I decided to start learning how to wall a few days ago. My first wall wasn't that good, so I won't bother posting it. xD; This is my 2nd wall, and my first time extracting from other pictures. Tell me how it is and how I can make it better please! *__* I want to become as good as most of the people here. :);;

Full Metal Panic Wallpaper

OK.. nice concept :P
But you've got the common syndrome of stubby legs, because of the way you've placed them in the grass. The grass is nicely done so in order to keep it, you'd need to make Chidori and Sousuke much smaller. Somewhere in the region of 50% size, so Chidori looks like she's kneeling. Use a layer mask to add some slight patchiness to the rain and try and restrict the clouds to the upper part of the sky, to get a more natural and open feel. The lighting is nice, I don't have a problem with that but the moon should be entirely much brighter and have a soft outer glow to be casting that much light on them. So it'd be practically a glowing white circle, people will still know it's meant to be the moon :P And then I think it will be done :P
As for the text, it should be less intrusive :P A black shadowing would be enough, so the blue stroke isn't entirely necessary, it makes it look chunky -_-

I downsized Kaname and Sousuke.. hope it doesn't look too empty now. I added some patchiness to the rain, hopefully not too patchy. xD; There's some kind of weird glow around Kana and Sousuke that I just noticed.. I think I'll have to fix that. I couldn't fix the sky as it was, so I just did it all over. Should I try adding more clouds? I made the moon much brighter. And for the text, I removed the stroke, but I have no idea of where to put it or how large it should be.

Full Metal Panic Wall Edit

>_>; Maybe you made them too small.. I was trying to visualise it with them larger, try to use Chidori's knee as a point that should be touching the ground. It's sort of hard to explain D: I think the clouds are OK but the moon still needs to be brighter. Bright enough that that the glow and brightness means it has a blurred edge - using an equivalent Inner Glow to the Outer Glow might help.

Where is everyone elses' help, maybe that can think of something to do with the text. Since I don't really use text in walls I can't think of what would work :P

*__*; Hmm.. well I made them 50% smaller, as you suggested. I think I get what you're saying though. I'll fix up the moon some more.. and try to figure out what to do with the text. Thanks for the help. :3

Full Metal Panic Wall Edit #2

A little better..? ^^;

You're welcome, and it looks a lot better! I like what you did with the moon, it looks much more realistic. I thought maybe you could play with the hues of the grass too, since grass doesn't look that green in moonlight..

Full Metal Panic Wall Edit #3

Anything else that needs some fixing up? I made the text invisible for now. I'm not too sure how it looks without it.

Hmm
i think it is VERY MUCH improved. but could still use a bit more.
for example...the moon casts a blue-ish light on things when you draw with it. i think you should adjust the colors in the wall to be a more bluish color...with yellow highlights. that would tie it all together. my other issue is with the clouds. they look cloud-filter. stock manipulation would look much better.
nice improvments though. glad to see you came to session zero first also before posting your wall up ^-^

Yeah, redo the clouds like kalico says - ironically the cloud filter does an awful job of making realistic looking clouds :/ (though it can have its uses). I'd also add some cratering structure and a tiny bit of shading to the moon to make it seem more realistic - I think it's slightly too plain and flat at the mo. Just google for some photos of the moon and use them for reference to feintly draw on some features.

One thing I would say is that as a new waller you sometimes have to learn to cut your losses and move on. As you acquire more skills and experience you can fiddle constantly, but when you're just starting it's sometimes best to move onto the next project rather than try and make each wall 'perfect'. If you really liked a concept in 6 months time you can always have another crack at it, having acquired some more knowledge :).

I aggree.. the third one looks very much improved. I also aggree with Kalico.. you should use overlayed or modified stock photo of clouds to make it appear more realistic. Anyone looking at that can tell it's a clouds filter. Or... if you insist on using filters, then you can simply modify the perspective view of it (and apply some distortion) to give the impression of a real 'cloudscape'. But personally, I think clouds stock photo would be the easiest and suited approach to this wall.

The rain effect, and the blurring looks very good.

The planet or moon can use some surface texture and/or shadowing, just like tris said. Usually, some further parts of it are covered by clouds so they aren't visible. One way to do it is to erase the right part of the moon so it will look similar to a half-crescent.. Logically, you can see a full moon when the weather is clear. This one has lots of clouds, so the moon won't be a perfect circle.

One thing that bothers me a lot is the dark/black part under the clouds..it looks very empty as of now. I think it would be better to put silhouetted mountain ranges, or rubbled city/buildings. It would be even better if you make the city looks like it's on fire (yeah, just got this idea in my mind).

And the colors in this wall seems a little washed-out.. dunno why.. but I think you can use some correction hue/saturation layer at the end to overcome that.

I hope my ramblings are of any help :)
Keep it up!

Wow, thanks for the advice, everyone! I think I'll fix the wall up one last time and then let it go. Following trismugistus's tip there. :3 Thanks again, guys. If anyone thinks anything else should be added or changed, please post before I finish up! :love: