FloPPyPiLLoW's Portfolio

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Portfolio (Oldest to New):

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around3wclippingburn.png

http://intis.ca/Signatures/BH4Fnatic.png

http://intis.ca/Signatures/CybernetixTVRough.png

http://intis.ca/Signatures/DevoSig3.png


http://intis.ca/Signatures/JavuSig2.png

http://intis.ca/Signatures/Atama.png

Original Post:

Hey guys. I am rather new to photoshop in general. My friend and I do some minor freelance web design for some people. My skills are very little when it comes to photoshop so I am throwing my hat into the ring and hoping to get some constructive criticism and help on improving my photoshop skills. As I said, I am rather new so be kind.

Also links to good guides/resources ect. would be much appreciated.

Here is the first piece of work that I am not completely embarassed to show.

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around1.png

Things I learned from this signature (or tried to learn):

- Rule of Threes: I was new to this completely. I hope I understood it correctly

- Rendering: From what I understand I rendered the girl (provided I have my terms right)

- Using some C4D in my background (I think I horribly botched the use of it though)

- Smudging, I had never actually used smudging before.

- Using blending modes/Opacity (used on the drop shadow and the text)

[Manifesto]

I must say, I like it, but its certainly far from perfect.

If I had to pick the biggest problem with it, it would be the colour use. Too much difference between the orange and the blue/green of the focal point, they just don't complement each other. The C4D use should follow a certain "flow", a direction or line if you will. (at least, thats how i like to use them) You need to form a line for the eye to travel along, because thats the way the eye naturally acts, it follows lines to the end point, instead of just having an image, then font off to one side, it has to synergize. For example:

http://www.youpublish.com/img/Publication/21808/l_product_image.jpg

Notice how your eye is immediately drawn to the brighter white in the top left, then sinks down and follows the "line" across the curved spectrum of colours, like a wave!

Next would be lack of light sources, or range of tones. For your next piece, try out a lens flare, which is in filters > render > lens flare, any of them should do fine, tune up the brightness if needed and position it in a place that looks right to you.

Theres more I could tell you about Photoshop or art in general, but i feel like i'm rambling, which it looks like i am...

None the-less, hope I've helped you in some way.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

I must say, I like it, but its certainly far from perfect.

Thank you. And I know. As I said, I am hoping for critism. If I don't get critism then I feel it would be a waste. I have no need/want for this signature. I made it for the sole purpose of practicing and getting feedback. If anyone actually WANTs me to make them a sig I can give it a shot. As it is right now everything that is being posted is just for practice.



If I had to pick the biggest problem with it, it would be the colour use. Too much difference between the orange and the blue/green of the focal point, they just don't complement each other.


Something I was going to change but it was 4:30am and I had to be up for 10. So I decided to leave it as is. I will tweak the colours and repost later tonight or tomorrow.



The C4D use should follow a certain "flow", a direction or line if you will. (at least, thats how i like to use them) You need to form a line for the eye to travel along, because thats the way the eye naturally acts, it follows lines to the end point, instead of just having an image, then font off to one side, it has to synergize. For example:

Notice how your eye is immediately drawn to the brighter white in the top left, then sinks down and follows the "line" across the curved spectrum of colours, like a wave!


And how would I go about achieving this in my situation?



Next would be lack of light sources, or range of tones. For your next piece, try out a lens flare, which is in filters > render > lens flare, any of them should do fine, tune up the brightness if needed and position it in a place that looks right to you.


I have used lens flares in the past and they just seem to be completely over powering. Do you have an suggestions on how to use them properly?



Theres more I could tell you about Photoshop or art in general, but i feel like i'm rambling, which it looks like i am...


Rambling is good. Rambling will help.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Okay well I tried to implement some of the suggestions into this one. Including recolouring it (refer to post above to see why it was brown to begin with). Here's the original:

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around1.png

This is the recoloured version:

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around2.png

This is the recoloured with lens flare (I like it less then the one without):

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around2wflare.png

With lens flare and background behind text (my attempt at helping guide your eyes, may have missed this concept completely):

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around2wflarentext.png

I think I am mis-using or have yet to completely grasp the use of the lens flare. I like how it lights it up but I don't know exactly where to place it to make good use of it.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

I posted this sig that I quickly through together up in the requests section. Do I think it's as good as my first one? Nope.

http://intis.ca/Signatures/BH4Fnatic.png

Now here's the reasons I think this one was a failure (or more so than the last). First reason is the whole flow of the thing. I find that as before your eyes don't really know where to go, I knew that was an issue while I was making it but I couldn't figure out a way to fix it. Some help on that would be much appreciated. The next reason was that there is a big space below the text that is not being used and I don't exactly know what to do with it. I kind of fixed this issue in the last one with the border behind the text which I feel made it look less barren. However I don't want that to be my solution to this problem everytime (It'll eventually just start looking washed up). My third issue (maybe I only notice because it's my work) is that the border on the right side is thicker than the rest. Easy to overlook but it draws my eye because it's a flaw in my work (I will probably fix it later on). The final issue with this that I don't particularily like is how the wing being out of the border turned out. I thought this would look much better than it did. I think the issue is that the wing is not extended enough to give it the feel I want. And if I had done the other win then BH would be kind of just facing the wall like an idiot.

I also posted this banner on a request from CybernetixTV. There are many issues with this. Firstly the logo that they provided is extremely hard (for me anyway) to render. Due to it turning out like crap when I tried to I desperately tried to fix it. It looks better now then when I first tried. It's an extremely rough draft that I posted with the question "Keep working? Scrap it? or Give up?" I wanted to know what people thought of the general design (obviously it needs touch ups); Whether the idea was no good and I should start again; Or whether my skills were not up to the standards that were needed for this project. Here it is:

http://intis.ca/Signatures/CybernetixTVRough.png

As you can see, the sides of their logo turned out incredibly pixelly. Due to the shadowing behind the logo it was very hard to get a clean render. Also due to the shading on the letters themselves it was hard to tell where the shading ended and the shadowing began. I really have no complaints about this one other than the logo rendering. I was hoping people might have some tips or tricks for me.

[Secron]

I can't say I read that last wall of text sorry, but I'll just give my input.

Regarding the first sig
- The render is too small, and sig too big which leaves too much blank space.
- The text is too big, it distracts from the focal point (render)
- I think the flow is good, looks like the render is bursting out. I quite like it
- I'd suggest making it smaller, making the render fill approxx 70-80% of the whole sig.
- Read some tutorials on depth and lighting. sigtutorials taught me some good stuff.

Second sig
- Way out of balance, render looks like it's falling off.
- Background is too active, try blurring it to create depth and also give the render more focus
- Text is again too in-your-face. Make it blend more, try using clipping masks.

Overall a good start. You just need to get the layout and composition of your sigs right, work on depth and lighting and finally text.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

- I'd suggest making it smaller, making the render fill approxx 70-80% of the whole sig.


Yeah, I wanted to do that but it's a flaw with the render its self. That is all of the render that there is. The top of her hat and her legs do not exist.



Second sig
- Way out of balance, render looks like it's falling off.
- Background is too active, try blurring it to create depth and also give the render more focus
- Text is again too in-your-face. Make it blend more, try using clipping masks.


Yeah I guess I need to learn about clipping masks. I keep hearing about them but have no idea what they are, how to use them or why to use them.



Overall a good start. You just need to get the layout and composition of your sigs right, work on depth and lighting and finally text.

Thanks for giving me some of your time and advice. I will definately look into what you have said and try to improve these signatures.

[Seektruth]

Not bad for a new photoshop user. Like the guy above said, an important thing in any kind of design is color pallete. Without complimentary colors, a graphic/design will never flow or look balanced.

I am an advanced user in PS and say you're heading in the right direction.

Try to mess with the Opacity when blending layers, and try to change the style of blend, you might find something you like. Don't be scared to "go out" and expirement, you will find you're style this way.

Goodluck

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

So the first thing I decided to try was this whole clipping mask thing. The tutorial I read had such better use out of it. In my case (maybe due to lack of experience) all it really did was make it blend it TOO much. How would one go about fixing this issue?

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around3wclipping.png

As always I resorted to just putting a background behind it (I am more than willing to take other advice. I don't want to always have to put a background behind my text :P.)

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around3wclipping2.png

Then I decided to try some of this dodging/burning to create depth. Which I think went horribly wrong. I think I might be overkilling it a bit? That and I don't think I have enough experience with burn/dodge to use it effectively. It ended up turning out like this:

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around3wclippingburn.png

As I was making this post I thought it looked a little strange with her being half burned half dodged so I just made her all dodged. Which I think looks a little better but still not the results I was looking for.

http://intis.ca/Signatures/around3wclippingdodge.png

I hope that as always there is some good advice that will continue to come in. In particular as to alternatives to backgrounds when text disappears.

[Seektruth]

The smaller the pixels the more simplistic you want it to be, don't make a small sig so complicated, if you dont want a background, make the fairy larger to take up more room.

Try to keep this is mind

Contrasting colors= complimentary colors

Try to add some more color depth.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

The smaller the pixels the more simplistic you want it to be, don't make a small sig so complicated, if you dont want a background, make the fairy larger to take up more room.


No... I like the background. What I don't like is the white stripe behind the text. If you look through how this signature has progressed you'll see that when I add clipping masks to it that the text blended in too well with the background so I had to put the white ribbon behind it to make it actually able to be read.



Contrasting colors= complimentary colors


Aren't those words completely opposite?



Try to add some more color depth.

Color depth? As in more variety of colours? Not sure I understand this advice. Not to be a grammar nazi or anything but your post was very difficult to figure out due to commas creating run on sentences and lack of periods through out.

[Secron]

If you want to keep working on this sig, make the Render bigger. There's too much blank space which is made worse by the fairly boring background (looks too much like a pattern, not enough contrasting).

Make the render bigger, maybe cut off a little more hat, and cut up to her elbow so she really gets the focus of the sig. Place the text sort of on the edge of the render, but still following the rule of threes if possible.
This (http://www.sigtutorials.com/tutorials/basics/clipping-mask-tutorial.html) is the clipping mask tutorial I used. A good technique I found is - after you've finished your sig and before the text - make a new layer, then Image > Apply Image. Copy this layer a couple of times (for subtext, can delete unused ones later). Then create your text, and put one of these layers above it. Ctrl+Shift+T and make the applied image bigger so there's less variation in the colour/contrast. Right click and make it a clipping mask, then move it around until you find the text visible enough but still blended. (This is how I did the text on my Zeratul sig).

Sorry for wall of text.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

If you want to keep working on this sig, make the Render bigger. There's too much blank space which is made worse by the fairly boring background (looks too much like a pattern, not enough contrasting).

Make the render bigger, maybe cut off a little more hat, and cut up to her elbow so she really gets the focus of the sig. Place the text sort of on the edge of the render, but still following the rule of threes if possible.
This (http://www.sigtutorials.com/tutorials/basics/clipping-mask-tutorial.html) is the clipping mask tutorial I used. A good technique I found is - after you've finished your sig and before the text - make a new layer, then Image > Apply Image. Copy this layer a couple of times (for subtext, can delete unused ones later). Then create your text, and put one of these layers above it. Ctrl+Shift+T and make the applied image bigger so there's less variation in the colour/contrast. Right click and make it a clipping mask, then move it around until you find the text visible enough but still blended. (This is how I did the text on my Zeratul sig).

Sorry for wall of text.

I think I am going to leave this signature as it is so that I have something that is "complete" that I can look back on later down the road and see how I have improved.

That is also the same clipping mask tutorial I read. However I am still having significant issues with keeping the text visable yet blended. I think the issue was that I was only making 1 of the Apply image layers before. I also did not scale the clipping masked layer (nor do I remember that being mentioned).

Thanks again. I will work on a new signature and post it as it becomes more complete. Do you have any suggestions on how to burn/dodge better?

[Secron]

Resizing the clipping mask layer wasn't in the tut, I thought of that myself.
The way I do it is look at where the text is (the background it's on), then find a spot for the clipping mask that contrasts the background where the text is. Then you just move it around till it looks good.

Take the sig I just made for a request as an example:

http://boonce.org/up/request_midsolo_blacksmith_2_alttext.png

The primary text uses a clipping mask. I did by resizing it, and using the very bottom right of the flame to get that gradient over the text. Notice how the bright part is over the dark background, and the dark park is over the bright flame. It's visible yet it blends because it's using the same colours. If I left the clipping mask the original size, it wouldn't be a smooth gradient.

Now, as for burning and dodging. Using the same sig above as an example, I use burning/dodging to increase the lighting effect, and to bring out the focal points more.
In this case, the light source is coming from the flaming hammer, so I dodged the hammer a little (focal point), and the whole right side of BS. I then burned everything else, especially the left side of BS to get the whole glowing hammer reflected light effect.
What you need to refrain from is doing it too much.

Also, I should mention, I'm fairly new to all this sig making myself, so I'm in no way giving expert advice, just what I've learnt so far.

Hope this helps!

[Lx]

Keep up the sigs. the best way to improve is to make more and more sigs and look at more and more tutorials! If you need any help just let me know :)

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Okay! I think this one is much better then the last one. A little curious as to what you guys think of it. I am hoping I didn't over burn/dodge again. I think I might add some little touch ups here and there as well as a border. However I find that these touch ups make it a lot harder to fix/change things after feedback so I want to see what people think before I do it.

http://intis.ca/Signatures/DevoSig.png

Ohhh I almost forgot. If anyone has any suggestions on how to use C4Ds in colored (particularily when the C4D is not the same color) sigs that would be great. The only tutorials I can find deal with grayscale which doesn't really do any good unless you're only going to use grayscale sigs :P

[Secron]

Better composition. You over dodged a little, and the problem there is you have no light source - brighten the right hand side of the sig, there are plenty of tuts for this.

C4Ds, you can easily change the colour by going to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance. Usually with 'effect' C4Ds, they have a black background so change the layer to 'screen'. I usually put it above the background, erase bits I don't want and lower opacity until I like it.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Reposted with first attempt at light source:

http://intis.ca/Signatures/DevoSig2.png

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Reposted again with C4D blend:

http://intis.ca/Signatures/DevoSig3.png

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

By the way. If anyone happens to run across this thread who wants a sig (without a specific picture or theme) post your name and the text you want on it. For now I am just going to continue to practice by putting my name on it and whatever I feel like text wise. However if someone wants their name on my next sig just post your name and if you want, another line of text. I will still be dropping into the Graphic Request section to pick up more specific sig requests but this will be my little informal requests.

[Secron]

Getting better! You've got depth, lighting, focus/composition and acceptable text.

The only thing I really don't like is the size - much too big for my liking. Try keeping within 500x150. Currently the text seems out of proportion to the sig as a whole.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Getting better! You've got depth, lighting, focus/composition and acceptable text.

The only thing I really don't like is the size - much too big for my liking. Try keeping within 500x150. Currently the text seems out of proportion to the sig as a whole.

Lol kk tomorrow I will make a 500x150!

Atleast making it smaller doesn't require any effort :P

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

http://intis.ca/Signatures/JavuSig2.png

Due to a bad render I had to use these text boxes to cover up flaws. Personally I don't like this sig much. But what can you do with a render like this? The render is hella pixelated so I blured/smudged edges in hope that it would cover it up a bit. As you can tell his left hand and bottom of scythe is still really pixelated. In short. Bad render = bad sig. At least in my hands. Any suggestions on dealing with bad renders? Or is it simply just avoid them?

[Javu]

lol sorry for the bad render :P. HoN screenshot didn't turn out to well. Thanks for the sig tho :)

[Secron]

I'd avoid them lol.

By the way that red line you noticed (in fact all the red) was part of a particle effect from the screenshot.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

I'd avoid them lol.

By the way that red line you noticed (in fact all the red) was part of a particle effect from the screenshot.

Yeah I figured it out... and the most noticable one got cover with the bar... I couldn't figure out a way to blend it. Good to hear I am not the only one avoiding pixelated renders!

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

This is by no means one to impress anyone. Nor is it meant to be used. It is more of a way to keep my interest in Japanese. I have been studying off and on for quite some time. And I don't remember much of what I learn due to the fact that I can't keep myself doing it regularily. I am hoping this will be a good means of keeping my studies going as well as giving me some practice at Photoshop techniques. Maybe once I get a bunch done I will work in some Flash practice and make a web flashcard program.

http://intis.ca/Signatures/Atama.png

So tell me. What do you guys think of this idea? And what do you think of the Sig (lol can it still be called that?) The render is crap, I did it real quick.

[FloPPyPiLLoW]

Well with me coming back to HoN I decided I would start this thread back up. Send it a request and I will finish it when I get around to it.