My favorite is the third one. It has some nice color variation without coming across as pushy. Keep up the good work, and welcome to Lilycove!

If I were to use any of those, I'd choose the first. It's compact and makes good use of it's space at the same time while not looking too busy.

Far too often, you see signatures that are either too huge and leave a lot of blank space, or try to cram every last bit of space with something to the point where it becomes a major eyesore.

The only thing I might do differently is change the color of the font to a more subdued color to match with the softness of the background images.

Considering you helped me with my signature, I'm not sure if there's much I can help you with, technique-wise. But overall, I'd say you can pick colors that go together really well. The only one that could be a considered a little busy is the second one, but my favorites are the third and fifth ones. I think it probably has something to do with the subtle backgrouds, which make the main subjects really stand out.

Also, I just kinda noticed this, but I really like how the colors of the left-hand girl in the second one make her look sort of 3D. So, maybe try playing with stuff like that a little more?? Overall, I really like your signatures, Serpentsounds, and hopefully this helps you come up with some new ideas.

Shinashu: Yeah, curves are better usually. I should try to make sure things fit well with rounded corners. And I did create a large canvas with spread out things last time I was using GIMP. It did help, but also if you have a smaller canvas you can also just hide layers to give yourself multiple workspaces one at a time.

Mektar: Thanks, I overall liked the effect of the color channel editing for the 2nd one and used it again in this, except not to quite extreme of a level (I was aiming for a "soft" looking signature by means of the colors). It seems that is something I should try again.

Kurushel: Surprising to see somebody prefers my 1st one, though I'd have to agree with you on it being compact and to the point. I think I might try and shave down my average width for future works. And the font was intended to contrast, though that was probably my mistake at the time.

rex: Yeah, the 2nd one was mainly just fooling around to be honest Though I did learn some things from it. Drawing focus away from the background is something I see a lot in sigs (mainly by in-your-face front images), so I wanted to kind of mimic that while still having the background contribute something. And like I said, screwing with the color channels is something I plan to do more, even if it's subtly (like in the 4th one, I slightly beefed up the reds and yellows on the character to give it a warmer tint to stand against the blue background).

Thanks a lot for your feedback, guys. Not sure when I'll have more up because this is only something I occasionally do, but I am kinda excited to try new stuff.

Speaking of new stuff...are there any specific image effects I should try? Like a hidden gem in the filter menu? Or maybe just regarding the layout/presentation of things in general?

Another random signature. While looking through some old images I realized that I had never made a Higurashi signature, so I went for it. The image of Mion (or was it Shion at that point?) laughing is simply the image I landed on . (For the record I like Rena better <3).

To be honest I didn't really try many new things in this one. I tried to keep things of similar color, but obviously the red on the title text stands out a bit (for better or for worse). I messed with inner glows and shadows more than usual, and made the color channel manipulation very subtle (just enough to clean things up). The background is again just laying a mostly transparent pattern layer over a big mess or random green/gray. Just the usual making random stuff up as I go along.

Edit 3/3/2011: Here's another random sig. Been popping quite a few out lately, it seems. A Pokémon themed one, finally, featuring Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. It has a bit of a retro feel to it, featuring Sugimori art from Gen I as well as some TCG art from Base Set that I revamped.







I think for my next one, I'm going to try making all of the featured images blend into the background more, so there's little contrast.

More Pokémon! You may have seen my most recent concoction elsewhere...

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More of a banner than a signature.

Niice. I really like the Gen I starters sig. I just find it to be really neat looking, and the colors don't clash, because of the black background (well, that sounds kinda weird, but i know if i did something like that, it just wouldn't blend that well... or something, lol). For the Rita Mordio one, definitely the first or second one, imo.

The Psydex one is really good as well. I kinda wish there was a little bit less of the TV-line thing look, but either way it still looks really neat. Keep 'em coming, Serpentsounds!!

Thanks! The starters sig was pretty well received on IRC too. I actually did a handful of different versions, mostly doing revamps to the energies in the background. Though in the end, I'm glad I put in the extra work, since they look a lot cleaner now.

For site use, the Psydex image is compressed as a .jpg to reduce bandwidth. The slight blurring did make the lines effect look a bit worse, admittedly. It doesn't look quite as bad as in my local .png version. But if you look closely, you can notice blurring all across it. For webserver use, sometimes space and quality have to be compromised. In any case, it may have been better to make the lines a bit more transparent (at the moment they are shown at 10% opacity).


Edit: Another small update. Not a signature this time, but rather an avatar. It's pretty simple, but when I saw a name like "Roggenrola" I couldn't help but attempt to show him off rocking:

Oh, that makes sense. Completely understandable. And it's still awesome! I'm kinda curious as to how the other versions of the starters one looked, but either way, the current version is definitely neat.

Also, the rockin' Rock Poke is pretty cool (even though drums are cooler ;p).

The other versions just basically had the energies look a lot worse. For the current version, I took the original base set energy art, ripped out the energy circle, and filled in just 2 colors: black and the energy color. Then I fit curves to every single edge of the shapes and filled black on the side, but removed black from the outside. This resulted in very crisp form that the shapes are in now. In the earlier versions, I just hadn't fit curves to the edges, so they looked fuzzy and had blotches in places. There weren't very many major changes to the other parts from the previous ones, besides some very slight sizing and positioning changes.

And who knows how a rock without arms is going to play a guitar OR drums...

I like your current jirachi sig.
how did you do it?

Jirachi sig? I'm not sure what one you're talking about. I don't think I've made a Jirachi sig.

O_o I have little idea how to do that on a computer program (but I can imagine what you're saying, lol). I can see why you didn't post the other versions now, though, since this was the final product you wanted.

Lol so true

Haven't done anything sig related in a while, so I thought I'd make one. This is the first time I've personalized one by putting my name on it, namely because of the theme: my favorite serpent pokemon! Originally it was only Milotic, Serperior, and Dragonair, but that looked a little too empty. Though, after adding Steelix and Eelektross in, it seems a little too crowded. I might end up redoing this one. In any case, here's what it looks like right now:



I like the background I made for this one, I think I just need to adjust the front content a bit. Perhaps I will when I'm not so sleepy.

Nice, that looks great! Like you said, it looks a little crowded, but in my opinion, that's better than having too much empty space. Awesome job!! Although, it would be nice if all the pokemon didn't look as pale, but I don't know if messing with the contrast would actually improve it... But like I said, it's still a really cool-looking sig.

To make it Serpentsounds, you should change the stars to eighth (sp?) notes

Thanks, rex. The pale colors are the result of an overlay that was supposed to make the background blend better. However, with the only part at the front being the text, I suppose viewers assume the pokemon to be the front, and are a bit put off by the washed out colors. That was a bad call on my part, as trying to make the "background" stick out from the border is also a bit counter-intuitive...overall, it was just poorly planned out. I think I'm gonna scrap that one for now. Thanks for your feedback, though.

I made another one today, and I think this one turned out a bit better. It features some of my favorite grass pokemon. I went again for a fancier looking background, and this time actually made the background/foreground much more distinguishable. My favorite grass pokemon, Vileplume, gets the spotlight, while some honorable mentions add some color to the background behind a handful of overlays. I was pretty pleased with how this one turned out, and I think it's one of my best.



Edit: I also decided to make similar looking ones for some other types:



















I put my name on these ones too. It makes it feel more personal. ;o

The backgrounds are mostly just convolutions of countless brushes, and there are several overlays, including a couple color layers, a glassy looking effect, and some random marks that just make things blend better. Once I made the first one, the other ones took less time, since I used a lot of the same parts.

Nice I really do like them, I'd probably suggest try using card art as supplements to official art. I'd probably also experiment a bit more with tweaking the shadows of the pokemon in the backgrounds, but I do think these are neat.

I don't like the text font though. well I'm a hard man to please with high standards.

Nice! I really like the Psychic and Rock ones. Mostly because I agree with with the choice of Pokeymanz

Your work looks very professional. It takes a completely different skill set to make Signatures when compared to Sprites.

DP: Yeah, the text on these looks pretty bland, and it was the same for all of them, so even I got sick of it. That may be something I go back to edit. I don't think I've ever used tcg art, but that's definitely something I'll consider in the future.

Rex: Thanks! The psychic one has some of my favorite pokemon overall, too.

Mektar: Thanks I'm learning as I go, but I'd have to agree that my skills have improved. And yeah, as far as sprites go, most of my attempts are complete jokes, haha.


Another sig, not pokemon this time! It features Nagisa from Clannad. The Japanese text is "negai ga kanau basho" or "the place where wishes come true" (it's part of a line from a plot-centric play in the story). And yeah, that is the same image twice, just blown up a bit and standing out less. That seems to be a commonly used effect, so I thought I'd try it, and it didn't turn out terrible at least.

Edit: previous versions removed. Current version:



The background isn't just a random brush mashup, for a change, haha. The base image was a background from the novel of the town where Clannad takes place. Keep the c&c coming as always.

Nice job, as always. I like the brightness of the background. Were the diagonal lines a part of that, or did you put them in?? Either way, I think they make the whole thing, oddly enough.

Thanks, rex! And no, I put the diagonal lines in (you can see the bg in my link) with some sparkly star brushes. After screwing with color color channels on the bg, combined with the little circles already floating around in it, it seemed to be glowing brightly. It didn't look bad, so I tried to augment it with those stars/diagonals.

And now, for something not so bright.



Another higurashi sig, though I think this one turned out better than my other one. I did mention that I liked Rena better, so I decided to make her the focus this time. The faded images are just edited screenshots from the anime, and the front image is from a vector of her ending pose in the opening (I didn't vector it though, it was anonymously put on the web). The modest text in the corner is just her name (Ryuuguu Rena). This one is a dark tone because...it's higurashi.