Dating Website logo - next competition

The subject for the next competition I'm entering on the Paint.NET forum is

Dating Website Logo

I threw this together last night.

The ideas:

The gold snake/ring is ouroboros - a symbol of things cyclic or something constantly re-creating itself (like people - hence appropriate for a dating site).  Sometimes seen in rings of betrothal or marriage - this should explain the golden color.

Male and female symbols are my take on the generic male = circle with arrow and female = circle with + signs.  I got the colors backwards - but it's too late now.  Blue should be the male symbol and pink the female. Doh!

The text is Edwardian Script with a linear reflected gradient to provide some texture.  A highlight (or sparkle) on the leading letter gives a gloss effect to make the text appear slightly shiny.

The rest of the logo is shadowing and shine on the major elements.

The whole logo took me less than two hours to complete.

Competition win = me!

I won a little competition on the Paint.NET forum.

It was my first win in these competitions.  I don't consider myself much of an artist - my art tends to be rigid and mechanical.  I have trouble with colors, proportion, abstracts and textures (maybe I'm just being too hard on myself).  I'm fond of telling people that my brother got Art and History, while I got Maths and Science!

The win is quite special to me as a number of very fine digital artists were also entered.

Here is my entry.  The topic was Mathematical/Numerical.

EER is short for my forum username Ego Eram Reputo (latin for "I've been thinking").

The formulae are Paint.NET's layer blend modes which I researched and wrote up for my book Mastering Paint.NET 3.5.10.

Charcoal Pig

Here's another image I created with Paint.NET.  I was trying to fake a charcoal-like drawing, hence the title Charcoal Pig!

Enso circle

Had some fun today creating this.  No reason, other than I just wanted to help someone on the Paint.NET forum who was asking how it could be done.

There's not mush room...

This series of images were taken in my backyard.  I'd like to present them as a tribute to all you employees who are subject to the "Mushroom" style of management (you're kept in the dark and fed bullshit).

Click the images to see a larger sized version. 

Isn't fungus amazing?