Well, it's been a while, after my GIMP hiatus, I have finally come back to teach one and all how to make the flashy sigs out there.

Now this tutorial is for The GIMP, and I will also be using MicroSoft Paint, but just for a step or 2. And this is my 2 out of 3 part Signature tutorial, and this one is soooo better.

THIS TUT IS NOT RECCOMENDED FOR NEWBIES TO GIMP, LOOK AT MY TECH TUTORIAL FIRST!

Tech Tutorial- http://www.gimptalk.com/topic.php?a=v&t=1790&f=14

This tut is on how to make flashy abstract sigs. You will learn how to make sigs like this in my series of tuts:





Lets get started, You'll need the brushes I'm going to use

Zhennu's brushes 1+3

[url]#1-http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25702157/[/url]
[url]#3-http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25702307/[/url]

Adhero Brushes
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25440541/

To get the brushes into GIMP, move the .gbr files, to C:\\Program Files\\GIMP-2.0\\share\\gimp\\2.0\\brushes, do this before starting up GIMP.

Getting the background:

1. Start up the Gimp, and start a new document 320x110


2. Your background should be white, make a new layer


2a. if you dont have that layers tablet, Right click the little arrow, then add tab>layers


3. Now on the new layer, choose your first brush from the Zehnuu brushes, I'm using the 3rd pack, and choose a random brush, make sure your foreground is black. Now start brushing until almost no white is left. Opacity is 100%



4. Now make a new layer, do the same thing with white with a different brush, make sure hardly no black is showing.


5. Repeat step 3, but set the layer to overlay, make sure you get something, then duplicate the layer.





6. Repeat step 4, and do the same things for step 5.

note (you should be using a different brush every time)



7. Now you background should be almost all white, now change to the Adhero brushes, they should be all the way at the top of the brushe selection, then create a new layer.



8.Now brush around in black, use 1 or 2 different brushes if you need to.



9. Do the same thing with white. Use different brushes.



10. Do step 3, but with the adhero brushes. Do it on a new layer, and set it to overlay, then duplicate it at the end.

11. Do step 4, just like step 10, but dont brush as much on this one, this is the last brushing layer.



12. If it's a bit 2 bright, lower it's brightness by going to Layer>color> brightness and contrast and lowering on the top layer.

Color

13. Unlike in my last tutorial, instead of using graidents to color your sig, I'm going to use a picture. Use the below pic, and paste it into paint. Stretch and Skrew it by 50% in both on the top part. The strech and skew should be under image dropdown menu.





(From now on I may not put as many pics, since you should now how everything works, I'll just put what it should look like.)

14. Now copy the image and paste it on a new layer.Move where enough color is on the background.Duplicate it about 3 or 4 times.



15. Now, cut the white part on the first layer before duplicating it. Then on each layer, rotate it and move it so it covers the whole sig.




16. Now you should have nearly the entire sig covered. Now on the layers tab, there should be an eye on the far left. Besides the 5 or 4 layers you just rotated, click all of the eyes.
Then like making a new layer, right click but then go to the bottom and "merge all visible layers"



17a. Now re click all the eyes, and on the merged layer, go to filter>distort> polar coords
Then make the adjustments similar to mine.





17b. another way to achieve a good affect it to go to filter>distort>ripple and do it with the default settings.

(I'm going with the ripple effect)

18. Set the layer to overlay and duplicate it once or twice and move it to fill in the grey areas. I also did a motion blur on the top layer to give it some flair.



19. Now if it's a bit bright in some areas, delete some of you adhero brush white layers, and just use the render (character or picture) to cover it up, it depends on your brushing.

Adding a render:

20. Pic a suitable render, I'm going to use the one I use to make the background. Make a new layer and paste it. Dont forget to cover up and major white spots.

21. Erase any un neccessary parts, duplicate the layer, set it to overlay, and do a gaussian blur of 4, repeat if you need to.

22.Do the merge visible layers trick .

Text

23. Choose the text tool, Choose you foreground color, (I'm Choosing Black) and your text.
Make a new layer under it, then on the text layer right click then alpha to selection, choose your outline color, then on the new layer, go to edit>stroke selection. Chosoe your outline size then ok.

Now you got your self a flashy abstract sig. Try and do you own style now instead of stealing mine >.- j/k lol.

You can flatten the image, duplicate it, set it to overlay, and do a gaussian blur of 4, for a extra effect.

Oh yeah and the border, Make a new layer, Select border color, sellect all, then edit>stroke selection, size 1.

Finished product

sweet your tutorials are so long and so illustrated great job I'll have to try this

Do you think you could put [img] tags around the images? It'll make things so much easier.

Otherwise, great tut! I've always wanted to be able to do sigs like that.

wOOt! This tutorial rocks! And you gave the links to the brushes also! Awesome! I'll try it later and post my results. :l:

Here is what I made: It didn't turn out to good. :s:

thats pretty nice

Sort of did 50/50 my way and yours.

Result:

This might be a stupid question, but exactly how did you remove the background from the image?

You use the magic wand tool, it's not hard to miss

The magic wand tool often leaves a rough edge around the render (such as white). In addition to what Havok said, you want to zoom in and manually erase the edges so you get a clean cut.

or you could just feather it, it's hardly noticeable once you color it.

i cant find pictures of army guys, im making a black hawk down sig and i'm desperatly trying to find some

how you get those lines?

but you can double click on the icon and change the fethering radius so the is no left overs

I did a quick scanlines effect,

The link to the image after step four doesn't seem to be up anymore. Can someone tell me what is done in that image? I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything important.

May i get a link for adhero brushes :h:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25440541/

Click the link at the bottom of the page where it says "Download to desktop".

i'll rehost the image for step 4

edit- i cant find anything wrong for that, and you can still do the step.

I found the problem with it. I forgot to post about it when I realized what it was. When you closed the image, you seem to have accidentally put [/IMGG] instead of the proper tag. This causes the image following step four, the text for step five, and the image following step five, to not be shown.



EDIT:
By the way, thanks for the tutorial. This is the first sig I've made in Gimp that I feel is as good as the ones I used to do in PS when I had Windoze. These forums are helping me to finally get the hang of The Gimp.

The only problem im am having is when i copy and paste after streching and skewing the white background still shows up. How do i change that? or get it to where it doesnt?

Very good tutorial, easy to follow and u really get a good result....Here are my results :h:

You have to remove the background yourself either using the magic wand tool (the quick, easy way) or using the lasso and zoom tool to cut it out yourself (the clean way).

alright thanks

How do I get the brushes to work on GIMP?

All you have to do is move the brushes files to
C:\\Program Files\\GIMP-2.0\\share\\gimp\\2.0\\brushes
and click the refresh button in the brushes dialog.