I'm going to do a walkthrough of how to make this: You'll need a sparkle brush set. You can download one at deviantart.com, or make your own. And you'll need to have a basic knowledge of Photoshop, as I assume some things are known. Okay? Alright. 1. Open a new document (I think I used 360x100px) and fill it with a grey gradient or black. 2. Create a new layer and brush with white. You don't want to fill the whole layer, or it will be too bright. 3. Sharpen (Filter--->Sharpen--->Sharpen) the layer and then go to Edit--->Fade. Change the mode to lighten or screen and then set the layer to overlay and lower the opacity to 30-40%. Repeat steps 2-3, but instead of sharpening, try blurring and fading, different blending modes and opacities, brushing with a different brush, or anything else you think makes for a good bg. Repeat 6-8 times or until you're satisfied. 4. New layer. Brush with white, but be sure to leave some dark spots, as those will add depth later. Leave this layer at normal with 100% opacity. You can sharpen it if you think it doesn't look "glassy" enough. I sharpened this layer and faded the sharpen to 40%. 5. Time for color. Add a color balance adjustment layer and fiddle around until your bg is a color you like. You might want to consider your render at this point. Annnd there you have it---your bg. 6. Now it's time for your render. You can get one from a render site, or just pick a picture you really like and extract the character from it. Place your render in the sig. You can blend it with the bg a few different ways. The first would be to feather it. If you know how, go for it. Otherwise, just take your eraser, choose a soft brush, and lower the opacity to 30-35% and erase around the edges. 7. Experiment with filters and blend modes until you like the way your render looks. I gaussian blurred (2.5) and then faded (50%) my render, and then duplicated it 4 times. I set the blending modes (bottom to top) to: saturation, luminosity, soft light, overlay, soft light. I adjusted the opacities, also. 8. I added a black/white gradient map, set it to soft light, and lowered the opacity to 25%. Also, I put in a c4d render and set it to screen. Add any other adjustment layers you'd like. Be creative! 9. Add text and a border, and you're done. Here are a few other examples of sigs I made using these steps: Questions? Post, and I'll try to answer them...it might take a while as I rarely have free time anymore.
I love your brushing technique for the background, it's not only easy but gets uber sweet results. I followed your tutorial until the part where you said to put the render (when finished brushing the background), then I started multiplying my render trough the background like I do with my other signatures and played a little with the filters/layers, like you said. Here's my outcome: The brushed background makes some big difference. Thanks for making this, +rep to you ^^ I have one question though, what brush set did you use? I used ferret's one and it looks so similar to yours I wonder if you used it too.
thats a really good guide. ive been trying to get into making sigs. i do mostly renders. ill give this a try.
Great Tutorial, I'll try it out when I get photoshop working again. Anyone know of a good render site?
Besides the known-by-all deviantart.com, you have render-world.com or planetrenders.com (this second is much better than the first ^^)
I remember when I used to brush. Great tutorial! Nice result! Brushing is a great way for people to start making sigs. It gives them depth and detail. Good job lbadmus
Does anyone know if there is a way of doing this ^ on paint.net. Cause all I can manage is making like white lines across the background. There do not appear to be any proper paint brush things, that make paint brush marks as opposed to erasing a part of the background. Any help is appreciated.