Good manipulation. Might benefit from some sort of background. GL author.

fun sneaky snake

very original

Interesting idea, and clever idea for the snake texture. Good color contrast between the snake and your grass colors, too.

When using a drop shadow on an image (the snake) that will be placed over a Close object and a faraway object (In this case the Wicker (Close) and Water (Faraway) duplicate the layer and give the drop shadow to the under layer. Then ERASE parts of the under layer to remove the drop shadow that has fallen on the water Background. IMHO it would improve the image.

The snake should only cast a shadow on the wicker and NOT cast a shadow on the sky behind itself. (Also the wicker casting shadow on the lower right should be eliminated also.

Just a suggestion, nice idea for a chop and good luck

There shouldn't be a drop shadow at all on the wicker layer at left. Remove the drop shadow on the sky, keep the snake shadow on the wicker, but blur it.

Blurry compared to source images.

Lots of work here, author, nice outcome. Very interesting video sbs, and such a different way to mask.

Both source images are clear. I see no reason to blur them.

CMYK is right, if you want to give a realistic touch to your work....do not blur the source images.... good luck.

i made some changes.
yes! no reason to blur them, its clear enough.
as you can see the video i used duplicating the source images many times and blend as softlight to give more intense color as i think, but it also give more disturbing pixels as i see, that is why i smudge it a little the snake images and blur the edges. the grasses i also duplicate it and blur then blend to multiply and softlight. i think that way i balance the whole image.
i believe the final result image is still look good and not damage as a blurry one.

thank you so much for your comments both CMYK and George55

the edge of the snake could use a very very fine blur brush on top of the snout very funny idea and good execution too

a tail coming out of the other end of the noodle would really add to this piece IMHO, great job all round

Slushman does have a good point about the snake's tail...good job on this.

Wonderful job...being able to actually see a shadow of the snake inside the noodle makes this a winner.