Nagisa does not actually wear glasses in the game. Another character does, though, and I thought she'd look cute with them so I modded the glasses sprite to fit her face. The background is primarily made of a composite of two photos that I tried to get to look a little more like a game CG background so she wouldn't stand out quite as much and not just look like she's slapped on in the foreground, but I'm not sure I fully accomplished that. The chalk drawing of Nagisa is a heavily modded SD pic of her from the game with glasses added.

Buford said:
The background is primarily made of a composite of two photos that I tried to get to look a little more like a game CG background so she wouldn't stand out quite as much and not just look like she's slapped on in the foreground, but I'm not sure I fully accomplished that.

No, you didn't. There are quality issues and some minor technical issues as well:

DetailsThere'a a massive amount of color noise in the red. The texturing still makes it look like a photo. At the same time, the color noise makes it look like a reduced-color image (Like going from Full Color 24/32-bit to Hi-color 16-bit). You can tell by the sudden cutoff in what I assume was originally a gradient segment over on the lower right corner.

The work on the chalkboard edge is half-assed, frankly. I don't know what you tried to do or wanted to accomplish. In either case, it failed. It looks like a cut & paste assembly job with recoloring work done half-blind in oldschool MSPaint with just the bucket tool. I'm mainly talking about the lower right edge.

AdviceDon't post merged image styles (Real-life Photography and CG) together unless you know what you're doing.

Bigger thing to consider: If you question your own work, don't post it here. We're not a publishing site. Don't expect to always get criticism of any type here. Posts may get deleted before anyone even sees them.

RecommendationDrop the CG char and just do a anime-inspired photograph focusing on the chalk art. I commend you on the detail and texturing done there. Your attempt at blending the 2 styles together works against both of them. Pick a style and stick to it for this image until (if/when) you get better at style blending.

The attempt at CGing the BG ruined it. The CG char STILL stands out too much, despite that editing attempt. I say just do a chalkboard with the chalk art. I'm assuming the 2 photos you use were of a wall and the chalkboard, if the edgework on the chalkboard is anything to go by. Just use the chalkboard unless you can do a better blending job between the 2 photos.

Thanks for the comments/criticism, I'm not really an artist and mostly just putz around with an image editor to see what I can get out if it when the mood strikes.

The wall and chalkboard are actually the same photo. The second photo was just of a blackboard texture with more damage that I used in the very center, fading out to the edges, to keep the board from looking too flat and plain.

I agree that the lower right edge of the board where it meets the wall and rail is a bit rubbish; a layer effect that I liked for the rest of the image kind of ruined the edge appearance and I didn't do much to try and correct it.

As to the red gradient in the bottom, I left that as-is since it reminded me a bit of old-school CG art that did have reduced color and the noise (paint scratches and dings in the wall in the original pic) gave it a little texture, but with a high color foreground I agree it does look a little out of place.

Personally I think you did a good job. The reduced color feel works really well.