unfortunately my starfield didn't scale properly, so the pattern tiled up all over the background. Gonna be fixing that too.

She saye, your most welcome

Ooooo

That's mighty cool

Did you try locking the layer with the starfield?

Its a Great Image!

I am not really sure what is the message in the picture. I like how the dolmens, the rock and the circuits blend. What did you use on the face's layer... a hard light opacity effect? You could try to 'screen' it instead, because it looks like it has a dark, gloomy look and it looks imprisoned by the surrounding colors.

Unless, of course, this is exactly what you're trying to achieve and then I would only tell you to play with the brightness of the circles.

Nice work.

Aside from the lightsourse that Ivy pointed out, I'm wondering a bit about the background behind stonehenge... Perhaps some bumpmapped noise would look better? I'm not too fond of the tiled look, but if it suits ya, stick with it. It looks great as is.

Yeah, I was most displeased to find out that what appeared to be a perfectly spiffy starfield turned into my bathroom tile once I sized the thing. Instead of trying to figure out what looked right and then locking the layer, I just ditched the idea of a star field altogether and stuck with the lens flare filter to provide the lightsource.

Thanks to Ivy's suggestion ( you know Bec, you really oughta get her registered here- having genuine artistic imput is a fabulous thing), I made my changes- and ended up with three different versions using three different pics of myself.

I'll have them posted up here momentarily- along with a description of exactly what the hell I'm trying to say here (if any of you care to listen to it, anyway).

She's on the shy side Fury, but I'll talk to her about it

Ok. Here's the story for any of you that care to listen. This being a self portrait of me, not only did I want to just show myself, but I also wanted to say a little bit about what makes me tick. And, more mundanely, I wanted to finally figure out the masking thing in photoshop. So I plowed through my images that I have, stuck 'em in their own folder and got started.

I'll start with the cave wall- Prehistoric art is one of the things that really, really digs deep down in my psyche. In my opinion, when you see that stuff- you aren't seeing the work of some limp-wristed Art-eest whining and moaning about mood and socio-economic oppression, and then the fruit-loop cuts off his ear and mails it to some poor woman. What you see is the result of someone who *had* to paint that. When you're life expectancy is next to nil, you don't do anything that you don't think will help you stay alive. Art was magic. It came from some wild, uninhibited space within, and was just turned loose. I believe it was Thomas Edison that termed it "Holy Fire"- and whenever I do anything, that is a state I crave more than oxygen. The horse that is on the cave wall in that image is a watercolor that I did a few years back, when I started really studying prehistoric art. I've done a number of pieces since, but to me, that one still captures that feeling more than anything else.

Also on the wall is an outline of an owl. Any ancient history buffs around here will recognize it as being Athena's owl- the one that is on the reverse side of a greek coin with Athena on it. Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom and Tactical Warfare. Along with Bast, I've always dug Athena- and it's somewhat appropriate that she's become the Geek's Goddess of the Information Age. In the first attempt, I left the owl in outline, thinking to make it one of those things you see only after you've looked at the image for a while, but in the subsequent edits, I've given it a slight glow to bring it out a bit more. It balanced a little better that way, and didn't detract from the mystique of the image. In short, I liked the glow, so I kept it.

Then, of course, we have Stonehenge. That picture was actually taken from one of my own photographs of the place- just as the first pic of me was. The amazing thing about this place is that it's pretty much stuck out in the middle of some farmer's sheep pasture..... And sites like these are almost ubiquitous in that area. But again, it's just one of those things that if your ears are tuned the right way, you can really hear the magic.

Final element is the circuit board. I put this in there to bring the ancient around full circle to the modern, and also to represent that I am (although quite amateur) a computer enthusiast. But, how different is it, really from a painting done on a wall millions of years ago? Most of us don't really know how it works, but for so many of us, our livelihoods depend on it.

So..... without trying to sound too off the wall and flaky- Take a moment, open your eyes a different way, and listen really, really close. See it? Hear it? It's magic .

Ok, as I said, I did three versions of the thing, so I'll just post them up to see who likes which best.

After working on all three, I think I still like the first one with the changes made, but I'd still like any opinions.

Version2:




EDIT: Image removed.

And here's version 3:



EDIT: Image removed.

Awww you see...now that *glows* Rock on ...

That's from my wife...she says "I don't know what else to say" but she is smiling so I know that means you did great in her eyes...

As for me ...... The past is near and dear to my heart and yes i do have the ears to hear it.

Well done my friend

The first one sings if you listen

And I could ask for no better compliment. Thank you both!

First one with the removed starfield, definately. + with a good dose of .

i like the first one, where the face image is very faint..

the other two while good, look almost lords of the rings posters.. maybe just a bit to much the self portrait image.. maybe fade them out a bit more.. or apply some type of effect to them..

Definitely the first one. The second doe sorta look like a movie post like MT was saying, while the third looks like you put in your graduating pocture from starfleet academy. I gotta say though all three are pretty amazing...

IM very HO under certain circumstances a moon could fit the image better than the "sun lightsource"

- maybe simply 'cause this kind of light sources are strongly associated with imaging programs,
esp. when you intend to use it on a website. When printed out in it's current form,
I guess it's effect would be so different that it'll loose that association.

- A moon - maybe even in sickle form - might fit your overall theme better,
esp. as it adds to the mystic stonehenge aura; and to the element of creativity
as artistic people are not dependant on strict daily routine in order to produce art.

Just my 2 cent.

=> Please mark that the "a moon is more feminine"-argument wasn't used above

Panzer- I do like your idea, and it may very well be one that I'll tinker with.

I agree about the conotations of the Moon and creativity-and I even understand the moon being more feminine element as well.

One of the things that made me use the effect I did (just the simple lens flare) is that it genuinely looks like a *light* source, if you get my meaning. At this point, my skills in photoshop aren't up to understanding how I can get something to be giving off what I consider to be a believable light.

However, I can say that I printed the thing out in the full 8x10 size, and the effect held remarkably true. Even on crappy paper.



Everybody, thank you very much for your input- it is very much appreciated. Since the overall consensus has been that the first one is the better of the three, I'm gonna take the second two down to conserve a bit of bandwidth. Again, thanks for the input.

really nice work there Fury!