Making of Antisora Sig(Tutorial)
After seeing rseah's tutorial again, I've decided to make my own. It's not for beginners but anyone is welcome to try. I'm going to cover how I made my latest entry into the sig contest.
Outcome:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...3/antisora.png
Getting the Render In
First, delete the background layer. Now, find a render or render something yourself. Try searching the forums on gamerenders.com or planetrenders.net. Position it as you find to be good.
Remember the rule of thirds.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step1.png
In this render, I really like the wisps coming off him. I duplicated the layer and erased Sora, and repositioned as needed. This step is, of course, optional, but you may want to consider it if it suits your render.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step2.png
Background
Now, you'll want to add a basic background as layer modes don't work on transparency. Just make a new layer and make it any color you like(I chose white) Now brush a bit. I used a gray grunge brush and some black kind of vectorish brushes. I kept the black strokes centered around the focus, but do it as suits your flow. A note on flow at the bottom
A note on brushing. It is generally not considered skillful to brush, and it doesn't really expand your skills either. Keep it limited or not at all.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step3.png
Now here is where you let the creative juices loose. I'll tell you what I did but I encourage you to experiment.
I'm a fan of c4ds. You'll find them to be used very often in my work. So here I added c4ds, one at a time, and played with color and layer settings. Now here are the three c4ds I added after adjustments.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step4.png
Adjusted to green and set on value.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step5.png
Adjusted to green and set on grain extract.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step6.png
Left default colors ad set on divide.
Text
It's easy to dismiss text, but doing so is certainly a mistake. You should spend enough time on text to make it look good.
First, choose where you want the text at. Choose somewhere that's mainly one color so you can see the text easily. I've outlined some possible places below:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step7.png
Once you've picked the place, choose a good font. Spend some time browsing dafont.com to find the one that suits your sig. In my case it was easy. I chose Kingdom Hearts.
Before you type the text, make a bath following the place you're putting the text, unless it will be horizontal.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step8.jpg
Now type out the text and size it as you like. Color doesn't matter right now. Now press Text Along Path. It will make a selection in the shape of the text along the path. Now choose a color that will show up well and fill in the selection(Ctrl + ,)
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...0Sig/step9.png
Now make a border around it without making the text bigger by right clicking the layer and choosing Alpha to Selection. Make a new transarent layer and fill in the selection with a new color that shows up well against the bg as well.Shrink the selection a few pixels and press delete.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...Sig/step10.png
Now all that's left is the border. Easy. I just make a new transparent layer, select all, fill it in black, shrink by 1, then hit delete. The result is your finished product!
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...3/antisora.png
Flow: Flow is very important to your sig. You'll want to establish flow early so you know where to go with it. Here's the flow in my sig, but they can greatly vary and I'll try to show more examples.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...Sig/step11.png
As you can see, it's exploding from the focus, and my background is doing the same. Most sigs won't explode from the focus but rather follow the focus. I'll try to explain in more detail later.
Please post your outcomes and opinion of the tutorial. I may or ma not make more depending on if you guys like it/find it useful.