2D emblem concept

Dhin

Okay 2d isn't my thang, but I'm trying to broaden my horizens. I've probably spent 5 or so hours on this from start to this point. It started as a simple pencil sketch I scanned in then used the line tool in PS and alittle wacom.

This is for the guild wars emblem contest, thus it can only be greyscale.

Coments and Crit are very welcome (in fact all I really want is good crits on how to improve it, and techniques to use in PS.)



Oh ya any good suggestions for what to put in the circle above it would be helpful that cloud texture was just because I couldn't think of anything to put there.

NCE

For me your circle can be someting like this :

so you are controlling thinks day and night (you have complet power all the time )

that's what I found in 2seconde maybe it's completly stupid ....

-jerome-

motives

stylize the highlights on the "wings" more, looks kinda smudged now

i think the design would benefit from a crisp clean look

acc

It looks like a beetle with pheonix wings and moose antlers?
You should swap the position of the "fangs" (small ones in middle/front, large ones further back). I'd also make the large ones bulkier. Unless it's for a Canadian guild and you like the moose look...
Get rid of the blurriness in the circle, change it to solid pieces like NCE's example.
The rest of the highlights I kinda like, but it may be more noticable to sharpen them and increase the contrast; especially in the dark center area. This is going to end up on a small cape, remember. No one will see a tiny, slightly-lighter blob.
Actually... it might look better minus the large fangs and circle entirely.

Dhin

Good Poinsts all, I think I will try somthing along those lines NCE, I'll work on the contrast too. Thanks

poopinmymouth

I think you need to unify it a bit more. Right now it looks like too many disparate elements. Work it all up at once and try to repeat more elements.

Michael Knubben

Whatever you do, don't do this in Photoshop. Vectors would be perfect for this, and the vector support in PS is pretty shit (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, since that's not what ps is for)
You could either use Adobe illustrator or Macromedia flash or whatever, or you could try http://inkscape.org, which is free and opensource.

Onto the design:
Like poop mentioned, it looks a bit like a cut and paste-job right now, the elements don't belong together, and sort of look tacked on.
Definately drop the details too, those really don't add anything, and what's worse: they even take away from the strength of a logo, which should be immediately readable (i try to stay away from generalisations like that, but i'm talking about this particular case)

Try doing it in all black first, just the outline of the logo, and add inner detail to it later (but nothing greyscale, just grey line-work)