Okay fellow Gimpers, i need your help and i want your best constructive critique.

This is a birthday card for my very best friend Conny.
She is way over 50 but a pretty wild girl.
Her birthday is on wednesday and i need to finish this piece by then.

Art the moment i think it may all be a bit too busy, and im not sure if the 'Conny' word looks good the way it is.

My taste would be to have those bright blue bubbles less bright. I do like the Conny by itself but it doesn't seem to fit the style of the rest of the card. Other than that, I can't find anything to critique.

Another thing with those bubbles is the direction they reflect light is nilly willy all over the place. I would fade the bubbles out a little bit and make them all face the same direction.

The 2 fonts seem to be fighting for territory. If I wanted to draw attention to Connie, I would probably shrink the birthday wishes, making her name more prominent.

Also depending on your intent there, the letters in Connie could possibly benefit from a little smoothing. Perhaps a job for gmic anisotropic smoothing?

I don't know Esper, but I would change the whole background for something more joyful maybe? Something more 'girly'?
Why the shapes of butterflies and not the colorful images? Then again, they better comply with grungy background as they are.
As for the CONNY - looking good, but a tad too shiny facets? Have you tried to tone it down a bit?

haha, oh dear, thanks for the comments so far

i see why people think the fonts are fighting
originally i was looking for a girly font, thats a bit tougher at the same time but not thin because i wanted to bevel it

this woman is very much a rock chick, so grunge is a good thing

i wanted her name to look shiny,yet tough, thats why i went for a chromatic/metallic look

i agree with K1te, the name looks a bit too shiny, the bevel looks that rough on purpose, so no smoothing, EK22

i tried a different font, but it doesnt look good in black


EDIT:

any better ?

I like the first and 3rd versions better. Outta these two i'd prefer the very first one.

I like the text in the last one but for my taste, the background is far too busy and dark. I would lower the opacity on that by 50% My eye goes right to that before the text. For some reason, I like the blue bubbles.
Still, very nice and I am sure Conny will like it no matter what you change.

Out of the three choices I like the third best. Seems if they got at least some color in common, the two fonts are warming up to each other. In this case, the red works well with the brown of the background too.

I like the last one best, also. And if this gal is a rocker chick, I'd change the blue bubbles to a more reddish color, maybe match the glow on the script text, or just a white and more translucent. I'm still not a fan of the blue, lol.

3rd version is much better.
I do think that things are a bit too random, though. X:

what do you mean with random, Moko ?

Random: Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

i do understand the word, but not in context of my picture
i guess Moko refers to the random elements (bubbles, diamonds, daisies, butterflies), that perhaps seem to make no sense to her ?

The stuff seems randomly placed and the lighting is all over the place on the elements.

you're right, EK22 mentioned the same thing about the bubbles

i spread them with a brush dynamics and didnt care much about the lighting

So how did the whole Birthday thing go? Did she like your card?
What final version did you go with?

i have no feedback yet, but i used the last version (the red gradient Conny text)
i already spent a lot of hours on the card when i posted it here, and really its a card not the mona lisa, so i decided to send the version i liked best