the colours seem way over saturated in the first image, composition is also just meh, too many distractions on the right hand side, crop a bit tighter in lens while shooting
the second is a great idea. I would take the time to position the upside down pencils so that their leds are up as well, giving more uniformity to the shot. I'd also crop in tighter, slightly, and also make sure that the image is even on the top and on the bottom. The outer pencils look out of focus, so that might be something to look into, either smaller aperture or better focusing technique