First!

Vaaaaaal! Ya got a new gallery! You know I love your stuff, especially your banners. Only problem....not enough arts! I can't wait to see more of your work, girl!

<sub>SECOND!
VAL! eeee! new gallery! And I'm second!
(to Nala again )

and OMG. your 2 chapter images are gorgeous! your blend, too! D:
+this is probably my favorite piece in your gallery! MAKE MORE. (:
melovesyourstuff. <3</sub>

Nala: Yay for the first! *hands Nala a muffin*

I most definitely agree with you, I need more stuff. I'm currently working on new sigs and banners, trying to develop a style...
Thanks for the lovely comment!

Sam: Thanks for commenting, hun! You can have a muffin too! *throws you one*

YAYY! im like third? am i? i swear i will edit, because i love your gallery
YAYAYA Val I love your whole gallery. Those banners are just gorgeous.

Yousef: Aww, thanks fo the lovely comment, I'm glad you like my stuff!

FOURTH??
VAL!!! what is this??!?!?

anyways...
THIS banner is AMAZING!!! gahh! it's so beautiful, and i think its my favorite thing in your beautiful gallery although i haven't seen everything yet.
*scrolls down to look at rest of gallery*
ok. i lied. everything in here is GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!
THIS is loff, really. and you chappie images. :O i am jealous XD

make more pretties pease!!!!!
ily!!

ps: do i get a muffin for being fourth?

Fifth.. Really, now x)

I love the new gallery, Val! Your House icons are to die for! That colouring looks so yummy. So jealous! You need to share your icon skills with me, mkay?
And.. And you know I love your banners and your blend is amazing!
Gah, make more stuff, woman Oh, and I love the the gallery title, haha

ily<3

<sub>gurrrlllll your gallery is gorgeous!
OMFG HOUSEICONS!!! they're amazing
your blend is so stunning, so in love with it <33
+this banner is like utterly amazing to the 5541236456132 power!!
everything is just so prettyful & amazing (:

& yay lucky number SEVEN! :DDD</sub>

Kay: Lol, thanks so much, hon! I'm so glad you like it!:D I love you moreee... and yes, you can get the muffin too! *gives you one*

Cathy: Yay! I'm happy that you like the House icons, I still can't believe I actually made some icons!0.o I hope to make some more too, oh, and the gallery title was the spur of the moment!xD

Sam: Thanks for the prettyful comment, i'm gald you like my gallery!

Kristina: Yay for 7! I'm so happy that you like it here, it makes me all warm inside!

Love you all
Val

8thhh
the colouring on your house icons is so...
this is my favourite ever xD
you do text so well it makes me jealous :')
lovelovelove <33

Katie: Thanks for stopping by, hun! I'm happy that you like my text, as I'm often more then a little frustrated with the way it turns out....

Love
Val

Hey!!
A new gallery yay.
I have to say that I'm
extremely impressed with what you
have here. I love your new icons.
And your signature is so pretty.
You've improved so much.
Keep up the great work.

Sam: Hey, Sam#3 (I believe...xD)... thanks! I'm really glad you think I've improved, I just need to convince myself of that...

wait wait wait you have a new gallery? D:
HOW CAN I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS???
anyway, your stuff is gorgeous. i love your bright, vibrant coloring and your current sig (+this)
blew me away when i first saw it. the oranges/browns/purples play off so well against one another.
it's a real stunner your banners are amazing as well, i've always been fond of
that Austere banner. i love how the colors sort of blossom out in the middle but it grows
darker at the edges. your house icons are just unbelievable as well.
the cuts are fantastic, the coloring is insane and you are just AWESOME, val.

Eggie: Thanks for stopping by, love! *hugs*
I'm exstatic that you like this new colouring! I think I've found my style, at least colouring-wise... Glad you like the House icons as well!

Love
Val

hello, hello! here to critique.

I like your Sherlock Icons. Text icons are hard, and for your first try at them that's just awesome. However, your House icons are throwing me off a bit. While the coloring looks good on some of them, on others it looks a bit bland. Also, some of the images seem a little bit low quality, which is never a good thing for icons. So watch out for that.

Your sig is pretty good as well. I really love the text on it. However, and this may just be me, I'm not a fan of the repeating the same image over and over again. It's something very hard to pull off correctly, and while it doesn't look bad in your sig, I think maybe it would've looked a little better had you left the desaturated picture with only one of the ones in color. But that's just my opinion. I'd love to see some more sigs in here though.

Your banners are lovely. Your composition is very nice, especially on that first banner. However, I suggest working on your text some. It's not necessarily the font, it is more so the placement, it looks awkward at times or other times it just looks as though the text needs to be a bit bigger. So just take a very close look at your text on banners, it can be trickier than text on other graphics for some reason. >.<

As for your blends, these are beautiful (especially this one!), but I think maybe you should get out of your comfort zone with a few. There's nothing wrong with the two you have, but they are a bit similar design-wise, so try making a variety. ^^

Otherwise, again, you're stuff is very nice. Just watch out for low-quality images and play around a bit. I'd love to see more. <3

Thanks for the wonderful critique, hun! I have removed the House icons now, they have been bugging me more with every passing day and I just needed someone to tell me to scrap them.

I will definitely take your advice into account when making new sigs and banners. I think I can safely assume text is my boggart (just imagine the scene, the closet door is opening and out flies the Photoshop text tool... it would be tragically funny. That's why I'm not a witch. )

You are right about the blends, I really need to try something new... *tries to summon strength to do this*

Anyway, thanks again, it was very helpful!

Love
Val

I love your stuff sooooooooooo much!

Gah, I'm sooo jealous. Seriously, how did you get so good?

I especially love your blends, and the text icons are amazing. Especially considering the fact that it's your first time with those. I haven't tried text icons yet myself (although I've been meaning to get to that), but I know enough to say that I luuurve yours.

And your banners, they're just made of awesomeness! I'm in love with your work.

Keep it up!

Hi Val, I'm Avery and I'm here with your requested critique.
BTW, Valentina is my favorite name. Legit.
Okay so with coloring, I feel like you have highs and lows.
Your sigs, your first two banners, and your blends have awesome coloring. The rest doesn't have bad coloring, really, it just seems to be lacking it. Like, when you take a normal picture, the coloring isn't bad, but it usually isn't really awesome either.
This set of icons is really bland, color-wise. They seem to be in that awkward phase between black-and-white and regular color. Sometimes, bringing out only one color, in this case perhaps yellow would be nice, can fix that blandness. I'm not sure if photoshop 7.0 has selective coloring, but my guess is not. Try bringing out the hue/saturation adjustment layer.
In the Broken banner, you want to be careful about having an even mixture of greys/blacks/whites. A good levels layer will bring out those blacks and add some depth.

Text
I can tell you are definitely improving with text from your newest graphics.
In this banner, looks very misplaced. With text, always take the background of where you're placing it into consideration. The words of the book and "Broken" are running perpendicularish = not good. A simple rotation would do wonders. The only other place where I see a text problem is in the "Austere" banner. It's very large, which conflicts with the girl a bit. :3

Style
Your style is gorgeous, let me say. It's very apparent to me, though I can't really put words to it. If you're trying to get more creative, try switching up your characters. Especially in your banners, all the girls except Miley look very similar. They might even be the same person? Filling a harry potter request might be interesting and get you thinking in a new way.

What is Holding you back??
THESE. The text and everything just don't work well, in my opinion. Just scrap them ;]
Yeah so that and the stuff that I said before is really all that I think is holding you back. I really can't tell for sure though, you might be promoted this month! Hopefully this was helpful, and sorry it took so long to get it done. Basically, with a little touches up here and there, you'll be good to go, and you're headed in the right direction already. xD

How the devil have I not beeneth here before? Suriously. Well, I mean, I've been here,
I just have never posted which makes NO sense. Mostly because I should have commented
back since you posted in my gallery all squeeful and stuff. So mmm, basically, I love all
of your banners. And your blends. Yeah, and all of your sigs and icons as well. Wait, is that
your entire gallery? *checks* I suppose it is. Yeah, so uhm, I love your entire gallery. You've
got such a distinctive style and I'm so envious of that. *lacks style* Keep up the fantastic
work, Val!!!!

Shlesha: Gosh, hun, I'm so sorry for the late reply!*facepalm* Anyway, thanks!! You are so sweet and I'm really happy that you like my stuff! *hug*

Avery: Thanks for the lovely and detailed critique! I scrapped all of the icons and I'm undergoing a revamp with those. I also removed the Broken banner as it was obviously the weakest, so thanks for the heads up! I'm happy you think I have an apparent style, as I'm often convinced my gallery's all over the place, so that's a bit of relief...
I'll try to work around colouring and text some more, bend them a little according to your advice.
I will too try to do different types of people, I'm getting quite tired of blondes, really. Also I'll try to make more male-centered graphics to hopefully achieve some variety (the girl in the first banner's not Miley, btw, I think her name's Erika Christensen )
Thank you so much again! Oh, and thanks for liking my name, I guess, I kind of think it's too long...

Audrey: Aww, lol! Well, hun, you know what they say, better late than never. And you made me smile. Really smile. Cheshire Cat sort of smile. (it's kind of freaky, actually...)

Thanks so much for commenting, girls!

Love
Val

Hey there, I'm here with your requested critique. Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to it, I was gone to Italy for March break and it's taken me a little while to find time since. So, better late than never I guess. I'll try to comment on what you mentioned as your weaknesses (colouring, text, lack of style/creativity) and I'll go through your gallery section by section with some overall pointers at the end. Anyways, lets get started
singatures
Alrighty. So, signatures. I like your first sig here. It's interesting and something I would have never thought to do. But at the same time, it's a little busy for me. So I'm sort of conflicted I think the background character that gets cut off would have made for a good image to use alone. I want to see more of it, but it's being covered up. I think its an issue of focal point because his eye draws me in but its the other two images that I can actually look at. So, try to make sure that your images aren't competing with one another. Other than that, I like the background and the colours and text (even if the word is spelled wrong )

Once again I would bring up focal point. Its much less of an issue here but the bright spot next to the girl is just throwing me off a little. The background is a little busy with all the inter-locking images and I just don't really know what everything is which breaks up the flow a little as well. There's also lightened sections of her hair to the left of the image so watch out for that.

Your last signature is my favourite. I would just suggest playing around with your text a little more. Maybe have it all to the left? I just find the right section gets a little lost. Other than that, great job. I really do love your sigs, it's just small things that need to be tailored a little, so keep up the great work.

banners
Your banners are really pretty I think the last one if my favourite! The text on the first two is a little off for me though. The first banner I think needs a font change, it just doesn't suit the mood of the banner as well as it should; and the second banner just needs the text moved a little closer to the focal point to help with the flow. Also, maybe move the large girl more to the right to decrease the negative space between the three characers... the two to the right are quite close and then the other girl just seems a little isolated where she is now.. so text and large girl more to the right and the flow should be helped loads

Your other two banners are gorgeous. Awesome colouring, text, compostition, everthing! Teach me your skills

blends
Sorry, I have dial up which makes seeing large images impossible sometimes and your first blend won't load for me. The second, however, will.
I have no crit at all for it though. Gorgeous, amazing work

misc
The manipulation and colourization are also choosing to not load so I'll just comment on your chapter image.
I love the background of the image and the foreground is good but needs a little tweaking perhaps? The colouring is quite heavy, which is fine, but I find that the skin tones of your two characters don't match well enough, so try fixing that and it should help a lot for the overall colouring. Also, the filter is very heavy. Maybe lessen the effect just a smidge? I do like it, it's just a little too much I think. And lastly the text is standing out almost too much, I think. The chapter is on an extreme angle so that puts a lot of attention on it.. try finding a space where it can fit on less of an angle? And the font and placement of the title is upsetting the flow a little too. Just play around with your placement some more and find something that feels more natural. Text should be a part of a graphic, not something that sits on top. I can't quite get it right either, so no worries. I know how mine should look, I just can never get it that way

overall
You've got an amazing start. I don't think you have to worry about creativity or style because you've got both already. And your colouring is also good for the most part, just make sure your skin tones match on another to some degree to help with the flow. Watch out for your focal points. Draw the eye in to one spot and let it wander from there, just don't have too many spots competing with one another or else your viewer will get confused. And text is a bit of an issue but it just takes a lot of practice. Keep playing around with it and maybe ask for another artists advice before making a final decision? I know it helps me Eventually you'll begin asking yourself the questions that they do and everythign will be much more natural.

I hope you found this helpful and not harsh. Because you're doing amazingly well. If you have any questions feel free to ask, it's no bother at all. I can't wait to see more and sorry this took so long. Hopefully the length will make up for that

<3 kiera

How in the world didn't I see this before?

I absolutely love this, it's amazing
And the first sig is so cool. The eye of the biggest boy is so yummily creepy
I want to eat look at this forever. It's just.. uh, I don't have an adjective for it anyway, it's
That CI.. *'eek! It's so pretty!'*


*waves*

- Marit

OMG! Hahahah, your gallery title xD haha, omg. HILARIOUS. No, you're not the only one

Anyway, thought I'd stop by to see how you were doing, and I fell in love with your new stuff! Seriously, this+ and this+ and this+ = amazingness

Now, you need to get out of that icon-rut and feed me some new icons.
Keep it up, Val! <3

<sub>Hi Val, just popping by with the critique you requested!

Since you specifically asked what I think you should and shouldn't keep, I'll do this a little differently and go through each piece separately. Which is easy enough since you don't have too many things here anyway

Undisclosed Desires: Keep it! It's my favourite sig! There are just a couple of tiny things. Some of the letters (the capitals and the ones that go up) on the quote are going a pixel over the top of the box. You could prevent this by using all caps or all lowercase, I think. Her skin is looking a little rough. In future, find better quality images. You can fix this by getting the blur tool and smoothing her skin over a tiny bit.
Found a Way: I love this one too. Same thing with the image quality on the black and white image of her (but this is nitpicking). Also, the A is over her neck which just looks awkward. Otherwise, fantastic sig! Very creative.
Familiar: I would scrap this one. It's the weakest graphic in your gallery, in my opinion. While the composition is strong as always, the images themselves look a bit stretched and distorted (probably nothing you can do about that, I think it's the original images and the angles they're on) and the blending looks a bit sloppy compared to your others. Background doesn't flow, it looks a bit flat, nowhere near the standard of the other two sigs below it.
Game: The people look a little blurry, and they're a little too pink compared to the background I think. The 'the hardest' looks squashed, so try adding some tracking. The blending of some of the stock (especially above the title) looks a little messy, but it's a nice banner.
Sister: It doesn't flow as well. One of the stock images doesn't look properly erased and you can see the corner at the top left. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it's a bit distracting either way. The area around the title looks quite off. It goes from brown > blue quite suddenly and the blending of some of the stock looks messy. I think the quote is a little bit too small, I had trouble reading it, and having that with the box adds to the lack of flow, I think. Everything to the right of the people is great, you need to work on the left. The blending on the people looks a bit rushed and there are blurry edges, and also her face looks a bit flat. It's the weakest of all four banners, I would probably scrap it.
You: Great composition and text, the girl with the positioning of the text just looks fantastic. The only critique I've got is that the background looks a bit busy. I like the cloudy bits and the blues and yellows, but I think if you erased some of the cloudy parts then it would give the banner a more relaxed and simplistic feel. If you were able to do that, then this would be perfect. Just to clarify, it's more on the left side than the right.
Austere: I know this is a relatively old banner because I remember seeing it a while ago, but it's still gorgeous. Again, the simplicity is great. It's very similar to the one above, but it has a less frantic feel to it because it doesn't have the clouds all over it. My only issue is that I can't read the quote at all, but I know that this computer makes things particularly small compared to my desktop. Also, the blending around her shoulder could be better.
Heights: Everything about it is perfect. I really love this blend, it's my favourite piece in your gallery. The colouring, composition and texture use is great. The text isn't your best, but it's pretty good. It's mainly just the 'and seeking' which jumps out, it looks a bit out of place. Not really anything else to say, I love this blend.
Make Believe: It's very similar to the one above, but I'm not quite as keen on it. The colouring is good, but the whites on her face and the clock look too bright. The main thing that's holding this blend back is the text. 'Make Believe' really doesn't fit in terms of position or font, but font especially. If you're going to keep this in your gallery, which you should, I think you should change the text.
Chapter image: I would scrap this one. It doesn't look up to par with the rest of your things. The guy's shadows are too bright making him stick out from the background, and the blending looks a little bit iffy on him and the woman's shoulder. The text placement and font choice isn't your best, and their skin tones are very different. To be quite honest, it looks very rushed compared to your other things, as though you didn't put the same care and commitment into it.

The manip and colorization look great. I won't comment further on those since they're thumbnails and colorizations aren't my forte anyway. So I think basically the things to get rid of would be the first signature, second banner and the chapter image. Everything else looks fantastic. These ones are really good too, just not quite as good.

I hoped this helped! Good luck for promos, Val, I've got a good feeling about them.</sub>

Kiera: Thanks for the amazing crit, hun! I'll definitely look out for the skintones in the future and colouring in general! I'll be more careful with text and focal point as well. Thanks again, this was very very helpful!

Marit: hey, hun, thanks so much for stopping by! I'm really glad you like my stuff, it makes me bubbly!

Cathy: Hiii, loff! Great of you to stop by, and the gallery title just decided to be really random.xD I'm really happy you like the new stuff and I know i have to make some icons, it drives me insaaaneee... *headdesk*

Anna: *loves you for being the awesomest critiquer in the history* Thaaank youu! I removed everything you suggested and will work on everything you suggested. And aww, thanks for being so optimistic too!

Love you all
Val

Hi there, here to give a quick critique!

You use textures really well to create your bases, but I'd love to see you expand and integrate some more stocks!

Also, I feel like you use the same coloring for all of your pieces... try branching out into something brighter? Overall I see a lot of browns and neutral colors - go for bold and electric!

In the 'hardest game' banner the text is awesome, but in the 'photos' and 'austere' banners, it's more see through and difficult to read.

I am in love with your 'new heights' banner!

Hope that helped some!
-Jill

edit: and congrats on the new color!

Congrats VALLL!!!!
Enjoy the new colour!

Congratulations on the promo!

congrats on the promo!

I KNEW IT, VAL! congrats and enjoy your new shade of bluuue =D

Congrats on your promotion.

Congrats on your promo!!

You totally deserve it , I just love everything in here.

_{Hey Val! Congrats on the promo! I told you so, didn't I? I knew that you would become a senior, you're so talented. Especially over the past few weeks you've really taken off. Those new signatures and banners, like I've told you before, look fabulous. Keep up the great work, I hope you can keep improving at such a rabid pace because it would really make you such an amazing artist. You're awesome! Enjoy your new colour!}

VAL!!!!!

CONGRATSSS ON THE PROMO!!

you deserve this soo much! i LOFF your clemence banners <3 they are fantastic!

ILYYYYY
prezzie time!

Jill: Thanks for the lovely critique! I'll definitely try to bring some variety to my colouring and text when I'm back with Photoshop again. And thanks, you're too sweet!

Nala: Awww, thank you, hun!

Lauren: Thank you so much, and congrats to you too, my promo buddy!

Katie: Thank you so much, hun!

Cathy: Aww, hun, you're too nice! Thank youu!

Sam: Thank you muchly and congrats to you too!

beatrix: Thanks and congrats to you too, enjoy being Junior!

Anna: Thanks, love, and congraats to you too. Again.xD You're so sweet, and I'll try not to disappoint.

Kay: Thaaank youu!! I love you, my promo buddy! You're too awesome fo words.

_{hey val <3 congrats on the promo, it was well deserved. i love your work}

Congrats on the promotion, Val! Very well deserved

Enya: Wow, thanks so much! Coming from you...

Liam: Thanks so much! ily!

congrats on the promo!
enjoy the new color

Kat: Thanks! You too, I knew you'd get it!

Yay, congrats on your promotion, Val!
You really deserved this and I adore your graphics
'specially your colouring, its insane <3

Congrats on the promo!

You're my name twin omg <3

I have to say out of all your stuff I love this the most. You're really really good though, esp for just starting in October D:

congrats on the promo!

WOW, congratulations Val!!
You've improved so much since I critiqued you!
Seriously, amazing gallery. <3

Congrats on teh promo oh goddess of chapter images

Cadi: Thank you so much, hon!

Pritika: Thanks!

OrigamiPears: Really?? Haha, that's so cool! And thanks, really glad you like it here!

Nessie: Thank you! You too, hon!

Avery: Thanks, I'm really glad you think so! And congrats to you too!

rubix_cube: Aww, thanks! *blushes*

Love you all
Val