When I was messing around in GIMP to find the style that suited me best for Course Week 1, I came up with this head that basically represents my idea. I plan on making it better and better as I progress in my technique by making the wood look more realistic and less regular.
Hope you like it, I'm totally open to suggestions.



Note : this is the first time I make this kind of preview. Criticism?

GIMP spinny



Tell me if you want it slower.

Flat



I'm planning on using this as my regular head, maybe even make a full set out of it when I get better so I trust you won't steal this since, having never been exposed to market, it will be unclear how you got the head in the first place. Also, I left my mark.

It's best to look at reference pictures when trying to make a realistic texture.
I think that you were trying to replicate a mahogany sort of pattern with scratches, if so then your texture needs to be way darker and much less uniform.

Here's an example of mahogany wood:
http://www.kenkasemusic.com/reed_case_pics/mahogany.jpg

If you were going to make the wood texture by hand you should add in a warp/morph/smudge filter to your lines. I think you shouldn't have the black to red gradient either because it takes out most of the line texture as it nears the top. The scratches need some work, although I do like the two vertical ones on the left side.

I think that if you used reference pics then your stuff would look much more realistic.

Modius, that font is very annoying, make it a bit larger, it's very hard to read.

EDIT: I'm sorry, I thought this was GATA.
Good luck with this ;)

I was going for a much darker and redder wood, you find those in middle-south America, here's the closest decent thing I could find for you:
http://www.countyfloors.net/store/li...roductid=17087
I will take the reference advice into account though, seems it would really help with my style ; thanks for the tip.
@AlphasoniK : It doesn't bother me at all that you would comment but I guess monobi would be the one concerned. I think I'll make a thread in the art section to get feedback from more people, check it out if you feel like you could give me some advice ;)

EDIT : linkitylink