[SME] Conduit

[Smear]

Yep I'm so freaking rusty it's unbelievable I actually hate this digusting filth so much but w/e at least I tried

CnC

[Madsen]

Well you've got a bit of monotony going on here m8, although I guess it's more of a profile-theme kinda tag than anything.

You started out with what's basically a good idea, with the C4D framing the focal but the render placement fails to take advantage of the situation. Moving the render here and/or a nice crop would've done wonders.

Now, the age old issue people normally have in tagging is overcorrecting the empty space by spamming effects/C4Ds/textures which is something most do, honestly. Looking for an alternate way to use the canvas other than just filling it is basically the most important skill you can adopt to improve your tagging skills. Of course the clusterfuck tag of ye olden days still holds it's own today because it's visually appealing at a glance which is all you usually need in a forum tag, but the honest line someone can draw between a "better" and "worse" designer is exactly how much they can do with how little. Don't be afraid to take a moment to observe your tag, look at what's working for you and build on that element. It's also part of the transition between oldschool and newer style, where oldschool would entail tasteful effect spam to accentuate the color scheme and other important elements whilst today one could say that it's a lot more clean and based on well-thought out execution of important elements in a simplistic way. Many people, including myself, are still stuck in an oldschool mentality which we can't get past, in which we try rushing to the end by doing as much as we can to conclude specific parts of a tag often putting behind the overall idea of the piece. Anyways, what I'm trying to convey here is that studying and planning what you want to do is what let's you progress further as a designer. Don't be afraid of copying what more experienced people do, study their work etc.

 

Alternatively, skip all the above, use more color, lrn2text, lrn2placement. I like the cloudy background and the sparkles etc. Build off of simplicity and the things you've already got.