ugh what the hell am I doing Rewritten by Shade Tail. Thanks for the clean up! 1. I want to make a sig, what program should I use? I’d recommend Photoshop. Don't want to buy it? Use GIMP instead. Get a trial of Photoshop here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/ Get GIMP here: http://www.gimp.org/ 2. I have my program, how do I start? Firstly, you’ll need a render image. www.planetrenders.net is a good place to get some good ones (You’ll have to register first) A render is usually the cut out of a character from an anime or game. Renders can also be game sprites, people, cars, etc. Make sure you save it before you use it, as copying can lead to a huge black area around your render, which is unwanted and can sometimes make the render unusable. Open the render in the photo editing program you use instead, and just simply copy the whole thing. Remember you CAN use more than one render. When you’ve picked out a render, make a new file in Photoshop or GIMP. You can set the size to be whatever you want, but most sigs tend to be around 400 pixels wide & 110 pixels high 3. What do I do now that I have my render? Renders are generally used to create a focus point for your sig. When you have your render play around with the positioning until you find a place where you think it works best. The positioning of your render plays a much bigger role than you might think. 4. I’ve positioned my render, what now? You will want to start off with the background behind your render. Create a new layer, and move it ‘below’ your render. Now just chose a color that suit’s the render that you’ve chosen. For this, the creator chose orange, maybe due to Donald’s beak being orange or that pumpkins are orange, linking it to Halloween. 5. It still looks kinda dull, what should I do? Well, most sigs have a background, middle ground and a foreground. (Foreground likely being your render) As you can see in the sig above, the creator used some curvy lines in the middle ground using a darker shade of orange to decorate it, and made it so it’s not so plain. Being able to use these effectively can help make a good sig. 6. Anything else I should know? You’ll want to make sure your background, middle ground and foreground flow nicely together by using different depths. What do I mean by this? Firstly, look at the render. Now look at the large things to her immediate right and the left. Notice a difference? The render to the right is rather sharp, but the one to the left is blurry. This is called depth. By doing this, you can create a bigger focus on the main render rather than the effects. Remember, effects aren't the main component of the tag. Effects in a sig are used to give the render support to make it look good 7. People say to make my sig “blend well.” What does this mean? Blending is so that the stock doesn't overly contrast the colors of the background, middle ground or foreground. What they’re basically saying is that you should make the render ‘blend’ into the background, but not so much that you lose your focal point Color and blending work together. You will want a color that supports your render, but not to the point where everything is one color and looks dull. If you take a look at this sig again, you can see that although the main color is a pastel yellow, it's not the only color. There's purple, some pink and blue. The bright yellow and dark blue contrast each other so that it looks nicer.
You focus too much on the background itself and not the tag as a whole. THIS is why I know think I'm better than you. Hmmm Gimp. I've never used GIMP, nor have I ever felt the need to since I've always used Photoshop, but I guess I could try and tell you what to do better. Anyway, the way it works is I give you vague advice, and you need to let your creativity take care of the rest.
First, try to think of a general flow and composition for the colours. Next, you want to sort of spread it so that it becomes sort of a "sub-effect" in a way. However, you don't want it to overpower your original background. What program are you using anyway? In anycase, since the background is too abstract to look like water at this point, I think you need to deviate away from your original plan and just make it into an abstract tag. That would be your best bet. I would personally make this one textless.
First version was much better if you could take advantage of the orange/yellow somehow. But since you already listend to Entity, I doubt you can anyway.
This is the kind of mentality that is limiting everyone in this section. A background doesn't HAVE to match the stock in anyway or form. The stock is meant to be treated as a focal point, and the background either supports it or helps it stand out more. The more you attempt to blend it, the more you lose the focus, and that's NOT something you want to do. However, that's not saying blending isn't bad. The people who are good (and I mean good, not like the **** I see here), can blend their stocks with the background in such a way that it leaves you breathless. Unfortunately, when people begin, they think that making a chaotic, monochromatic background that has the exact same ****ing colours as the stock is good, which is the case I see a lot around here. It's not. However, if you can't make a tag look good without blending, then don't even attempt it until you feel you're good enough to do so, because while I say this, sometimes people who do this don't pull it off properly and it looks horrible. There's more to tags than just monochromatic colours, messy backgrounds, borders and text.
It's funny because despite the fact what I say is brutal/rude, it's probably the only kind of posts in your thread that's actually telling you to get better and stop doing the same ugly ****ing **** over and over. You need to grow up.
Well, I was using CS3, but I had some problems due to it being cracked and ****. As such, I reverted to CS2, but I'm not complaining. I used CS2...
Naw, we both go to KHI, but I talk with him often. We're currently making fun of Neku's inability to spell.
Tag looks LQ, overbright, and it's lacking complementary colours.
"look it's pink XD" and ugly
It's fine >:l
I forgot to make fun of you.
I never said they were great either. Generally I dislike most of the visual things I do due to that ****** artist habit of "hnnnngh i desire to become better fff"
Another tagger that tries to blind people. >:l
Of course it is, I'm a funny guy.
Being better than most of the people doesn't give me that right. I have the right to act like a prick regardless of whether I'm better or worse. Because it's fun :] That's not fun though.
Only because I need to maintain and give off a feeling of "I'm an elitist ******bag and everything you say doesn't matter and is **** anyway since you suck at graphics and whatnot." I generally take critique well back on KHI.
Typography is horrible, get rid of it. Secondly, I can't even tell what the stock is. third, why is the transition between the warm/cool colours so sudden? God damn.
