Well I've been pretty busy lately with finals and whatnot but today i have been somehow inspired by some mystical force and decided to design some sigs. Again with my stubborn self, without using custom brushes:


Looks pretty plain but i worked really hard on the background and i love it.


In my opinion, much better than its pre-requisite but with a pretty lousy background that i did using crazy pen patterns. I love the way the sword just cracks open the sig and i really hadn't had any intention of doing that when i first started designing the sig. It just came out naturally when i was messing with brushes and filters.

I might be trying to do both again and combine thme together with the background of the first one as the background of the second one. I think they are both fairly good sigs just demanding some constructive criticisms out there because i know there are always improvements needed to be made. I'd greatly appreciate comments! Thanks!

P.S. I've included a sortof one pixel border on both now. I couldn't find a tutorial on making one though, i did it in the end anyway =P

P.P.S I STILL don't know how to upload brush presets!!! (Help sm or ebbinger or reaver or ANYONE???) Thanks!!!!

Don't wish to double post sorry I'll make this quick:
Sorry to have wronged you SM, forgot to read the post where you did you version of neon/plasma glow. I uploaded the brushes and it works thanks! and Sorry again!

Hey , so now that you have the art of uploading brushes done we can see some nice sigs from you even though at the moment im sure you can make a few default sig tutorials because you have some really good effects going on but you just need to tweak somethings or remove and add others, for example, in the first one the background and border and text all fit well together but the render just doesnt go and since you are using defaults the backgrounds tend to look like a pattern if its placed like your first one so in future either make the render alot bigger maybe the face of that guy and try some colour balances on the renders to get them matching the rest of the sig, Also you can place the render in the middle and make sure it is reaching from top to bottom and close to 50 % of the sig so that again the background will be broken up.
Now the second one is even better i agree with you and your chance effect is a nice touch there is a few things u can work on such as adding a colour balance also to this to take of that yellow glow and bring in some blue to match the rest. Now to complete that crack effect i would hav erased the bottom part of the sword using a soft brush so that it looks like the sword is in the ground or cracks so on or you could just extand your layer mask you used on the render to make sure it takes most of the sort out, but thats pretty tricky to get it to follow the cracks so instead a layer reavel all and then using the black and white brushes to reveal otr hide parts of the render.

Good job techocian keep it up.

Well thats really much better with what I can come up, sometimes I wonder how people make those, due to I didn't get much into graphics, more into programming, the second one is really great and in my opinion better than your current signature, i think it is because that I like the colour.

keep up the good work.

Thanks for the comments! I'll keep working on it. The second one in fact yeah pretty good and I'm thinking of replacing it with my current sig heh. I haven't always used default brushes by the way, going crazy with the pen tool can prove very useful if you know how to use just the right amount of filter touches. I'm still thinking of what i should do with the first sig background. I'm searching and browsing around for renders but all of them just don't match up. If you can provide a render for me I'll put that in. Anyhow I'm glad i finally got replies because I've been waiting for 3-4 days already heh =P

Thanks again! I'll work hard and consider the default brushes tutorial

really nice signatures you've got there...
my favorite is the second one, the character is great and the way the sword cracks the sig is amazing... it'a nice effect
the helmet is amazing... but i personally whould of liked the sword "closer", so i can see the inscription on it.... if you whould of done that, it whould of been one of the best sigs i've seen... even tough as it is, it is a very very good sig....

i agree with what has been said here...your second sig is the better of the two...but both could use some work. i agree that you could possibly focus on the sword more in the second sig because well...with your little crack effect (nice btw) that is where the attention is. also, as reaver had said, you should make it look like the sword is actually going through the sig (or in the ground or w/e) by getting rid of the rest of the sword (as reaver had said) or if you still have the .psd file by simply using the magic wand to get the exact line of the crack and split the render, then using feather to blend it in...not too much just so it doesnt stick out as much (prolly 5px...10px at most). your first sig isnt all that bad. the background is half the battle, and i love the background. you could use a different render though, it is always nice to try to get the render you like into the sig but it doesnt always work (you can try color balance, and mess with the levels - as was mentioned) but a fresh render would be best (you could try looking on deviantart.com - thats where i get all my renders). it is hard to find renders for sigs once you started on a sig...so i suggest starting over again...and using the same effect you did in the background on the first one (if you can recreated it). i am curious on how you came up with these backgrounds using the pen tool, indeed the pen tool is powerful (i used it in my mcr sig - only the pen tool...nuttin else)...you should put a tut together on it...

i also wanted to comment on the idea of combining the two...nobody else seemed to go into that much...i think it would be nice to use the background effect on the second sig...but keep the crack idea in the second sig as well...you should prolly just forget bout the render in the first sig...as it sticks out too much...you should mess with the levels to get some blue in the render on the second sig (as was said by reaver) to blend in more. (i think you should keep the swords color the way it is...jsut an idea...it might stick out too much...but then again..it might just add that little sumtin that makes a sig great - maybe split the sword from the render and give it a more suddle color then the render itself - just so it sticks out more than the render)...

eitherway they both are ok sigs...all sigs could use a little more work, there is never an end to how much time you can spend on a true work of art.

keep up the good work !

Thanks Ebbinger but i haven't been really active on sig designing lately and even if i have, none have really turned out as great as this 2nd sig. I agree that what you said about my usage of the pen tool to make the background looked pretty awesome but trully, all i did was click-drag, click-drag and so on till i get a good pattern. Afterwards i believe it was difference clouds and some other filter which i forgot XD.

Right now I'm more or less struggling to keep with straight As in school because i just moved up to Gifted classes and they're tough. I'll try to see if i could spare some time designing more sigs to improve myself. Again thanks for all the comments. You guys have been great!