Anyone up for some good, ol' fashioned criticism?

[tenaciousg]

Long story short, I decided to do PPV posters for a game of TEW I'm doing. First PPV up is No Way Out. I decided to keep the same kind of poster style they had in real life, just with a different superstar.

(made in GIMP 2, if you're wondering.)

All I did was enlarge the Edge pic (though that made it kind of blurry and pixelated), so that gave me the idea to put in a lighting effect. The logo, to me, didn't really fit with the way the bars looked, so I hiked up the contrast a little. I also did that after I finished the placement, to make things stand out a little more. I didn't put any text in because all the fonts I have look hopelessly generic and didn't really fit with the poster anyway; which pretty much means I just took three PSDs and made everything a little darker.

So, I'm just wondering what some of the graphic vets here think.

Edited September 9, 2009 by TenaciousG

[K]

You're right, the edge pic is far too blurry. There must be bigger ones you can use? Also something to note is that edge and the chain are being lit from different angles, which is a little confusing. The light is clearly hitting edge on [our] upper left, whereas the chain seems to be lit from [our] mid-right.

It's a nice concept though.

[Hornswoggle4PM]

Like the idea, but Edge looks like he's far away from the chains. The pic doesn't fit that well but that's all I can criticise.

[tenaciousg]

I meant for Edge to look far from the chains for a reason - unlike Kozlov, who will kick the ever-loving crap out of you, Edge is more reserved, more precise with his actions so they have the most effect... the Ultimate Opportunist. Thus, he would be lurking in the back of the cell, waiting to strike until it benefits him, so he wouldn't be at the door ready to wail on the others when it opened. I meant to keep it close to what it was in real life, but different.

And hopefully, I'll find a better pic of whoever the next person is. Thanks for the comments, anyway.

Edited September 12, 2009 by TenaciousG

[Hornswoggle4PM]

Good point, it's more his character to lure someone into a trap (as it looks in the picture to me).

[K]

Faking the depth of field is quite an advanced concept, but can be done quite simply. Check out some of these tutorials...

From easy to difficult...

http://www.rnel.net/tutorial/Photoshop/13297

http://www.minervity.com/news/2-ways-to-create-realistic-depth-of-field/

http://www.tutorial9.net/photoshop/enhancing-images-with-depth/

http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_51/essay.html