I thought it came out pretty good, but I complain about the red in the back. I didn't know how to bring out the red other then that, without ruining the other stuff. CnC?
My response to this over IM was more of an "omgz fukken awezum," so I figured I'd add something more constructive here. I really like that shimmer effect on the bg. Which is saying a lot; I don't usually go for that. It's relatively non-invasive here, which I'd say is a plus. I like that the edge of the girl's shoulders is clearly distinguishable upon inspection, but only thus; it makes it feel as if she's emerging from a mist, or something similar. The text is nice and fitting. I'll agree that the red in the back is a bit odd, but I dunno what else you'd do with that to make it show so I guess it works. I think my only real gripe about this is it's not terribly ambitious; I feel as if you could've done more with the space provided. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as simplicity is just as artful as complexity and it works well here, but I'd like to see you tweak this a bit or make other versions with more going on.
It seems a tad monotone and there isn't much depth. The white in your background would better serve this as a darker colour as the rest of your background. Also i'm not a massive fan of the text it doesn't really suit with the rest of the tag. Also on her shoulders you can still see some of white from where you have cut her out. It's a nice attempt it just needs a couple of touch ups.
It was hard to actually see her shoulders, her whole depth was with the white. So I tried so get most of it, without it looking stupid. I couldn't really find anything to make the white background fit in, so it was better to make it a darker background.
Well my first impression is that it is very monotone, but I think that that can be fixed with some nice use of the dodge and burn tools. Having a defined light source coming from the upper left could, I think, work wonders on this. The red is... irritating, to say the least, but you seem to already be aware of that. I think it would work better if you turned it white or simply got rid of it all together. Text isn't awful, but it's nothing amazing either. I try to avoid changing the blending mode; I think it oftentimes makes it look like you honestly just don't know what else to do with it. But I have to say, I love the smudging and the displacement you have going in the background. The juxtaposition of the roughness of it to the smooth shoulders is very eye catching. And the white around her doesn't bother me, in fact I kind of like it. I'm actually interested in seeing what I can do with this; would you mind making it a collab? ;D
I'm not even sure how to make collabs possible. I could give you the actual girl herself, I didn't save it as a PS project. Sorry. :[
Oh, sad. :c Collabs are pretty easy, someone starts a sig and saves it as a PSD, then someone downloads the PSD and opens it up and continues. It's nice to learn about how other people make their tags as well as shows a blending of two people's styles. We should do one sometime. :3 They're so much fun.
Oh...I think the tag could have more colors. I'd also like to see more depth, and bettering of the text. Though, you don't make tags as much as avatars, so that's actually pretty good. And good positioning. I'd recommend tuts specifically for tags.
