Stormsworder's Signatures

[Arcane 12]

I use Photoshop 5.0, so it may be totally different, but what I do is Select, Select All. Then, Select, Modify, Border. I do it at about 5.

[Stormsworder 0]

Well, not really a signature, but some playing around with a stock image and a render.

[Link360 0]

So, it's been a while since I started dabbling in GIMP and stuff, and I followed mostly basic tutorials to learn things... But as I now work on CS4, I'll post up more of the things I've done for you guys to see and comment on... Critiques and comments are pretty awesome, too.

First post is linked directly from the -=ACE=- gallery.

This was done for a sig contest for a Greek mythology theme.

Definitely my favorite one out of trying to do a basic tutorial.

Basic sig, trying out different fractal brushes and such.

A remake of the first signature I made, had trouble getting the image to render right.

A test of a pen tutorial I followed, along with messing around with font and colors. I couldn't get those stupid lines right on the blades...

Messing around with basic rendering and trying to put an image in the background.

This time tried to go for a vertical style while also following a pen tutorial and testing different colors.

very nice. I love gimp but what is cs4? is it free?

[Stormsworder 0]

No, Photoshop CS4. It's expensive >< Very expensive.

[Marquis 9]

Their awesome..... very awesome.....

i wish i could use gimp like that D:

[Stormsworder 0]

It's not that hard to get to the level I am... stuff beyond that takes some time to get used to. I just followed some tutorials offered on the -=ACE=- website to learn what to do.

[Sevengill 0]

Ew. I really don't like most of these. You don't seem to know too much about art. I could easily be wrong, but that's not what your signatures are portraying. There are a couple of posts I made on another forum and I think they could help you so I'll copy and paste them.

First he asked how to spice things up. I replied with:

Probably the biggest thing would be depth. Depth is one of those things that can really make you go "omgz teh pwns." Take a look at this piece.

Can you imagine what it would be like if this was completely 2d? It would be boring!

Another important thing is color. Take a look a this beautiful tag:

This is one of the best uses of color I've seen. Your tag is mainly red and black, with the guy's blue eyes accenting it. That won't cut it, it needs to be dynamic and have more color! Of course, monotone can work when done right, but it isn't right now.

Next is a focal point. Right now my eyes aren't sure where to look - the render, the text, or the background. It's sometimes difficult to keep your eyes away from text, but they shouldn't be staring at the background! You need to have an obvious point for the eyes to go to at first, then a smooth transition through the rest of the piece.

Last is lighting. You want to make your piece feel as realistic as possible. It's impossible to get it completely realistic, unless you're using human renders/stocks, so you want to get it as close to real as you can. Lighting helps this and can make your piece more dramatic too.

I hope that helps at least a little!

Then he asked how to do those, so I replied with this:

The best way is to just experiment and find out yourself. I know it's not the answer you want, but it's easily the best option. I'll help you get started though. For depth, whenever you're making a piece you want to pick out your background, middleground and foreground. Generally your render and your focal should be in your middleground. If you want to get crazy, though, you can make more than one middleground; this is a delicate thing to do, but when done right it can look awesome. An easy way to make a simple sense of depth is to make three layers. First you put your background on the lowest layer and your render in your middle layer. Your top layer you want to brush a couple colors then smudge them a little to create flow, or add to the natural flow of the render/background. Then you want to add three more layers between your layers, so it goes: background, new layer, render, new layer, smudge layer, new layer. Brush a color that fits with lots of scattering on all of the new layers. Then erase some of it to make it look more random. Then you want to run a gaussian blur of about 15-20 on the lowest scatter layers, then a gaussian blur of about 5-8 on the middle one, and do nothing with the top one. For color schemes, try out the site littleboy mentioned, kuler. Also try to keep your colors relatively unsaturated, and gradient maps can help a lot.

Your focal is actually rather easy, you just need to follow the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is dividing your canvas into nine different sections, and you should place your focal at or near one of the intersections. Here's a great example:

For lighting, I'm still learning how to do that right. Hopefully someone else can drop in and help you with that D: . But what I do is add a new layer on top of everything and then take one of my more important colors, then drag the little color dot up quite a bit so it still looks similar but very light, then take a soft brush and brush where I want there to be light. Then I do the same but with a different color and make it very dark and brush where I want there to be a lack of light. It's not a very good method and I wouldn't recommend it, but I don't know any other ways to do it well D: though I've heard adjustment layers can work great if you know how to use them.

I hope that helps, at least a little bit.

[Stormsworder 0]

...Er... did you not hear me state that I'm new to sig-making and stuff?

And I took one year of art in school. I'm primarily a writer. -_- So gee, thanks for crushing what little self-esteem I have.

[Sevengill 0]

I just think harsh criticism helps the most, sorry

[Arcane 12]

What you did was said you didn't like her work, then showed her how to improve. If you took off the first part, it would have the same result, but without hurting her feelings.

[Pumpkin 0]

I've found that helpful criticism helps the best. If you aren't rude to somebody by saying "ew" when they make an attempt at signatures, they're more likely to want to listen to what you have to say without feeling put-off by the comment.

[Vadarth X 0]

I think they're great. I personally am horrible at art (I too am much better at writing - that is, if I can ever get around to it), so I am in awe of anyone with at least some artistic talent.

[MOLD 0]

There is no true definition for what is "good art." It's all in one's perception, worry not. 8]

In any case, they are good for a beginner. You understand how to use the effects and stuff. But, you'll surely get a chance to learn and improve from the many signatures around here.

[Sevengill 0]

There's nothing wrong with a little bit of negative feedback. I've already noticed a little bit of improvement in your work and I can't wait to see the signatures you will make in the future.

[Stormsworder 0]

I got a Photoshop CS4 for Dummies book. XD it's a nice little reference book...

I think I kinda understand how the history brush works, so I started playing with it. Using it with a black and white setting on a screenshot from an MMO where the focus of the shot has dark colored armor? Not my brightest idea yet.