Rennir's GFX Extravaganza
 

Hi and welcome to my signature/avatar gallery :D. Now for a little about myself...so I've been making sigs for about a month or two(still a complete novice :heh:). I'm grateful to the people made all the signature tuts that I randomly skimmed through read very carefully. The reason I made a gallery was to get better so constructive criticism/tips are very welcome!

Wow your pretty good
keeep up the good work :D

You finally opened your own thread! Congrats! :D

I love your stuff, you've improved a lot since the beginning^^

My favourites have to be the Masamune and Al sigs :love:

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...masamune-1.png

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...1229/al2-1.png


You're so much better than when a month passed after I started making sigs....

Welcome to the fan creation subforum! Rennir san.

Haha thank you :D I still have lots of room for improvement as well
It was more than a month lol. Most likely closer to two :). Yeah masmune is probably my favorite too :p

Thank you ganbaru san

About damn time you made your own thread, Rennir.

Keep up the signature creation - I bet I'm not the only one who wants to see what you can do.


Anything with Date is immediately filled with multi sword badassery. This is factual. :D

Arbitres I was wondering when you'd show up :p. I second your statement. Can't wait for second season to come out.

First update :D Did an assassin's creed sig and avatars
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...Assassin-1.png http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a.../assassin2.png http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a.../assassin3.png
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...assassin-2.png

Crap, I'm late for the grand opening. Congratulations nevertheless!

Loving the sigs mate. I also second what Halad said, you are much better than the me that was 2 months into my discovery of sig making. Keep things up!

2 favourites so far;

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...29/toshiro.png
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...emasamune2.png
Some opening cookies for you. Careful, they're hot!

Haha, I noticed after you pointed it out to me in the signature rating thread, but i've just been too lazy to fix it :P. About the second pic, I just cropped it cause it looked so awesome :heh: I guess I should make that clear. But yeah, whoever drew/made that was an awesome artist. And it's Date Masamune (aka One eyed dragon) from Sengoku basara. Awesome anime :D.

Crop jobs aren't so bad! Just take mine as an example :heh:

So that's Date Masamune there then. Oh. I thought it was a guy from Katanagatari.

*jots down Sengoku Basara in his large 'to-watch list'*

Congrats on opening your own Thread :D

my favorite Sigs
I really love the sig you made for me and Date-sama Sig ..the last Sig is awesome :D
Keep up the good work Rennir :heehee:
Cookies~

Thanks :D Haha seems like everyone likes masamune :p

you've already make your own thread.......

welcome to FC ^_^

those signatures are great
keep up the good work....................:)

Oh am I late to greet you?

those sigs are nice considering the amount of time you've learned about making some sigs, there are 2 sigs that really nice, and yup they were the ones that was chosen by Jrendell.

those 2 sigs have really good depth and lighting, (even though the Masamune one is kinda simple the lighting + depth made the sig looks really nice)

Keep up the good work and hopefully I will see more sigs from you :D

Haha thank you abet :)

Well you know what they say, better late than never :heh:. Thank you for your critique :)

Worked on my smudging a bit :heh:

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...ghtning4-1.png

Man there are a lot of awesome sigs in here. ^_^ Good work

nice work, like your awatars. they look so sweet ^_^ signatures are good too.

continue like that... hope to see some new updates soon

-cookies for ya

Thank you for your compliment :)

Thanks haha. My avatars are actually really simple. I just crop stocks :heh:.

Well, I did a request for a friend. It came out quite well, IMO :)

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a.../arbireq-1.png

Damn straight it did. >=D

yea i know that they are mostly just crop awatars, but they are croped very nicely, expecialy Lightning awatars.

Thank you :D

Well, I did a small update. Been pretty busy lately :heh:. Reworked the Hitsugaya a bit, and messed with the depth. Also got rid of the dot on his face which someone who will not be named constantly pointed out :rolleyes:. I didn't have a matching avie at the time so I rendered a chibi hitsugaya :D

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a.../toshiro-1.png

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...oshirov2-1.png

I like your stuff. Keep at it, make sure you blend the renders a bit more and don't just stick them on. Blurs, Overlays and Smudging goes a long way when it comes to helping your sig look just that much more better. :)

Oh come on, LegiT. You know Rennir's stuff is badass. Though it's good to see you sharing your secrets... i mean techniques! :innocent:

Glad to see you updating this place, too. I'd hold an Animesuki forum Funeral if this place ever died. :'( Same goes for Haladflire65's gallery and CMHerrera's... oh, and Godlike's nonexistent thread.

Hitsu almost looks like he is vaporizing in the sig. I rather like it.

It looks awesome now that he's got rid of his mole :heh: Great smudging and layout on the sig, I love it :)

And @ Arby - I'm honored :D

Thank you for your advice :D I'm always looking to improve and I am bad at blending sometimes.

Lol from the works of Godlikes I've seen, namely hid awesome gif avies, I would hold the funeral with you :p. And I'm glad that's the feeling you get because that was what I was aiming for :)

Haha, what's so bad about moles? :p

*runs and hides* :uhoh: It looks much better now! :heh: Seriously though, the changes that you have made, have made a big difference. Nice work!

Update time haha. I'm surprised it's still on the first page. Anyways, without further ado...

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...e1229/lulu.png

It was and still is dedicated to Arby(couldn't resist one last time xD)...errrr...I mean Tres. Main text is a bit hard to notice, but I like it that way in this sig. I was going for a similar effect to my toshiro one, but I think everything in this one is better :D. I find that I always manage to include stars in my sigs somehow :heh:. Might just use it myself sometime :heh:

:< It brings a tear to my eye. Arigatou kokora koro, Ren-chan. Though I had a signature request being done, this is very touching. Thank you.


*facedesk* I'm about to become violent. You do not want me violent. :| <--- unamused.

:heh: ....it's pretty. I wonder if it will bring more people to my profile? ;D

I give it a 8.9 because it's prety, and nice render. Show us the stock? =3

Looks awesome. Blend in the render and add a light source, and it's golden! I'd say probably add 2 B&W Gradients, first normal 10-50%, second 20-40% darken. Then maybe oranage & purple (or you can experiment) and set it to soft light. Make new layer, apply-image and then use a 200px soft brush and just tap the render (focal) and then burn the edges with the burn tool.

*jealous*
Cool stuff! Like that you experiment so much with the colours :D
Love your latest sig as well <3

Haha I don't have the stock. I only have the render. Rendering takes me 2-3 hours because I'm still kinda bad at it, so, unless I can't find a suitable render, I use ones that catch my eye on websites :heh: :D.

Thank you for your advice! I will definitely do that once I get the chance, though I think I already did a BW gradient :heh:. I always have trouble finding the right place for my lighting, sadly :(. And I haven't really used the burn tool at all really...

Maybe I'll do a black and white sig for just for you :p. Or a striped one.



Thanks for the cookies .

I use similar gradients multiple times to emphasize effects and bring out certain parts more, it wont hurt to use it again. If you haven't used the burn tool, you can see quick newbie tutorials on youtube if ya search it up most likely.

Striped is aways awesome xD I feel honored by the mere idea.

My pleasure, you deserved a plate :p

Well I know how it works. But using it well is the problem.

I worked on it and I think 3 out of four corners are good. Idk about the top right one though. I went for a less complicated text(doesn't have glow effect anymore) but it's more visible now. Still not too sure about it right now. May make another adjustment to text. But that's about it.

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...229/luluv2.png

Oh, here's the safe version Tres :D

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...229/luluv2.jpg

Last change, I promise! :heh:. I changed the colors a bit by modifying the gradient maps. And I chose black for the text. After about 20 minutes of messing around with colors and techniques, I decided that sometimes simple is the best :D.

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...229/luluv3.png

Also, I just spent some time typing up a little signature making guide(not a tut), for Star. I realized that most tutorials nowadays don't teach people the basics, only how to make a signature look a certain way(at least the ones I saw during my early learning stages). I didn't want to it go to waste, so I figure I'll post it here :)

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The essential things in sigs(although, it can be argued that some of them are optional) are lighting, flow, focus, and depth. Also, some other helpful things are blending and color adjustments. And also, a disclaimer: the things I will talk about in this guide are stuff that I personally learned. I am in no way saying it is absolutely correct/without fault or the only way of doing it. If you have something you disagree about, feel free to contact me about it :)

Lighting: You need a light source in most of your sigs. Lighting should generally be close to your render/focus and can also help determine what the focus is. You want it to be visible, yet not overpowering. In real life, if someone takes a picture, most of that light will generally come from the sun. However, in sigs, you can place your light source anywhere. The upper corners of your sig are easiest(IMO). You can also put it at the bottom of the render to make it look like the light is shooting up. Some ways to do it(on Gimp) is to do a white(or whatever color you choose) to transparent gradient and set the shape on radial(circle-like). Or, use a soft brush and then gaussian blur it by 200 or so and it'll be good. Careful though, because if you cover your render partially with a blurred light source, it can make it seem like your render is LQ. Here is a good example of lighting.

Flow: Flow is pretty much the motion in a signature. Now, you may think that only gifs have motion, but static sigs can too. Take my toshiro sig for example. Pay close attention to how I smudged. The flow is obviously from the bottom to the top right. Flow can be used nicely to compliment the flow of some of your renders. Don't know what I mean? Take a look at this render. See the direction that his cape is blowing? That is an example of flow in renders. With this render, you can smudge the background to go in the same way as his cape and create good flow in your signature.

Focus: Focus is what you want people to first see or see the most when they look at your sig. Most of the time, it is the render or a specific part of it. Of course, people will see all the other details, but your render/focus is the most important, not the text or the other stuff in the background. The positioning of your render can have a significant impact on your focus. In art, there exists the rule of thirds. What is basically states is that if you divide a piece of art by drawing three lines equally vertically and horizontally, where the lines cross is where people focus on when they first look at a piece of art like so. My lines aren't perfect, but you get the idea. Focus can also be created by creating depth(explained below) and sharpening the render. Don't sharpen too much though, because then the render will look weird like this. Be very careful when putting stuff over your focus. If done incorrectly, it can make the render/focus seem LQ, when it isn't in actuality. However, this isn't to say you shouldn't put stuff over you render, because this is often a helpful way to blend.

Depth: You know how when you focus on a specific object the rest of the things in your vision seem blurry until you focus on it? That's part of the definition of depth. Depth being able to see that something is closer than another. In a sig, you want to make sure that you can differentiate what is in front of what. Take this for example(the one with the girl Nu). I blurred the background and sharpened Nu a bit. See how you can obviously tell that Nu is closer than the bg? If you want to see the difference, look at sig 1 and sig 2. The first is with the background normal and the second one is blurred. Notice the difference? Also, as I stated above, this creates focus because you automatically focus on the render, and not the bg. If your sigs don't have depth, then they will look like when people try to take pictures of themselves taller than buildings and stuff.

Blending: Blending is the technique of making your render look like it fits in your signature. Look at signature 4 and signature 5. The first one looks a lot worse than the second one right? That's because it looks like the the render was just slapped onto a background that I made. The second one looks a lot more natural. On the second signature, I took the time and effort to blend my render into the rest of the signature. In short, blending makes your signatures look much much better. The best technique that I have found for blending so far is smudging. That is just me personally, though; you may find a lot of other good ways to do it.

Color adjustments: Last thing. When you're making a signature, you need a background and a render, at the very least. Now, you want to use/make a background that matches your render. How do you do that? By using one(or multiple) colors that match the dominant or a specific color of your render. For example, if my render was dominantly blue, I would choose to use/make a background that is mainly a shade of green/blue. You wouldn't use, pink for example. I have found a color wheel for you. The colors immediately adjacent to a specific color work best together. Colors opposite of each other clash and don't work well(unless you're very skilled). However, if you use too much of the same color in a signature, it'll look monotone. You generally want to use several colors that match in a signature for a good result.

Here is my example. Take a look at this. All blue right? Looks a bit intense too my eyes and there's way too much blue. What do you do to fix this? Three words for you: use gradient maps. Gradient maps are great ways to add subtle amounts of color into your signatures in order to spice them up. Remember that I use GIMP instead of photoshop so some of these layer modes might be different.

Original
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...nstration1.png

Incandescent gradient at Hue 15%
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...nstration2.png

Golden gradient at Overlay 25%
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...nstration3.png

Green to blue gradient at Color 50%
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...nstration4.png

New layer from visible at Overlay 40% for contrast
http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...nstration5.png

Looks much better right? That's the wonder of gradient maps. Now you may have realized that I didn't teach you how to do them. For GIMP users, simply find the bar at the top with the buttons File, Edit, Select...etc. Do Layer>New from visible. Click that and you get a new layer with everything that can be seen on your signature at that point. Then, click the Blend Tool(shortcut L). Then choose the colors you want to use for the foreground and background. Lastly, go Colors>Map>Gradient Map and voila! There are many ways that you can mess with gradients, but as this only teaches you the concepts, I won't be introducing them to you right now.


The last thing I'm going to tell you about is technical terminology. The generally used term render is incorrect. Extract is the correct term. When you extract an image, you are getting rid of the bg, and leaving the character. The character itself is also called an extract. I don't know why people began calling extracts renders(some say it's because of the creation of planetrenders, which is a misnomer btw), but newer graphic designers have begun calling them renders. The reason I use the word "render" is for convenience's sake.

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Whew, finally done :heh:. Enjoy :D

If I could rep you again I would, awesome guide and great for starters!

^seconded, great guide. I'm in the mood to go and work on my crappy photoshop skills now :heh:

very good job on it and lulu look awesome as ever :D