So apparently I do sigs now

I've been messing around in Photoshop, trying to make signatures. I haven't had much success with actually learning what the hell I'm doing, but I'm starting to turn out stuff I don't hate :)

Tonight I was messing around and well something crazy happened. So here are several variations on the same theme.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...res/P3Blue.png
(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...3DarkDark2.png
(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...P3DarkDark.png
(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...3DarkLight.png
(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...LightLight.png
(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ightMedium.png
(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...WhiteLight.png

I have no idea how this happened but I was pretty happy with how it turned out :D (also I haven't resized them or anything yet for fear of breaking them xD)

I also made these two at other points

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...shido/Sair.png

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d.../Signature.jpg

They are pretty good. Did you draw that?

Nice! First one is my favourite.

The artwork was drawn by someone over on deviantART names karulox. I'm not any good at drawing yet :p

That first one is the best. The second is in second place. pretty good job.

The second one is really good.

Memento Mori... Persona 3 LOVE :love:

Great work Jiro!

Here's my next batch! I wanted to mess around with the transparency a bit to see if it looked better.

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...by_randumm.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ingAlucard.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...missionver.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ures/Dante.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...res/DanteT.png

I kind of detest the Cloud one. I think it's because it's too zoomed out but when I noticed that I was at the cba point because I still have trouble with the program :D

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...DarkHollow.png

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ightHollow.png

Again, didn't know which one I liked more. Also contributed this

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...dDreamer-1.png

That last one looked much better when it was bigger, didn't scale down well at all. Although the same could be said for the other two, they lost a bit of detail :(

Bunch for NCGCouldn't decide what I wanted to do with it, so I made a few
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...Deathscent.png
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...eathscent2.png
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...eathscent3.png
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...eathscent4.png
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...eathscent5.png

For missaira
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...tures/miku.png

Messing aroundPulled this shot from the song "Love Is War", decided to mess about. Not at all like I first envisioned it, but fun ntl.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ures/Miku2.png
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ures/miku3.png

The second one in the NCG batch is actually pretty awesome, and they're all nice for simple sigs.

If you want a suggestion, there was a link to a resource site posted by moonflow in the Sig making help thread, take a look at some of the tutorials in there. Just start by following the tuts step for step, and you'll learn so many different techniques (unless of course you don't have photoshop).

I have a copy of Photoshop, but it's like the portable version or something so I don't think it's complete. I'll take a look at the tutorials anyway, see what I can pick up!

DMC! :love:

S'all good <3 I like how they're all unique, some people do too many look-alikes which can get amazingly tedious. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

I have a copy of Photoshop, but it's like the portable version or something so I don't think it's complete. I'll take a look at the tutorials anyway, see what I can pick up!

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Ohh k, bummer. What program do you use? I'm sure there'd be some good tutorials for other programs and what-not.

As far as tips I could give you, I would say you should try messing around with some c4d's to make your backgrounds pop some more. But I'm not sure what kind of blending options you'd have on whatever program you're using. So it might be hard.

Also, the outline that have around the dogs is uneven; so what you could do is duplicate that render, fill it in as one solid colour (probably the same blue that you've used, because it's a nice colour theme imo), and then enlarge it so it leaves a perfectly shaped frame around the dogs. Then it's just a matter of erasing the one little part in between the two dogs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...res/DanteT.png

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:thumb: my favourite overall. Veeeeeeery nice.

I like all of these things. I'm no good at making backgrounds like you seem to have down pat. Very nice work though =) i'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff

So I downloaded a bunch of brush packs and started messing around. I think I fell asleep half way through, but this is my finished product.

(SPOILER)
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ightning-1.png

I only realised I hadn't used any of the brushes until the very end so it was a last minute add. I don't completely understand what I'm doing, and I picked a bad image (:p) but w/e. I now know what c4d's are thanks to both ee and sagensyg's thread (which you should check out). I might have a look at using some in the future.

Proxy, I just steal backgrounds from the net :p Making my own is impossible! for now

EDIT: Some other notes I forgot to add:
1) there was no need for the "shadow" Arisato but it looked cool so I kept it :p
2) I added my name in the corner early but it doesn't have that crisp feel I wanted. cba to remove
3) There is no 3. Wait no there is. I wanted to do some fancy :bou::bou::bou::bou: with the text but I dunno how to do what I wanted. The "LIGHTNING" needs to stand out more, and the "I will become..." was supposed to be kind of blurred, but w/e it didn't become apparent immediately so I improvised.

Thank you

Looking good, Jiro! ;) And I really like your name like that! <3

Another one?!

(SPOILER)
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...tures/Edge.png

Just decided to focus on using a brush and a better quality picture so I could actually do things to it. Played with noise reduction and my old favourites Brightness and Contrast :jess:

The results of more messing about.

(SPOILER)
Just liked the blue cloud on the black, so I decided to invert it and see what happened. Then text, whoo.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d.../Inversion.png


(SPOILER)
Messed around with trying to get a background for Nene for ages, so I just gave up and used a cloud brush to make it not square.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ures/Nene2.png


(SPOILER)
I'm actually proud of this one, despite its simplicity. I wanted Sazh to have a similar "shadow" to Arisato earlier, but it wouldn't work for me. There are some cool techy sort of brushes, so I might play around with those and other FF13 characters in future (only because it had a techy sort of feel).
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...tures/Sazh.png

New one's are looking good Dak, be sure to keep messing about with different brushes and stuff and you'll really start to surprise yourself. Also look around for some good background tutorials, they're probably the best thing for learning how to utilize different brushes in the best way.

Great progress :bigsmile:

Good stuff, man. You're getting really good. I'm just gonna ditch GIMP and come to you for sigs from now on. :monster:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

The results of more messing about.

(SPOILER)
Just liked the blue cloud on the black, so I decided to invert it and see what happened. Then text, whoo.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d.../Inversion.png


(SPOILER)
Messed around with trying to get a background for Nene for ages, so I just gave up and used a cloud brush to make it not square.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ures/Nene2.png


(SPOILER)
I'm actually proud of this one, despite its simplicity. I wanted Sazh to have a similar "shadow" to Arisato earlier, but it wouldn't work for me. There are some cool techy sort of brushes, so I might play around with those and other FF13 characters in future (only because it had a techy sort of feel).
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...tures/Sazh.png

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I like the first one, it has literal meaning. XD

I think your third one looks best out of the three. It looks really vector-ish. Good job.

Your good =D
i make my own signatures to, though im not that good at it :(
i guess ill have to watch some tutorials again :3

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sir Cloud

Here's my next batch! I wanted to mess around with the transparency a bit to see if it looked better.

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...by_randumm.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ingAlucard.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...missionver.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...ures/Dante.png

(SPOILER)http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...res/DanteT.png

I kind of detest the Cloud one. I think it's because it's too zoomed out but when I noticed that I was at the cba point because I still have trouble with the program :D

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damm I really like that cloud one and Dante is baddass! Do you think I could use it as my sig? plzzzzzzzzzzz xD

Hey go for it man, it's just sitting around gathering microdust or something :p

chyeaaa chyeaaa WOOP WOOP!!! tytyty xD

Did you stop? You should do more! I downloaded Photoshop but I didn't get past learning how to recolour before I gave up, so you are more persistent than I. :p I like the Inversion one and the set in your first post quite a lot.

I haven't stopped, I just don't have the spark. I need to make myself a new set though, so let's see what I can come up with!

I don't want to bump my thread over those of people who are genuinely talented but I've been mucking around with the character renders from Type-0 and so I have two to share!

http://i51.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...u:/2d7yqrl.png

http://i56.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/ok8vf6.png

http://i55.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/r2vn2o.png

Fonts are letting me down atm (can't find what I'm looking for) but I wanted to give my own backgrounds a shot. It's smurfing harder than I thought it would be. Transparency is still my failsafe :jess:

Anyway, enjoy. I'll try and do some more up later, there's a crapload of characters in this smurfing game.

Looking really good dude, especially the first one. You can tell you're getting a lot better with each new sig.

Fonts can be tricky if you're after something very specific, in the end I always have a 'less is more' approach, and usually stick with small arial. Backgrounds aren't as hard as you would think, next time you're screwing around just put a bunch of brush strokes down on seperate layers, put on a gaussian/motion blur, change the blending to overlay or light screen or basically whatever looks good and then move the different layers around a bit. You'll be surprised how good it can look.

That certainly sounds like something I can manage. Motion blur, gotta find that option somewhere!!

Are you using Photoshop?

I am indeed! CS5 and all! Fancy software automatically makes my work better, right? :P

Motion Blur should be under Filters > Blur. ;)

Edit: Ace sig is looking good. For the others I'd try to "dissolve" the rectangle shape a bit. Not necessarily literally, but there's a lot of focus on the rectangle shape they have. Giving them a non-plain background would help focus attention on the actual design.

Edit2: Obviously transparency is another good way, as you've already discovered.

I hate rectangle shapes but I love borders so it's hard :(

Make borders with the pen tool and bend them! :monster:

I have made a fair few signatures lately, but I can only show you a handful because ~!*SECRETS*!~

For dandy da oak
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/dandydaoak.PNG

For Kuroshima
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g8...01/2aka5vt.png

For Tifa's Boobs
http://i47.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...u:/21k02vm.png

My current sig
http://i48.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...bou:/3rfck.png


Also made Wolf Kanno's current one but that wasn't using a range of skills so I won't post it up here :jess:

Nice batch! You weren't terrible to begin with, but I definitely think your design has improved a lot.

Also, [joke about supplying a signature for Tifa's Boobs]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rantz

Nice batch! You weren't terrible to begin with, but I definitely think your design has improved a lot.

Also, [joke about supplying a signature for Tifa's Boobs]

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Dak can sign my boobs any day.

I have actually discovered how a few different functions work. So it's not just messing with Brightness/Contrast any more, there's other filters and adjustments being experimented with. I have a couple of sweet ones but they're commissions for Wolf Kanno and secret at this point ;)

Awesome work dak. You're obviously getting a lot better at your backgrounds and blending work. Can't wait to see what else you start experimenting with!

I tried doing something that wasn't a rectangle and it was going alright until it buggered up around the edges so I got sad and wanted to quit :(

http://i49.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...bou:/3cwmd.png

Decided to stop being a pussy and give the blitzball sig another go. Wanted to smurf about with animation too. So, voila. Missed one frame but whatever I don't understand this trout.
Attachment 36556

I think I prefer the first one.

Two more today:

http://i48.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...u:/2gxpgtf.png

http://i50.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/vsgh9x.jpg

Heeey you're getting the transparentness! Glad you played with animation too! Look at you go! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

Decided to stop being a pussy and give the blitzball sig another go. Wanted to smurf about with animation too. So, voila. Missed one frame but whatever I don't understand this trout.
Attachment 36556

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Why the hell did you have to point out that you missed a frame? It's all I see now!

This is the same sort of reason I can't listen to Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin anymore!

For anyone who doesn't know what I mean there, John Bonham's bass pedal starts squeaking at the 6 second mark. Now have fun trying to unhear that.

The blitzball also deteriorates in quality as it spins! DON'T KNOW WHY! smurfing thing was way too much of a pain in the ass. I think I'll save animating for a sturdy desktop machine, because my laptop wasn't coping with trying to compile 35 smurfing images.

Every time you transform (rotate, scale, skew, whatever) a pixel image, or a pixel layer in Photoshop, it has to resample what pixels have which colours to look as much as the object before the transformation as possible. It's rarely possible to replicate it exactly pixel for pixel, unless you're for example rotating it 90, 180 or 270 degrees. So every time you transform it, it tries to look like its previous state, which makes the quality deteriorate as you rotate more and more bastardised copies.

One way to solve it is to transform every frame from the original layer rather than from the previous frame. Another way is to right-click the layer and convert it to a smart object first. This will limit the ways you can edit it (truth with modification), but it will always remember the original pixel data of the layer no matter how much you transform it.

Attachment 36557

Yeah I did start out with copying from the original but then I wasn't sure how far I was turning each time so I just went meh smurf it. Probably not the best idea! Thank you for those handy tips though :jess:

http://i50.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...u:/281zkn7.jpg

http://i45.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/5jwwli.png

I wish I kept the previous version of Neon Wonderland. It just... it wasn't working for me as I wanted, but at least it showed more "skill" than just a simple C4D thrown down. I cut the render myself though, which was something to be proud of.

Looking good, daks. Now that you've started messing around with c4d's your sigs will start looking really classy I bet. My suggestion would be to start adding filters to your c4d's it'll make them a little more fancy.

Yeah I threw a film grain filter on there just for something different. I'll mess around with them some more when I find a render I wanna use :D

Can you integrate my walking folks into my newbie party sig? Like they are walking and they have the newbie party sig as the background behind them or something to that extent? Or you got a better idea? They walking at the top is kinda weird. lol :bigsmile:

I think this one is kinda tough right? :(

Animated signatures are not my strong suit unfortunately. I'm sure someone would be able to do what you envision though!

blargh taking another break because this smurfing trout just is not working for me xD

http://i45.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/8zk9zn.png

back-to-school-hope

Wow, funny how I've never seen this thread before. Very impressive work my man. May have to force you into slave-labor for a sig of mine down the road.

Good work~! I really liked the shapes of the blitzball and Jentleness ones. (:

Currently wearing:

http://i48.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/j9n338.png

Wanted to do a few things that didn't end up working. Render was balls, so I just threw down a filter. Even trying to add a slanted line a la Fonz's
[img]i184.photobucket.com/albums/x72/TheFonz2010/Jirocopy.gif[/img] Link sig for me, but had to settle for a simple gradient (although it looks more like two separate colours imo).

Will have to do a couple new pieces soon to test out some things I've seen. Really just need to do a smurfing tutorial or two but I'm lazy as smurf.

So I lied. This is what I'm gonna wear until after Halloween:

http://i50.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/zilj88.png

Threw it together quick smart. The render didn't really fit the tone of the background etc etc or the other way around but I don't care. Inspired by Proxy's signature which has blue trout going on. Just realised I forgot to texture the smurfing stripes ugggghhhh whatever I'll do that for next year.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro Jaggins

Currently wearing:

http://i48.:bou::bou::bou::bou::bou:...ou:/j9n338.png

Wanted to do a few things that didn't end up working. Render was balls, so I just threw down a filter. Even trying to add a slanted line a la Fonz's
[img]i184.photobucket.com/albums/x72/TheFonz2010/Jirocopy.gif[/img] Link sig for me, but had to settle for a simple gradient (although it looks more like two separate colours imo).

Will have to do a couple new pieces soon to test out some things I've seen. Really just need to do a smurfing tutorial or two but I'm lazy as smurf.

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I love this~! The layout is wonderful. Maybe you could do one of these for me sometime~! :bigsmile:

Just let me know what you'd like and I'll whip something up!

Awesome~! I'll probably message you once I have something in mind. ^ ^

I made a bunch of signature templates for prizes in the Anniversary give aways that never got used so here I'll share them with you in batches! The custom text wasn't placed and I'm too lazy to add something uncreative like sample so just imagine or pick one you want or something.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...isHighwind.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Aerith.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...ersaryVivi.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Ashe.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Aurochs.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Auron.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Basche.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Chocobo.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Cloud.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...CloudAeris.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...dZackAeris.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...ia%20Girls.png

Some commentary for the picture dump: I tried a lot of creative things during this process, notably just smurfing about with different brushes though. I've improved a fair bit since all of these but there are some I'm quite proud of as well.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/FFIII.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict.../FFTactics.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Fujin.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict.../Gullwings.PNG

Working on the Vaan/Penelo one really helped me figure out some effects too. I forget the name of course but it's all about the intensity of colour :monster:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Refia.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict.../Tifa%20CG.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Tifa.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...VaanPenelo.PNG

There are a number of good filters which I think make images quite cool.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Vincent.PNG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/WakkaKH2.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/WakkaKH.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Yuffie.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Zell.PNG

[QUOTE=Jiro;3189442]I made a bunch of signature templates for prizes in the Anniversary give aways that never got used so here I'll share them with you in batches! The custom text wasn't placed and I'm too lazy to add something uncreative like sample so just imagine or pick one you want or something.


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Aerith.png



[QUOTE]

This one is so cute! :D I love it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pict...ia%20Girls.png

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Heroines off FF! I like this one a lot. Yuna, you prude.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/FFIII.PNG

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Don't know who this is supposed to be, but this is bitchin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

There are a number of good filters which I think make images quite cool.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Vincent.PNG





http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2516146/Pictionary/Yuffie.png

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I really like the filter on Vincent, and the background on Yuffie.

The mystery fellow is one of the onion kids in red mage form. Wanted to give it to Coffman but Locky got there first xD

amazing!! the one with tifa is my favorite of those ^^