Every Task = Perfect Tool

Frankly, the 100 x 100 Avatars aren't really good. They're poor quality renders with bland backgrounds. [Over sharpened!] It's really nothing you can do, with such a small canvas like that anyway. The best 'avy' is the one you have currently.

The one you 'redid' still looks over sharpened but really you can't do anything with that small canvas like I said earlier. I'm guessing. You had to scale the render really small. The quality was bad so you sharpened it. Anyway, keep working on your graphics.

 

The redone avatar has a gritty quality to it (it's a little oversharpened, I think), but at least the effects are visible. But I think it's a little bland and random- the pink doesn't seem to go with the render, and the effects just seem there. I already commented on the other avatars in the Draw It Again thread, except the blue one, which I have the same opinion on as the purple one, which I've also discussed somewhere else. And you already know how I feel about the sig, too, though I will say it looks better without text.

Avatars, especially 100 x 100, are really small, so you don't really have the space to build a background like you do with a signature. Personally, I wouldn't use renders in an avy; I'd use the entire photo as is and make it special by adding coloring effects to it, rather than brushwork.