crit crit crit crit crit

[Brunob]

criiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

[markwagner]

good beginning, now tell a story that is compelling. Put your figure in relationship with something so that visually they begin to talk to each other. Make it interesting and not normal which shows up as boring. Can you tell us something about you in this piece of art, make it personal... then it's connected to something you are passionate about and that will translate into your piece.

~M

[artguff]

pick a spot in the image that you want to focus on - I am guessing maybe his face? make eveything close in value except for your spot you want the eye to go. The place with the highest contrast (whitest white, blackest black) is where you want the eye to focus ( general rule) - rules are made to be broken, but start with that first. right now my eye goes to the rays of light and the bright fern in the bottom. maybe try popping him out with the light rays behind him and he is darker? good start man!

[Hendric VII]

The foliage is better in this version, but the gun is still totally unbelieveable, it isn't a pistol it isn't a rifle. When you have things like that that don't work it ruins the illusion on the rest of the picture. If it is supposed to be a bullpup design like the p90 then you wouldn't have the barrel sticking so for farward,

[Pan]

As artguff pointed out, all your values are too close in their range. If you converted the image to grayscale, it would help you to see how it really makes your composition suffer. With such a setting, you have a real oppurtunity to play around with interesting shadows and light, so really make that contrast pop.

Also, while using custom brushes to create your leaf shapes is certainly helpful, don't rely solely on that to create you character's surroundings. Right now, it's very obvious to the point of distraction, plus it hurts the perception of depth in the image. While it looks like you make some effort to create larger shapes in the foreground and smaller in the background, you need to push it even further, because the whole area still looks very flat. Roughing out some of those leafy areas will also help you to bring the focus to where you want it to be.

[Jason Rainville]

I does look like he rendered an m16 somewhat correctly, but the poor soldier who never completed basic is holding it by the magazine. Sorry Johnny, looks like communism wins today :)