Okay, I wanted to make it a little darker on the sides (to make it more of that sort of sig) and put some real text into it.

Original:


Darker with text:


Comment and constructive criticism? (Please post some).

EDIT: Ewww yuck. But how's the text?

It looks completely flat and the text really doesn't fit.

Everything looks like an improvement, except the text.

Fire is supposed to be bright. :\



(I like the original)

It negates a lot of the effects.
The text is alright imo.

Text is horrible it's too small and not cool enough.

Rest of sig is too dark.

What are you doing with your life? Let alone your sig.

I actually like the first one the most. Second one doesn't look as good.

I wouldn't try to make that a kind of dark signature. Try a different pokemon, such as Bulbasaur or Vileplume if you want something darkish.

I think that you shouldn't have changed the opacity on the render in order to make it blend originally (Even if you didnt do that exactly, it looks that way in my eyes). Incorporate the render into the rest of the signature instead of doing just that. That, is what you need to read up about techniques and then practice.

Okay, darker looks horrible.

Ideas for text on brighter one?

Darker doesn't always look horrible... It's just that you cant do a lighting render (or a softlight layer for that matter) just over the signature randomly.

It has to convey some depth, take my current signature for instance:


those blobs of light that look like their are coming from behind the sexy belly stock weren't actually there. I added them quite simply by brushing some low opacity, low flow softbrush behind there.
Then you need to take your focal and work with a softlight layer on making the lighting on the focal fit the lighting you created. in this case i darkened the belly and increased the contrast using adjustment layers.

What you did made it look like you printed the signature onto a flat piece of paper and shined a flashlight on it in a dark room. You should try to make it feel as if the light was in the scene as you made the signature, instead.

Thanks for the tip .

Right. So again, in short, screw the darker one.

Ideas for text on the brighter one, again?

Great flow. Add some lighting, as some others have said previously. If text concerns, I suggest not just slapping it anywhere, and putting it on Soft light or Overlay. Put it somewhere discreet, or maybe make a place for it beforehand.

Great job, I love this work. 9/10.

I actually have a noobly-written half-made tutorial for this recent sig I entered in the Sotm once.

Have you tried Clip-Masking with the text? I dunno if it'll work on your type of sig.

Explain?

http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/Editorial/...-Fame-41403.htm

apply image on new layer over text
ctrl + alt + g
move new layer around until awesomeness is achieved

Ok, I shall try.