Welcome to Another Shadowraith Gimp Tutorial (A.S.G.T)

This is a full signature tutorial, fairly basic and should be rather easy to follow. Want I really want you, the reader, to achieve from this tutorial, is not just a new sig, but new techniques, these are the heart of a sig, without any all sigs would be bland and boring. I will show you how to make the most of these simple techniques to make a very complex sig. This sig was almost completely made with Defaults. Now let's get started

Resources
-Render
-Logo
-Sentinel GFX Brush Set

Tutorial

In this tutorial you will be making a sig like this:


Step 1

Open up a new canvas, I will be using 400x100, get out the Paintbucket tool and fill with black.



Step 2

Next scale your render to fit inside the sig and paste it in on a new layer.



Step 3

Make a new transparent layer and move it just beneath the render layer. Get out the Paint brush tool, change your FG color to white, select a couple brushes from the Cloud set you have just downloaded and make a couple of clicks so that it fills almost the entire sig. Leave this layer as Normal at 100% opacity.



Step 4

Duplicate your render layer twice, move one just underneath the render layer and leave the other duplicate where it is. Select the one below the original render layer, go Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and change the settings to 20. Now go Filters>Distorts>Shift and change the settings to 10.



Step 5

Now go to the other duplicated layer and go Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and leave the X and Y settings at around 20. This bit is rather tricky so listen carefully. Go back to your original render layer and go Layer>Transparency>Alpha To Selection, then Select>Shrink by about 5 pixels, then Select>Feather and change it to around 10 pixels. Then select your render duplicated layer which is above the original render layer and go Edit>Clear and set this duplicated layer to Normal at 100% opacity. Almost done so bare with me, now go Select>Invert, go back to the original render layer and go Edit>Clear. Hope you're still with me



Step 6

Go Edit>Copy Visible then Edit>Paste into a new layer, move this layer to the top of the layer stack. Go Color>Desaturate then duplicate this layer 3 times, call them Color#1, Color#2, Color#3 from bottom to top.



Step 7

It's time to turn this image into a sig. On the first duplicated layer (Color#1), change your FG color to a strong red, I used ff1010 and your BG to a strong yellow, I used efe70d. Go Color>Map>Gradient Map. Set this layer to Overlay at 70% Opacity. Now go to the Color#2 layer, change your FG to a strong blue (0617ed) and leave your BG as a strong yellow. Do another Gradient Map and change this layer to Color at 50% Opacity. Last but not least go to the Color#3 layer, change your FG to a strong green (3bfc0e) and your BG to a brown (7c3e32), do one more Gradient Map and set this layer to Overlay at 20% Opacity.





Step 8

Go Edit>Copy Visible then Edit>Paste and move this layer to the top of the stack. If you sig is looking too dark go Color>Brightness-Contrast and change the brightness setting to 30 and the contrast setting to 10. Now to add the main text. I am using the logo for the game Army Of Two, which my render is from, you can either use a logo or some large, thick text. Paste in the logo or create your text on a new transparent layer at the top of the stack.



Step 9

Make a new transparent layer underneath the text/logo layer, select the text/logo layer and go Select>Transparency>Alpha To Selection. Now go back to the empty layer, go Select>Grow by 1 pixel then change your FG color to black and go Edit>Fill with FG. Now to finish off go Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and change the settings to around 10.



Step 10

Now do another Edit>Copy Visible and Edit>Paste onto a new transparent layer at the top of the stack. Now go Color>Desaturate and duplicate this layer 3 times. On the first duplicated layer, change your FG color to a strong red, I used ff1010 and your BG to a strong yellow, I used efe70d. Go Color>Map>Gradient Map. Set this layer to Overlay at 60% Opacity. Now go to the second duplicated layer, change your FG to a strong blue (0617ed) and leave your BG as a strong yellow. Do another Gradient Map and change this layer to Overlay at 60% Opacity. Last but not least go to the third duplicated layer, change your FG to a strong green (3bfc0e) and leave the BG as a yellow. Do one more Gradient Map and set this layer to Overlay at 20% Opacity.






Step 11

Now you can add a border if you want to. To finish off go Edit>Copy Visible then Edit>Paste and if your sig is too dark go Color>Brightness-Contrast and change the Brightness setting to 50 and the Contrast setting to 20.



I hope you have enjoy this tutorial, all feedback is welcome and I am looking forward to seeing some results

Possible Results

Looks cool! I will definitely try it as soon as I find a good render...

ok, heres my result



i dunno if its that good, but it got a bit confusing half way through

Thought it might, it does look like something went differently but I am not saying that our image is bad.

pretty simple but it looks nice so i will probablly try it

That's my result I made it for an request.

ok here it is



thanks for the tut

Fantastic tutorial.

I like how you didn't just say "Add border and text and you're done" like most tutorials do.

Once again, fantastic.

LitNin3000: You should learn layering. Try this tutorial again and pay attention to each step in depth. Your banner has no background at all, it's gray. There is no blending at all.

-LR

I used a smoke brush I found few months ago looks good to me just monotone I dislike monotone.
Ah heres another one of my results mucch better but I used the render,brush,and logo you did.

awsome tut heres my first result :

heres my result

I really have no clue how you got the brushes to look so good.

Nice here is my Result

I'm following your instructions to the letter, but my color gradient layers look much different than yours. I'm using the exact same colors you listed and in the exact same order. Your red/yellow layer appears to have a brown tint, whereas mine is coming out very much red and yellow. Any ideas what may be causing the difference?

Edit: I notice in your illustration for step 5, your render image still has a bit of color, but in step 6, he blends more with the overall image. Was there something more between the end of the render copies manipulations in step 5 and the copying of the visible layers in step 6? I missed where he blended.

OOPS, thanks for pointing that out, I think some of you might have noticed but I desaturated that layer before duplicating it. Thanks for telling me, I will change it now.

And to answer your question, the amount of white in the sig depends on the amount the BG color will cover, mine doesn't have too much white so it came out more of a brown color because there was so much red.