love this, just a couple of things you could tweak: the fins wouldn't have any shadow, they're in space and not up against anything; try to give the letters some bevel/emboss for depth (they might have a tiny shadow), bottom fin might have light at the left edge like the back one. love the rivets and rust look, though!

very nice

great idea ! different and wonderful job

Thanks for the Favs and kudos everyone. Pearlie, I agree with all your critiques as well. The fins I created with a layer style (looking for a metallic effect on the fill) and didn't even realize that I gave them a drop shadow. Honestly, I didn't even see this until I zoomed in on the high res after I submitted! I tweaked per your suggestions (and a few others), and resubmitted. Thanks for the constructive input.

Rofl! Great job, and the title is epic!

The one fin would have a shadow, but it needs to rotate clockwise about 5 degrees. Good job with the texturing.

Great imagination and creativity.....Good work....

Very good job author...best of luck

great idea nice work

good and good and good job....

very nice and... tasty

Very very creative! Very creative!

Thanks all!

good job author

very good entry! gl

congrats!!!...

Congratulations!!!

Great work!

nice image...

Very pretty image! Good luck author!

Thanks all.

lookin like a fairyland.....Gl

Door is nicely blended into the berry and the shadow work id good ---the leaves on the lower left maybe could use a touch of softening to lessen the hard edge

Wonderful ... love the brightness to this image. Gives it a very fantasy feel. Bravo?

Oh this is so cute, I wonder what the little house looks like inside.

Lovely entry, author. GL!

Fantastic work author...well done

Congrats lovely work

Congrats...well deserved first place...

Congrats on your win!

Thank you all.

Congrats buddy, very well deserved

Congrats!!

Good job, congrats.

congrats

very pleasant creation. good Luck author.. though I don't think you need it.. hehehe+

The shadows don't seem to be contiguous with a discernable light source judging from the sky image. Interesting surrealism though.

Just curious but why no bow?

Confession time CMYK: I did have some trouble with the shadows, in terms of a light source (which is usually my starting point!), as well as their intensity (which I suppose speaks again to the light source). The shadows in the BG image seem to be not from the dunes but from the clouds, I felt I had a little latitude, but it boils down to what looks "right". I'll tweak a bit. Thanks all for the feedback.

change the shadows to be angled more directly forward, and make the shadows on the notes darker.
the notes look beveled making it more unrealistic if you can find some metal notes or something like that it would look nicer.
nice shot

Shadows sometimes are very difficult to compose. But I think it's a very nice surrealistic creation.

I like this, and aside from the odd little bulge on the shadow for the closer eighth-note in the back, and different amounts of blur, I do like the addition of the string blowing in the breeze. Nice work on the notes and very pleasing image overall.

Great work author...I love it...best of luck

AWESOMMMMMME

killer

Thanks all.

Nice SBS, can be easily turned into a tutorial! Result is also neat, maaaaybe I'd add some bubble and such under water too. Good luck!

Thanks for the kudos and critique. Good idea on the bubbles under water. I added some, thinking that they wouldn't be blurred the way the above-water bubbles would be. Thanks.

Nice work on the splash!

I do agree and very good sbs Good luck Author
Hope you make a tut out of this

Thank you for showing us how to do it; I learned one more tip with it!

very good...gl author

great work author...

Congrats!

nicely done -- like the font and the overall look

Good one!

Sexy, tough and good mood! The choice of font for the logo fits with the rest, personally I wouldnt use the emboss but a bit thicker outline so it will look more powerful. Also, I wouldnt put the tagline on top over the logo, give it some more space above (or make it smaller) so that the logo is good visible. Good luck!

Edit: another tiny thing about the background: if you flip the gradient from red (outside) to yellow (middle) it´ll have a more depth feeling (red is warmer/ closer to you, yellow is "colder", further away), just an idea...

Sort the union jack out!

I think the overall impact would be better if the main name didn't have the soft bevel.

Some very good suggestions here, so thank you all. Waz (and JamesD), I changed the emboss from a soft to a hard chisel, and I think nit looks a lot better. Also, I left the outer glow white, but gave it a red stroke to match the "K" on the label, and it too seems more powerful and consistent. As for the tagline going over the logo, I chose to leave that there rather than reduce the size of the two main characters in the ad. A lot of Japanese ads seem to do this kind of thing, almost to the point of being confusing, but that was partially the point - to emulate an ad that didn't quite make it across the ocean intact. that said, the suggestion to flip the background gradient was also a good one. I had red in the center similar to the Japanese "rising sun" flag, but it does indeed get more depth with them reversed. Thanks for the tip, the kudos (particularly the nod from CMYK - he must be getting soft in hi old age ), and rest of the suggestions all.

Very creative and convincing! I would observe that while the logo starts in front of the bottle, it then goes behind the ninja bunny ear, so terminating behind the tag line makes sense. I would delete the border around the 11 o'clock sun ray to make it match all the other rays, however.

Goo work. Name of the brand should be more visible, may be you can change the outline colour or the thickness.

colourful!! good

Better!.... but the UNION JACK!

Great Job!!! Really love the overall effect... GOOD LUCK!

Thanks Slushy...

Very very good...i like humor,i like overall mood and of course i like execution...best of luck author

Thanks erathion. No one's commented on humor yet...the whole piece is supposed to be funny!

Of course it's funny!
I can't read many kanji words, but you wrote "desert" on the bottle, didn't you? And something like "exciting", I suppose...

Excellent entry, however you should have taken the warning about the Union Jack, we`ve invaded for far less lol

LOL nice job I like it

Congrats