This tut won't go too detail about the use of the tools, so basic knowledge about GIMP is required.

1. Ok first off, you create a new doc. The one I made was at 350x120px, but sizes dont really matter. Fill the background with black.

2. Now create a new layer and choose your brush tool, and pick...no, not those fancy grungy brushes you used to use, I want you to pick the default Circle (19) brush. Change the color to red . Brush a random blob shape in your sig. Like this:



3. After that change your color to yellow and create a smaller blob within the red one. And then change your color to white and make another blob within the yellow one. You should have this by now:



4. Looks odd? Yeah it should be. Now you open up the Gaussian Blur dialog (Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur). Change both of the Blur Radius to 85 or so (IIR) and apply it. Your image should look like this:



5. Aye, now make a new layer. You'd want to create some clouds now. You do so by using the Solid Noise filter (Filters>Render>Clouds>Solid Noise). Here's the setting I used, use a random seed as you may:



6. Make another layer and repeat step 5, remember to generate with a different seed. Now you set the blending mode of both cloud layer to "Burn" and reduce their opacity to 50%. Your image should now look like this:



7. Kewl, isn't it? Now to enhance the explosion a bit, you could add some stars. If you dont like using other people's brushes (yes I know some of you dont), you can use the pencil tool at different opacity to add every single stars . This is however, a very tedious and frustrating work and fortunately, we have an alternative. Crashdowngrrl of DeviantArt had made an awesome Night Sky brush set and thanks to Fencepost who converted them, a lot of time was saved. You can find the brush set for GIMP here:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/52227316/
Ok, make a new layer now and put it between the cloud layers and your explosion layer. Choose one of the brush, I used the one with many little stars in it, and brush over the edge of the explosion. Can't help you much on this, this depends on your brushing skill. This is what I got:



8. You can add more stars to the empty space on the right if you want. Now we should add a render (yay!). Since this is a spacescape scene, I think it's best to choose a spaceship render to add in. These are somewhat rare ^__^. Best I could find is this Homeworld render that luckily, matches the perspective of this sig.
Copy and paste the render on your sig, scale it down to your whatever the size that you think is right.
Note: make sure the 'Keep Transparency' option is unchecked. It's the little checkbox next to the blending mode drop down.
Duplicate the render, apply a simpe 5px Gaussian Blue and set blending mode to 'Overlay' or 'Soft light'. This'll help blending the render in and adding depth to the overall sig. Here's what I got so far:



9. Here's the sig has already gotten its general shape. Now you can go wild and do whatever you want, add text, add border, tweak the image etc. Don't have to follow me anymore. These final touches could make a difference to your sig, so do them good.
Ok now I'm gonna add some miscellaneous things. First, I'm gonna add extra explosion thingies to the ship. This is where I use a script-fu called 'Electricity'. I found this script at this post in Gimptalk:
http://www.gimptalk.com/topic.php?a=v&t=512&f=8
Scroll down below to see Fencepost's attachment and get it. This script is usually used on text but in this case, an image as well. After you installed it, you can find it at Script-Fu>Alpha to Logo (MS)>Electricity.
In that Dialog I set Grow=-8 and Electricity=12, and an orangeish color (#ff7200). Then I apply it and got this (you may have to re-try a couple of time to get the result you want, since it's generated randomly, here I just use the first one I got so it looks crappy)



To improve it a little bit, on the electricity layer, take out your Smudge tool. I used the Circle Fuzzy (03). In the Smudge options, I have Opacity at 75%, with Fade Out checked at 92px. Rate = 88.1. Now start smudging the electricity layer, brush outward from the ship. Another step depends entirely on your skills and creativity. Here's what I have right now:



10. Now what's left is text and border. Everyone has their own text style and I won't dig into that. Borders tutorials are many too. Here I'm just gonna use the old border style that's been whored a millions time by PS users:
Just create 3 new layers and set them to 'Soft Light'. On the first layer, click on Select>All, and then Select>Shrink and shrink it by 1px. Then Select>Invert. Fill it white. On the second layer, go to Select>Grow by 1px and fill it black. Same for the 3rd layer, grow it by 1px and fill it white. In PS there's a 'Stroke' feature that makes it less time consuming but this is the GIMP way.
Here's my final tag (I think would look better on a lighter background )



That's it for my tutorial. I hope some of you may find it useful. Remember that tutorials aren't some sets of rule, it's a guideline and you should experiment as much as you like. Any step you think is unnecessary, feel free to omit it. Anything you think could make it better, don't hesitate to test it out.

Good luck, any comment/criticism/question/result are welcome.

This tutorial should only be found on these sites, if you found them elsewhere, it has been ripped:

http://gimpdome.5.forumer.com/
http://www.gimptalk.com/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/29460266/

looks good well done

Okay, here's my result:



All I need is that faded border that you used...

Heh nice job on that explosion fx, though I think sonic render doesn't really go with space background :l:. You should crop the black area on the right to preserve empty space.
Btw I did give instructions to the border I used .

I was gonna crop the background, but I think it looks good...Anyways, here it is was the border!

You're awesome at making tutorials! :l:

EDIT: Fine, I'll confess...I tried deleting (cutting) the extra black background on the right, but nothing happened...

EDIT 2: I have an idea! I'll add stars!

EDIT 3: The Finished product...

Trickd I think it would look better if Sonic had been scaled so that he was inside the border

Wow that tut is awesome I will post my result later tonight.

Dude...I LOVE YOU! :l:. You have shown me that gimp...is SO worth it!

This tut, is like AMAZING! Here is the signature I made:


(The text wasn't put on using gimp. Woot first gimp siggy EVER!)

i got a good outcome but i dont understand when i do ms electricity it cuts out the lefta dn right sides of my sig..

that?s a really good sig for your first wisdom :w: Image could be blended a bit more

this tut was very fun to do, i barley got gimp today...wut do u guys think of my first creation?

looks cool to me.
i'll try this one later

I jsut can't get this to work. Could someone just make me a sig. Here's the info.

I like:
Counter Strike: Source
Guns
The colour green
Name: VolunteerHanky

tyty kthxbai!

Cool Tutorial...I took a different route with it though. Like it?

I'm almost done with mine, but I would like to use the electricty thing that you put arond the ship, but when I went to the page you linked, and went to the link in that page it just took me to a page with a buch of words. How do I get it?

Well I tried even without the Scirpt-Fu effect. And I kinda like it, what do you think?

Never Mind, I got it, here is my final version.

Kongs, I think your image is great and want to do something similar, how did you make the flame effect go all around the image, I think it looks KOOL :w:

looks good ima give a try and post it :)

Made this .. Actually, my first real sig :w: . What do you think?

[QUOTE=Frelli]Made this .. Actually, my first real sig . What do you think? [/quote]It's not too bad for being your first sig. But the render is a bit out of place. Try duplicating the render, apply a gaussian blur of 5-8 on the top one. Then set it to overlay or soft light.

TIP: Try smudging the explosion using the star brushes. Make sure you brush from the middle of the explosion OUTWARDS. Otherwise it can look really odd.

I did now, great effect Ty .


The thinkg is that all thoes brushes are so damn big, i cant aim with em xD.

Tho, I tryed to lower the opacity on the render so I got the effect that you can actually see thru him like a ghost. Heres the result, better or worse? :

Btw, I really need tips of how to get the text cooler. I have no idea what/how to with it.

I would say it's better now. Though you could try taking the fuzzy 19px brush and delete the very edge of the render (possibly lower the effect of the eraser to about 50%). That way it'll blend it better.

As for the text, you could try setting the text-layer to soft light or overlay, and then duplicate it until you can see through it a little bit, but not too much. That way it'll be a little coloured by the background aswell.
Otherwise you could duplicate the text-layer once and then apply a gaussian blur (5-8) on it, and then set it to soft light/overlay. That'll give it a bit of outer glow. There are plenty of other ways to make the text look a bit fancier, but the ones I've explained are simple, yet good looking.