Full Signature Tutorial

[TheKoopaBros.]

TheKoopaBros.'s Advanced Gimp Signature Tutorial!

In this tutorial I will be teaching you how to make Signatures such as these:







Step 1: Starting out and making your background

I'm starting off with a New Window in Gimp. Dimensions are 420 pixels wide by 90 pixels high (image below for reference).



Now click on the paintbrush icon, and down in the lower menu there should be a scroll bar entitled "Opacity". Move that down to about 60% or so.

Now select a grunge brush (I used the AbstractChaos brush set).

Note: If you need to find brushes for Gimp, boot up Google, type in "Deviant Art Gimp Brushes" then click on the first link. To install those brushes, follow this guide:

http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/boa ... =0#M412824

Brush on your sig using different brushes until most of it is covered. It may resemble the below image, now:



Now click on the black rectangle in the center of the tool menu. Double click on it and select the colour white. Now pick out a soft brush, and start brushing on top of your grunge brushed background. I used the Leiyla brush sets for this.

Now don't go overboard when you're doing this. In the end you still want to be able to make out at least some of the black background you started with. Here is what I came up with after a few brushes:



The next thing that you should do is this:

In your layer window you should be working on your "Background layer". Right click (Ctrl + Click for Mac's) on that layer, and select "Duplicate layer".

Your layer window should now look like this:



Now select that duplicated layer, and go to Filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur.

Put in these settings:

Blur radius:

Horizontal: 13
Vertical: 13

Blur Method: IIR

Now hit OK.

Your signature should now look extremely blurry. Now under the layers window, and under "Mode:" click, and scroll down until you come across Multiply.

Note: Overlay, Burn, Hard light, Soft light and Grain Merge can also work well.

What this does is that it brings out the light or dark colours of the signature (depending on which blend mode you use).

Here is what I came up with:



Now right click on your duplicated layer and select "Merge Down".

Now comes the background colouring part:

Now before deciding on a colour, its often a good idea to figure out what render you're planning on using. If you're render matches the background it can make the signature as a whole look nicer and stand out.

Since I'm planning on using a render of Koops (which is yellow and blue), I'll make the background a light blue-turquoise colour to match him.

Now if you have decided on your colour, lets continue on...

With your background layer selected go to Tools->Color Tools->Colorize. Play around with the scroll bars "hue", "saturation" and "lightness" until you're content.

Since I'm making a light blue background I used the following:

Hue: 192
Saturation: 84
Lightness: 12

The result is this:



Step 2: Inserting and touching up your render

Now its time to insert the render.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm using a Koops Render:



Now, as I've used in my past tutorials, I'll be using the Magic Wand tool. I'm not going into great detail, so if you're stuck, please PM me or read my other simpler tutorials.

Take the magic wand tool, click on the background, now go to Select->Invert.

Now cut the render out.

Now, switch back to your signature. Go to Layer->New Layer, and then paste your render into it. If the render is too big or facing the wrong way you can correct this by going to Layer->"Scale Layer" and Layer->Transform->"Flip Horizontally".

Now once you have it where you want it, anchor the layer by clicking outside of the signature.

This is what I came up with:



Note: Now be warned, from this point onwards this tutorial will become increasingly difficult. You have been warned. >=D

Now make a new layer, then paste the Koops render again, and again, again until Koops's fill the entire screen. Everything must be covered. This may seem silly, but you'll see soon enough its purpose.

Your layers window should look like this:



Now with that layer selected (Lots o' koops one) go to Filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur. Set this at anything above 18 horiz. and vert, hit OK.

Now under "Mode" in the layer window select "Overlay". Now take your original Koops layer and move it up above the Blurred-Overlayed-Koops layer.

Your image should look something like this:



Now select your original Koops layer, duplicate it, now go to Filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur. Set both axis as 18 or so.

Now set that duplicated layer as "Overlay". What this does is emphasizes or brightens certain colours. Its a useful tool for creating a warmer feel to a render.

Again, other blending styles can create different results. Experiment with them!

Step 3: Adding text and text effects

Now for the text:

Pick out a font that you want for the main text of the signature:

I picked the font "JellyBelly". Select white as a colour, then type out your screen name. Now center the text onto your sig, then anchor it.

Now go to layers->Transparency->Alpha to Selection. Now make a new layer, and move it BELOW the text layer.

Now make sure that your default colour is black, then got to Edit->"Stroke Selection". Under "Stroke Line" select "3", then hit OK.

Now unselect everything, then select the text layer and merge it down onto the stroked text layer.

It should now look like this:



Now duplicate your text layer, put a Gaussian Blur of 8 (or less) on the layer, then and set the duplicated, top layer to "Darken Only". Now merge down that layer over top of your text layer.

Now go to Colorize, and input the settings that you originally set for the background (or something similar).

Hit OK.

Your sig should now look like this:



Now that this is finished, its time to work on the sub text (if you want it).

Now select the text tool, and pick a font. For best results use a pixelated or bitmap font.

I used the font "Acknowledge TT (BRK)" under size "14".

Now go to Layer->Transparency->Add alpha to Selection, make a new layer below, edit->Stroke Selection, but put the stroke line size to 2.7.

Now, merge down the text layer onto the stroked layer, position the text, and it should look like this:

Now you can leave the sub text as is, if you'd like, but if you want to try a different effect select the blending mode "Value" while selecting the sub text layer.

Step 4: Finishing up and adding a border

Now finally the border.

Simply put a border of ANY kind makes any signature look better. If you have a chance to do so, DO SO.

Here are two ways of making borders:

# 1:

Make a new layer, place the layer above both of the renders. Now go to Select->All, then go to Edit->Stroke Selection. Make sure black is the default colour, make the stroke line "2", then hit OK.

# 2:

Make a new layer, place the layer above both of the renders. Now go to Select->All, then go to Edit->Stroke Selection. Now with black as the current colour go to stroke size 10, then switch to white, stroke size 8, now switch back to black and select 5 or 6. Now using that layer set it to Overlay.

Examples of borders on this sig:

With #1 Border:



With # 2 Border:



With no border:



See what the difference a border can make?

And THAT! Sums of my tutorial!

I hope you liked it, and happy gimping to you all! ^_^

If you don't understand anything in this tutorial please let me know as soon as possible!

If you've made anything with this tutorial, please post your results.

[bourne]

nice tut but for me it really isnt that advanced - unless im missing something?

[TheKoopaBros.]

Thanks.

I realize that now as compared to some of the other tutorials. If I could have editted the title I would.

Thanks for responding.

[bourne]

np - i will try it and post my results but atm i dont have time for gimp

[Vortagern]

Is this right?? here is my result

i didn't get some of your tutorial was unclear but nice tut anyways!

[fuglyseep]

Nice tut. Here are my results:

[philFX]

Good Tut,but far from advanced.

[TheKoopaBros.]

@ Vortagern:

You have some issues with the text and the renders you used are blurry. Your background turned out fine, though.

If you need further explanation on any segment of this tutorial please let me know. :h:

@ fuglyseep:

Nice work! The background and text are fine (though with a wider font the text works better), but the render could use some work. You could have done the render blurring/overlay step to make Bowser stand out better.

@ philFX:

Thanks. I realize this now. I'm checking around and seeing if I can get my tutorial's name changed.

[Kadaj]

Nice tut. I have a result, except, i didnt use everything on this tut i used differnt brusshes, and renders. but borders, size, ect. i used. well heres my result

[TheKoopaBros.]

Nice signature.

Good work on the render, background and border. The only thing that looks out of place is the text.

So its not a bad signature. :h:

[rarefy77]

I did a bad job with the render and didn't bother to clean it up, and the font does not go well at all. Other than that, it didn't come out too bad, lol.

(Edited to add another. I need to download more fonts.)

[Kadaj]

Nice signature.

Good work on the render, background and border. The only thing that looks out of place is the text.

So its not a bad signature.

Ty. I never have been good with text, any sugesstion on what text would be good to use.

[Aki_Otaku]

Here's my result... it's not that great...

:l:

[TheKoopaBros.]

@ rarefy77:

The first one didn't turn out that great overall, but the background is pretty nice. I like the second more because of what you did with the text.

@ Kadaj:

Maybe try the text effect (using gaussian blur + color balance) that I detailed in my tutorial? I think it would look much better.

Its just that your text is dark as well as your signature and because of that its hard to read.

@ Aki_Otaku:

That's not too bad. If I were you I'd follow the text effect portion of my tutorial on your existing text. I'm sure it'll look much better.

If anyone has trouble following any of my instructions please let me know. :h:

[Kasami]

I used this tutorial from Nsider and it helped me alot, I only just got the text thing today when I re read it...anyway my first result:

Today's result:

The second one I didn't use brushes because I was going for a look that couldn't be done with brushes as easily

[TheKoopaBros.]

Nice work on both of those.

In the future when using that text blurring technique for larger text I would stroke it less so that it appears less dark.

Using the color balance tool can often brighten the text colour as well.

Who are you known as on NSider?

[Kasami]

I'm no one on Nsider, I just found the Gimp FAQ on there by google searching gimp tutorials.

[TheKoopaBros.]

Oh, ok.

I must be more popular than I think I am then. : :l:

[TheKoopaBros.]

I managed to get one of the moderators to change the topic's name to "Full Signature Tutorial" rather than "Advanced Full Signature Tutorial".

Thanks for those who corrected me. :h:

[Dark Shadow]

Can you give a link to a nice soft brush? I don't have any soft brushes right now

[TheKoopaBros.]

@ Dark_Shadow:

Here you go:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25824381/

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25824505/

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25825337/

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25826359/

Those are the brushes I actually used for this tutorial. Enjoy. ^_^

[rookie]

is this right

[MotoXguy]

my text is hard to read i t hink i did somthin wrong on it

[TheKoopaBros.]

@ rookie:

Yeah, that's good. Looks great! ^_^

@ MotoXguy:

I wouldn't say so, but the text effects work a lot better with wider fonts. Nice work.

[fiery]

Thanks for the tut!!I used it for the text and border.