Why hello there! It's always nice to see a new name amongst these boards!

As for your work, that's really good for a first image; but in the future, you want to knock out the viewers with a demonstration of a strong understanding in visual effects to give them exactly what you want them to have. A piece of art, if created just right, can inspire emotion and inspiration within an individual. :]
As for your avatar that you posted, I think the hair color, (that cyanish bit,) is far oversaturated; and therefore burns attention from the eye. As mentioned before the text is too crazy and hardly legible; stick with 'clean fonts' like 'Arial' 'Candara' and other "Sans-serif" fonts. Ex:
http://www.dafont.co...eme.php?cat=501.
Off the bat, normally, I'd explain a bunch of visual elements and teach you how to incorporate them; but to save myself time, and to prevent myself from iterating the same thing over and over again, I have compiled them into this thread a long time ago:
http://forum.fallens...hp?f=21&t=59751. I recommend you go through the thread and absorb as much as you can. IF you have any questions, feel more than free to ask here in response to this post; if I can't answer them, someone else should be able to help you out.
Good luck out there,
Xel.
Ps: I should add as a note, I should only be active here for a few more weeks when the currently running grand graphics tournament is over; though I don't think I'm gonna make it past this round right now, so I may be gone sooner.