Old but just need some critique

I'm trying to get better at creating graphics and I need a lot more practice. But I'm just gonna put up some of my graphics and see what I can do better next time.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/d...lution.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/d...page36.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/d...DCover.png

These were done in my graphic class back when I was in high school for projects. The first one was just to get me an A, the last two were for a cd cover, back and front and create an inside page.

The text is horrid, wish I could've done better in that field. But yeah if you guys can give me some tips I would greatly appreciate it.
Its easy to see that you are (or were, rather) fairly new to graphics by looking at these images.

The first one is a little scatterbrained. It has a lot going on, but none of it really fits together. I understand you were going for a fire sort of theme, but the fire that you rendered is pretty rough. Generally images need a focal point, or a central piece that ties the image together. Sometimes two focal points can be used, but in this case the Cyndaquil should be the only focal point, as its evolved form in the background really just looks sort of tacked on and unnecessary.

The second image is... Well, boring. There is nothing special going on in the image, and the pictures you used for the background are very grainy and low quality. I don't know if this is due to possible stretching/re-sizing of the images that you may have done or if the images were just low res to begin with, but that's definitely something that needs to be worked on. The text is also a little hard on the eyes and again, is very bland.

As for the third image, I like what you have going over on the right side of it. But like your first image, it has just a little bit too much going on at once and none of it really meshes together. The cutting and blending of the blade breakers on the right could definitely use a little work, as well as the blending of the spinning blades towards the bottom. The left side of the image is pretty boring. Too much empty space and not much to look at.

There you go. Hope I wasn't being too harsh. lol
Nah you weren't harsh at all. The image on the left was the backside of the cover, I was gonna put track lists in the center going down. I wanted to do something simple for it, so it doesn't get too busy or hard to read the text.
the last one looked cool