Me on a not so good night... around 8-9 months ago. Now the hair is gone (was shoulder length) and dyed black. Facial hair is now gone as well... I think I might as well take a new photo.
Xehsin was always good in my book, he was always the one to go to when you needed something that had a professional look to it. My vote goes to him.
REMEMBER DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD UNLESS YOU GOT A TUTORIAL! This I promise you is gonna be the easiest photoshop tutorial ever!! If you have Photoshop, Image ready, or any other type of layer picture maker you can do this... All it will require is : A pack that will be attached to this post which contains: - 2 Main Pics - 1 BG Pic - The final product - other really easy sigs I made An open mind to learn and 20 min!! only 20 min!! Lets start!! For starters you will be making this : I know this is not the best sig ever made, but it was quick, easy, and looks good. Also remember, this tutorial is not for making this sig, but for learning new techniuqes, and learning from others... To start out, you need to make a Canvas for the sig... I made mine 600 x 150. you can make yours any size you want but I wouldnt go smaller than 300x100. This biggest width this forum can handel without a scroll bar on the bottom appearing (or the pic not fitting in the window) is 750 (that is the closest rounded #), width can be anything, but I recceommend nothing more than 250 if you dont want a mod getting it out of your sig... :( Next you want a nice background... Do you see all the nice cut lines, and designs in my bg? i did some google image search the other day and came out with this : Now this had some color, but I desaturated it (or made it black annd wite) and it turned out great, now this is bigger than most sigs will be, but you can pretty much take any slice of this pic, and use it as a bg for your sig... So first find a peice of it and cut it out... Like so: I picked this peice for several reasons, you dont want too much white, or too much black, or it will turn out funny later in the procces... I felt this had a 50/50 of black to white... next you want to give your BG color... i found an easy way to do this, i make a square the size of my sig a certain color i like, in this case a light blue... I made this as my first layer... I then put the BG as my second layer with a 75% opacity... Finally to make the perfect shade of blue I copied the BG color layer (the blue) and made a duplicate layer or that exact same shade and put it as the 3rd layer, on top of everything... To keep the BG visable, i lowered the top layer of blue all the way down to 20% opacity... Now that may seem not that much of a change, but remember, you can toggle with the % depending if you want a stornger or weaker blue color... Now it is time to work with the real images... A nice place to find images for your sig is on google images, my theme was halo, so i googled "Halo" and I came up with the 2 pics you see in my sig... They both had fancy background that I had to get rid of, so it wouldnt interfere with my sig, but when I was done they turned out great... Now if you notice, on my first pic not everything from the BG was taken out. THAT IS OK!! Only worry about erasing the stuff around the place you are working with, erasing by hand can be tedius, and time consuming, but as for the first pic, I was only using the face, so i only erased the face... I placed those 2 images in convenent places, the 2 ends... and i had this : looks nice dosent it? now if you notice, just for an extra effect (not needed) I added a shadow... this is really easy to do... Make a new blank transparent layer, and place it under our 2 pics, but over everything elese... Then get a BLACK paint brush, and "outline" the pics on the transparent layer... When you outline you should have th paint brush circle, half way into the pic so that half looks as if it were drwing on the pic, and the other half, drawing on the transparent. Dont worry abput drawing on the pic, because you are doing this on a layer underneath the pics, only the "shadow" will show. now black it not a great shadow, and since all shadows are transparent, you lower the opacity to 35... Now you have this big ol space to do with as you choose... You can put a Halo logo, your name, somthin funny, or somthin meaning ful... I put my name. Find a cool font, a reasonable font size, and a good color... and there you go, you got your easy, but good looking sig!! wasn't that easy?
I do not mean that he should stretch the image... what I am suggesting is that he creates a new sig with 430x125 dimensions, inserting his background and then reapplying the render. This way it looks the same as it does now... only wider.
VI, VII, VIII, V, IV, Tactics, IX, X, I, II, X-2. Never played III yet. Currently playing Final Fantasy XII.
Like I say to everyone... try stretching out the size a bit... try to make it into a 430x125 and see how it looks then.
1st Sig - Without a doubt has to go... way too much red going on... not to mention you made the text red as well. 2nd Sig - Much better attempt... may I suggest a different sig size? Maybe 630x150? Or possibly 420x125, you should stretch it out a little bit and give it some more width. With a few minor changes sig #2 could be great... I absolutlely love the abstract background choice behind the render. Quite beautiful indeed.
Sig is a bit grainy (not sure if you were going for that approach) and the avatar is alright... the scanlines was a good choice without a doubt, but the image itself (Bass) isn't all that easy to recognize Overall - 7.5/10
Information on the program you use would be a great help in my abilities to offer you a tutorial on how to go about learning the best ways in using those specific art programs. If you are indeed using Photoshop (Does not look as if you use it) I can give you steps to becoming much more indept with it's options and various brushes. Respond with an answer and I will see what I can do to help.
Yep, I am here... I am back!!! Ok enough... I am Mr. BuBBLeS, formerly LeGioN. Anyone who was here before the move may know me... some may not. Not much is to be known except that I enjoy playing Bubble Bobble in my spare time.
