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Tutorial signature.; Should cover pretty much everything...
Topic Started: Dec 7 2006, 09:15 AM (79 Views)
Composer Of Requiems
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Tutorial to make a basic sig.
CHAPTER 1: IN WHICH THE STOCK IS SEVERED FROM THE BACKGROUND

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The first step is selecting a stock. I picked this one, because I've been wanting to use it for some time, so I might as well just throw it into this tutorial. If you're wondering, it's Nero from DMC4. You can visit their official webpage at http://www.capcom.co.jp/devil4/

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So anyway, after that, usually, if you're opening it from a jpg or something like that, photoshop automatically sets it as "background". You'll have to doubleclick the layer to make it editable. Just click OK. Most of the settings should be acceptable.

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Now, the next thing you'll want to do is to cut out the stock.
This is not necessary, but strongly recommended:
1) Make a new layer below it, and colour it a contrasting colour. I got this idea from the bluescreen/greenscreen that movie makers use. Basically, if it's a contrasting colour, then you can be sure that the anti-aliasing is done properly, and you're not missing out on anything that you are cutting.
2) When you cut, make use of a "layer mask". That's the thing that I've circled in red. If you've selected a layer or folder, and you press that button, you'll see the little white rectangle next to the layer. A layer mask decides what part of the layer is visable. White means visable and black means invisible. Grey means somewhere in-between. As you can see, there's a small black spot on the rectangle, which corresponds to the transparent area at the top left of the actual image. You can see the green beneath through it. This is why I picked green. It's very easy to see, so you know if you've cut something.

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As you can see, once you have a green background, you can tell right away if there's a little bit of something that you forgot to cut.

Very important. When you're using a layer mask, make sure you click on the small white rectangle next to the image layer. Otherwise, you might accidently edit the original image, and not the mask. If you're editing the mask, you should see an outline around it.

This is one way that you can cut out the stock. You can take an eraser, and slowly, manually do it little by little. However, this is time consuming, so there's other ways to do it.

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One way you can cut it very rapidly, but not always accurately, is using the "magic wand" tool. It's the one near the top-right of the toolbar. Basically, when you click on something, it'll find all the pixels with the same colour.

You'll probably want to change the settings near the top.

Tolerance indicates how picky the magic wand is. A low tolerance means it'll only select pixels with very similar colours, while high tolerance means that if you click on something red, it'll also select bluish-red, greenish-red, yellowish-red and so on.

Anti-alias indicates how smooth it is. No anti-alias means it'll go pixel by pixel, while anti-alias makes some things partially transparent, so it looks smoother. It's a bit tricky to explain, so I'll save it for another tutorial XD

Contiguous is asking if you want only pixels next to each other, or if let's say there's a small speck of the same colour far away from where you originally clicked, and not connected to it at all, should it still be selected?

Finally, "use all layers" indicates whether to use only the layer you're selecting, or select EVERYTHING. Generally, I don't want this to happen.

The other thing you'll want to take note of is the foreground/background thing that my little red arrow is pointing to. Let's put it this way. Normally, brushes functions with the upper ("foreground") colour, and eraser just erases. However, on a layer mask, brush will still use the "foreground" colour, but eraser becomes a brush that uses the "background" colour. Meaning that if your foreground is white and your background is black, makes the image visable and eraser makes the image invisible. But if foreground/background is inversed, then your brush will make things invisible and your eraser makes them visable again.

If you didn't get all that, just remember to make sure that the upper box is white and the lower box is black when you edit layer mask.

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So as I was saying, after you select all that with the magic wand... pressing delete while selecting something has the same effect as erasing. And you'll notice that a large chunk of the image is gone, but if you look at the layers panel, you'll see that the original image is still intact, and the layer mask now has a big chunk of black corresponding to the parts that disappeared. This is the advantage of layer mask. If you screw up, you can undo it.

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However, this is not accurate, and the anti-aliasing never works out properly, at least not the way I want it to. There's a method in-between pixel-by-pixel editing and magic wand editing, which involves vectors. For this, I recommend first using the freeform pen tool. Rightclick the symbol on the toolbar that the arrow is pointing at, and select it.

After that, go to the top, and select magnetic. This will help a lot. Just click on the image, and go around the picture. The "magnetic" function makes it "stick" to pixels of similar colour, kinda like the magic wand, so you can go faster and still be roughly accurate. However, this does take a bit of practice. You don't need to be 100% accurate yet, just get the rough outline first.

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Now that you've got the outline, turn the fill down to 0. It's important to make a distinction between "fill" and "opacity", and I'll do so later. Just turn it down to 0 for now, so that you can see BOTH the outline and what you want to cut.

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I suggest you zoom in here. As you can see, no matter how good your mouse is, the freeform pen tool is still not 100% accurate. So, it's time to fix it.

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Go back to the button just now, right click it and look at the bottom 3 options.

Vector shapes are defined by "anchor points". It tells photoshop to "draw lines between these points, and hence make a shape". There's two things that you need to know about each point.

Firstly, where is the point? This is the position.
Secondly, which direction do I draw lines from? If you see two small lines sticking out from the point, these are to tell photoshop which direction to connect it in.

Now we see the 3 tools.

Add Anchor Point adds anchor points. If you click on a blank spot on the line, an anchor point appears. You can use this tool to drag it around. You can also drag existing points. If you click on the little line sticking out of the anchor point, you can extend it.

Delete Anchor Point deletes anchor points. If you click on an anchor point, it disappears. You can also move points, but be very careful. I don't recommend using this. Instead, if you hold down "alt" while using Add Anchor Point, it will delete instead. It's a very useful shortcut.

Finally, Convert Point converts points. If you click on a point... remember the little line thingies sticking out of it? They just vanish! If you click and hold down, then drag, they appear again! Please note that you can't drag around points with this tool, which is really sad.

My best advice while you're using this is just practice. It's hard to explain how to make it work, but if you play around with it, it can get instinctual. I've seen people pick this up in an hour and start doing proper vectoring.
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Anyway, go around it, and carefully adjust the outline to fit what you want to cut out. It's much faster than pixel-by-pixel editing, and has another advantage, that I'll mention later.

Now that you have the outline, you should rightclick the layer, and click on "select transparency". This function will select the visable areas of the layer. As you can see, once you have the vector in a certain shape, select layer transparency allows you to select that shape, just like you might have wanted to do with magic wand.

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Now, use this shape for the layer mask for the image. All the background disappears magically! It's more magical than magic wand!

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However, with vectors, hair is really a pain in the ass. So, I'll be doing up his hair now.

Usually, for this kind of thing, I duplicate the layer, and I invert the one below. That way, I can see where the hair should go.

For this, I usually use either brush or smudge, but in this case, smudge is easier. The smudge function... smudges outwards. If you've ever put your thumb on a puddle of water and smudged it outwards, or on a pile of paint... you probably get the idea. For hair, this default brush shown in the picture tends to work out very well. Just click and hold inside the picture, and pull outwards. Please make sure that you're editing the layer mask and not the layer itself.

CHAPTER 2: IN WHICH THE GENERIC SIG IS CONSTRUCTED

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Make a new document. Usually, a 4:1 ratio is very comfortable to the eye, but this'll depend on preferances. More importantly, check the resolution. Usually, it should be to a certain default. 72 pixels per inch seems to work well on most computers.

Resolution will affect how your font looks. Everything on computers EXCEPT FONT is measured in pixels. However, font is measured just like how we measure things, in centimeters or inches. So, resolution decides how many pixels would mean how many centimeters or inches.

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Now, pull over the image from your original document to the new document.

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ALWAYS SAVE AT REGULAR INTERVALS. VERY IMPORTANT BUT OFTEN OVERLOOKED FACT.

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First, you should decide on a canvas colour. In the previous chapter, I mentioned about anti-aliasing and advantages of vector. This is why it's very important. If you use a vector, then select transparency and cut from there, it has a very smooth anti-alias.

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As you can see, no matter what colour was the original background, the stock that you have cut out should be able to fit smoothly into any colour background that you choose.

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So anyway, for this particular one, let's use a black canvas. Forget that the other colours existed.

The other thing that I want to bring up is "folders". They're very helpful for organisation. It's a good habit to keep your layers tidy so you know what to refer to. Click on the folder button (the arrow's pointing to it!) to make a folder, and you can put layers in the folder, and then edit all the layers by editing the folder.

Usually, for a very simple sig, 3 folders are good. Background, stock, and anything that goes above stock.

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Open up brush panel. If it isn't open already, press F5.
For a lot of sigs, you'll probably want something edgy like the default brush shown in the screenshot. You can see a preview of it at the bottom of the brush panel.
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First up, there's "Shape Dynamics". "Jitter" means how random it'll be. A lot of jitter means it can range from tiny to very large, while no jitter means it'll be exactly the size you select.

The size you select is always the "maximum". Here, you can set the "minimum". Jitter will randomize it between these two values.

Roundness basically means how "flattened" it is. Think of your computer screen. If you tilt it away from you, it looks thinner, right? That's what roundness does.

You might also notice the "control" function. I won't go into it for now, since I'm just covering the basics here.

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The "Scatter" function... scatters. A lot of these stuff are very obvious, which is a good thing. Just take note of the "both axes" function. If you don't check this, it'll only scatter perpendicular to direction of movement. If you check it, it'll scatter all over.

Count means how many of it will be thrown out each time.

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I've skipped texture and dual brush, because to be honest, I don't see much use in those. If I want texture or dual brush, I apply it on the layer itself, not here, because that way has more flexibility.

Colour dynamics randomizes colour. This is very useful if you want to create a generic brush-and-stock signature, such as the one that this tutorial teaches. Just play around with it.

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And finally, "other dynamics". Ok, I'll have to explain something here.

Flow refers to how much "ink" flows from your brush. Imagine you have a pen that's spoilt, so while you write, very little ink comes out. To make things visable, you have to go over again and again. The pen has a low "flow". Imagine another pen. You just touch it lightly to the paper, and you have a very dark spot. That pen has a high "flow".

Opacity is how visable it is. With a low flow, you can go over again and again to make it darker. With opacity, every time you put down the pen, no matter how many times you go over, it'll still stay as faint.

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So now, I've just brushed randomly across the image. You can see a rough background starting to form.

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And I've brushed a few more layers.

A suggestion. Except for the bottom layer, don't set it as "normal". You can see the blending mode at the top-left of the layers panel.

Usually, for this kind of thing, I recommend functions like "linear burn", "linear dodge", "overlay", "soft light", "hard light", etc., as these will increase the contrast more and make it more exciting.

Please experiment by yourself. There is no "fixed" or "correct" method for this, just a general guideline and personal artistic taste.

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Now I'll come to blending the stock. Previously, the stock was set to "normal" blending. Now, I've change it to "hard light", and duplicated, so there are two hard light layers. Again, you'll have to experiment with this.

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However, there's some pretty good guidelines. Inside the folder, I've two layers. One is the original stock, and the other is a duplicate of it with multiply. I did this because the original stock was a little too washed-out for my taste.

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Since it's in a folder, we can treat it as one layer. That's the advantage of folders.
I've applied a layer mask to the folder here, and started erasing. Basically, you wouldn't want the entire stock to be with "hard light", since it's hard to see in that blending mode. But, some parts look cool with it.

So, the solution is to leave some parts as hard light, and make another layer, set as normal (or "pass though" in the case of this folder), and use this to fill out the parts that don't look good under hard light.

For folders, "normal" will treat the entire folder as a single, merged layer, while "pass though" still lets each individual layer in the folder express itself in its own way: the folder is just there to organise, and doesn't affect the layers in it.
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Now, it's a personal thing, but I really can't stand sigs that look like they're just randomly-made backgrounds with stocks plastered on as an afterthought. It should look like the entire thing is a complete piece of artwork, so personally, I'll want the stock to look "embedded" inside the sig. That's where the folder for "in front of stock" comes in. I've just made a new layer, and brushed in some smoke using the same default brush, just without setting colour dynamics so it'll stay white.

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If white is a bit boring, the most basic way to add colour is with "color balance". Click on the icon that the red arrow is pointing to in the screenshot, and click on "color balance" when the menu pops up.

Basically, shadows are the darker regions, highlights the lighter regions, and midtones in-between. You can drag the sliders to colour it.

Very important: Please do not oversaturate. It's a common habit, but basically there should be a balance. Contrast and vibrancy are nice, but when you overdo it, it's like putting too much salt and pepper into your soup.

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And now this is how to do borders. As mentioned earlier, I'll explain the differance between opacity and fill.

Fill is the layer itself, how transparent it is.

However, if you have blending options, such as drop shadows, bevels, and so on, to make them invisible, you'll have to use opacity instead. This method of adding a border demonstrates the differance, and it's my favourite way of doing so since it's simple and fast.

Use the fill tool, and fill in the entire layer. I don't care how it's done, or what colour it is.

Then, set fill to 0%.

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Now, rightclick the layer and click on "blending options". Then, go to "stroke".
Reduce size to however large you want your border to be, make sure position is "inside", and select black. That's a very common colour for sigs.

And that's it. You shouldn't need any more steps to make a generic sig.

CHAPTER 3: IN WHICH THE ART IS FURTHER DEVELOPED

Well, I stared at the sig. And I stared at it some more, and I still couldn't find inner peace. So, here's a further development for it. I came up with most of the techniques here on the spur of the moment, as with most of the sigs I do, so don't treat this as a "generic" style... but I suppose it can be used for other, similar, images.

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I've cleared out all the layers, except the stock, and the canvas colour (the black thing right at the bottom).

Well, this stock just keeps screaming, "I'm aiming my gun!". So I've drawn a line there so it's easier for you to see he's aiming. And I've done a bit of quick brushing on the back

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Right click, select layer transparency.

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Using this, make a black layer that covers everything EXCEPT the line of light. Then, set the folder to soft light. This is a method I usually use if I want to make rays of light. There's other ways, but for this sig, it'll be sufficient. I've also decided to rename that folder "eye", since I'll be having other folders as well.

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I'm thinking of using some sparkles, but there isn't a decent default brush for what I'm thinking of, and I hate downloading brushes, so I'm making my own. But this is a matter of pride XD you can download other people's brushes and use them if it doesn't put a strain on your morals and conscience.

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If you have an image, go to the menu bar on top: Edit -> Define Brush Preset. That makes it into a brush.
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With this new brush, I've added a sparkle to the end of the gun. Yay. I'll develop it further later.

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Sometimes, the stock just isn't satisfactory. I'm not going to do any advance re-colouring or re-drawing on this one, just adjusting lighting. I like to use this brush for some reason, but most of them'll do.

Either way, for this kind of work, it's most important to set flow to a low value. Adjust until it's just right, it'll be different for every occasion. However, white tends to need a lower flow value than dark.

In "other dynamics", set the opacity to fade under controls.

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I've made a new folder for darkening. In fact, two, since there's a "soft light" layer, so I'll want to do some darkening below it, and some above it.

On new layer, just keep clicking and dragging. It's like using a paintbrush to try to colour in a picture. In fact, this is what I usually do when I want to colour in my line art.

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White background can look rather drab, and sometimes, colour balance just doesn't cut it. A very fast way to get it to be the same colour theme as the stock is to duplicate the stock layer, as I've done in the folder "Colour background", and set that layer to soft light/hard light/overlay/colour/etc. depending on the situation. Just experiment to see what you like best. After that, you can enlarge the image, use filters to blur it outwards, or smudge it, my favourite option.

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After that, touch it up with a smatter of brushing. I've set the entire folder to "soft light", so I can use multiple layers and adjust until I'm satisfied, rather than brushing straight onto the original layer.

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Usually, you'll be having some lighting that's different from the stock's original lighting. I've already fixed some of that with my "darken" folders, but there's another point. Metal tends to be very shiny, so I've made another layer to make it reflect the light more. Essentially, if you want to get a shimmer/shine, a simple way is to apply image, then blur/smudge it out and set to screen. After that, using a layer mask, the spread of the shine can be controlled.

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Sometimes, just using black or white to lighten/darken is not enough, and actually selecting the right tones and carefully colouring doesn't cut it. In that case, I usually apply image or duplicate the stock, then set it to multiply, and use a layer mask to control where the darkening goes. I use the same technique as mentioned earlier (setting a low flow and treating it like a paint brush), but in this case instead of brushing black, it brushes with a colour similar to what's already there. I don't usually blur when I'm during darkening. Shimmers are... shimmery and blur, but darkness is generally very precise, unless it's a shadow cast by something.

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Now, it doesn't look dynamic enough for my personal taste yet. So, I'm planning to add some light trails from the gun.

I've set both the opacity and the size of the brush to "fade". This means that as I click and hold and pull, it'll get fainter and smaller.

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Here is some vectoring using the pen tool. Make sure to look at the top and select "path" instead of "shape layers". Otherwise, the next step can't be done, at least, not on PSCS. I wonder if this has been fixed in later versions...

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Well, I got stuck here the very first time I used pen tool, so I figure I might as well bring this up for those who haven't used it before. Basically, if you just click and drag, at first, you're going to get some funny shape like this.
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But if we use the "add anchor point" tool to separate the points...

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So here I've expanded it out into a smooth line.

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And I made three more.

Now, the next step. Here, we went from the layers panel to the paths panel. You'll have to right click the path layer and click on "stroke path". Remember the brush settings from just now? Now, instead of following your mouse, it'll follow the path...

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And you can see the result of one of the paths.

Please remember to make a new layer each time, so that you can easily separate each trail of light (or whatever else you decide to use).

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Here, I have three layers.

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However, remember, depth is quite a nice thing to have in a sig. So, using layer mask and a dark grey outer glow ("shadow"), it can look like the lights are coiling around the gun.

And I'm thinking... let's scrap the little shimmer at the end. Sometimes, ideas can lead to other ideas...

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So here, I've adjusted the positioning and removed the shimmer...

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When I want fire, colour balance is the way to go. Play with the reds and yellows. This one, though, is up to personal preferance. Adjust, but don't oversat. This orangey colour is too lukewarm for my liking, but I'll adjust later.

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Thrown in little sparks with circle feathered brush, set to small, scatter and shape dynamics.
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With such a powerful shot, there's gotta be a blastwave. First up, I applied image, then I duplicated it. On the second one, I've done a lot of smudging. Finally, using layer mask, I defined where exactly I want the smudging.

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After that, I set the entire folder as "Multiply". If I had set it to "screen", as I usually do, it would be too bright.

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I didn't really like the orange, because it just didn't go. So, here, I'm removing most of the yellow, so I'll be left with red.

Incidentally, the second sig that I made is done by ALSO removing the red at this step. However, while yellow was brightened to almost white, red was darkened to almost black.

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Now, trails of light. It's like doing the blast wave, but smudging in a different pattern.

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Adding borders. This is also quite standard.

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Adding text. If you have a path or vector selected, then you take the Horizontal Type Tool (aka text tool), and hold it over the path, you'll notice it changes a little. Click, and your font will follow the vector or path.

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Usually, I'll also embed the text in the whole graphic, so it looks like part of the graphic and not a last-minute add-on.

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I'm pretty much done, but one more thing. You'll notice the barrel of the gun has practically disappeared in the flame. Often, when you're designing something, because you already know what it's supposed to be, you can see it, but other people won't know what to look for. So, you have to make it more obvious to them.

Here, I've duplicated the stock layer, set to multiply and set to a low fill level. Most importantly, you don't want the stock to just suddenly appear on top again. Rather, it should just make the whole idea/concept behind the sig easier to see. Here, the important thing is the gun, so the barrel has to be seen so people know it's a gun, especially because it's a back view of the head, so the stock may not be identifiable as such. Hence, the gun defines it as a gunman, and therefore the sig is about a person who shoots.

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Artie
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Best band ever
... holy shit.
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Blade
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.__.

Fuck.

Once I get CS2 working (>___<) I'm gonna try this, kay?
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Michael
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Dude...........Dude


That's so rad.

Dude.
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Composer Of Requiems
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Artie
Dec 7 2006, 08:08 PM
... holy shit.

I was bored.
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bugturtles
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WE WILL GET TO KICK HIM NOW
Composer Of Requiems
Dec 8 2006, 08:28 AM
Artie
Dec 7 2006, 08:08 PM
... holy shit.

I was bored.

3 hours of boredom? Dude.

--

You think they'll notice "it"?
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Composer Of Requiems
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°Leviathan
Dec 8 2006, 08:20 AM
Composer Of Requiems
Dec 8 2006, 08:28 AM
Artie
Dec 7 2006, 08:08 PM
... holy shit.

I was bored.

3 hours of boredom? Dude.

--

You think they'll notice "it"?

No. =D

Very few people read carefully.
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