Igf graphic is what I'm called.

This is basically the best of some of my older work, i hope you all like it.

 

 

And this is some of my newer stuff.

 

 

 

so, how are they?

I'm curious what you actually did in a lot of them other than putting a bunch of images together. Honestly the only things I see that would be your work are the gradients and text and maybe applying layer styles to something.

Yeah, they all looked like they were quickly slapped together, and they all look similar. There's little attempt at blending, and same with flow.

I'll try and post up some tuts for you to read after I've done my homework.

What do you think of my latest, made it for one of my friends on runehq.

better?

Seems as though it has a little more work put into it, although the image is very low quality (lossy .jpg file?).

 

I think you need to experiment with blending modes a bit more. Your images all look a little desaturated and lack the 'pop' that other signatures I see have.

 

Take a look through Planetrender's Most Inspirational Signatures You've Ever Seen thread. Here you can see elements in signatures that people really like.

I agree with Sam, all of your stuff is way too desaturated. Of course the answer isn't just to saturate the hell out of it, you need to find a good balance. You also need to not have everything be at around the same brightness. Nothing at all stands out, even with your latest the image of the guy doesn't stand out because it just blends in with whatever is going on in the background.

 

The border is the brightest thing and is what causes the most attention from the eyes, thats a bad idea. Don't use borders or at the very least stick to a simple, 1 or 2px stroke or even just a bar on the top and bottom. You need to keep in mind you don't need to use a border, you certainly don't need to use a bright and tacky one. Only use a border if it's for a reason.

 

 

Other than that you seriously need to work on your color. I'm not going to post a link (as often they just get ignored) but if you're really interested in improving yourself look up some stuff on color theory. It's really not difficult and, honestly, a lot of it you probably already know. You should know some colors look better together than others, and different colors together can give a different look (be it calm, edgy, ect.). Right now you're using way too much grey in your images. Try to just not use any grey for now, it almost never looks good on a finished product unless you really know how to use it well. (You don't right now).

 

Also stick to something simple. One or two color sigs, complementary colors with an easy focus (either center or a third of the way to the left or right; rule of thirds) and just do that until you get some of the program basics down. Once you get that down you can start experimenting more with different ideas; other color schemes, more than one focal point, ect.

 

And finally, yeah, just look around at other examples. Sam's link, sites such as DeviantART and even just mundane things around you.

 

 

ps: stay away from lens flares. Thanks.

Thank you for the advice everyone. I know I'm not the most skilled at this, but i mostly do it for the fun of it. Mayhaps eventually ill look at tutorials and such but until then, ill get better the old fashion way.

I'm rely more of a writer, but this is one of my favorite passtimes.

Once again, thank you for the advice.

Tutorials really help when you are finding it hard to produce graphics. Don't be ashamed to use them

Yeah, definitely use tuts, they'll help you and you'll learn skills and try out new waters. I'd definitely say up the quality of your renders and your tags, because at times what could have been alright is rather low quality. Take steps to blend your render into a tag, so the render looks a part of the artwork as a whole, rather than just being slapped on. Take measures to draw our etes where you want them to be drawn, as well.

 

Seriously, just look at tuts ;)

I kind of like the partial color loss and negative image effects on the fox in one of your sigs (assuming you did that and it wasn't made that way before you made the sig) because it makes the image more interesting to look at, in my opinion.

 

As people stated, the images are very low quality and reflect very minimal work involved. Simplicity is something that I enjoy in signatures and sometimes use myself, but it doesn't bode well when you just take a low quality image off the Internet, slap some text and a border on it, and call it done.

 

Don't be afraid to use any Tutorials. I know that I'll personally have to look at a few because I've recently purchased Photoshop CS5 Extended after months of not having Photoshop due to computer issues on my old laptop.