never throw in the towel, trust me i hit a slump like prolly 8 months ago, and just couldn't do it anymore, but I pulled through, and am finally coming up with some decent stuff, just keep trying different techniques and such on the background with different lighting and blending techniques, but it really looks decent, i haven't taken a close look at the second one, but the first one looks decent but it looks like you used some sort of technique or something on his face around the edges and it looks sort of strange, kind of looks like you tried to use lighting, but for me sometimes it just comes out wierd. and if you don't like the bg or whatever just keep working at it, and don't think too hard about it, that was one of my problems when I had a slump, so just keep trying man, you'll get it.
