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Signature Tutorial: Mystic female bowmen; Tutorial by MarkCape
Topic Started: March 20 2014, 12:02 PM (35 Views)
Âkhïl
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THE BIG THING
Mystic female bowmen

In this tutorial by MARKCAPE you will learn how to create the following signature:

Posted Image

This tutorial will teach you how great render and background selection together with some adjustment layers can create an amazing looking signature!

  • Render and background selection

    A big part of your outcome will be determined by the render and background you choose in this step. For the render pic something that has some nice action going on it. Explosions, or special effects in the render is what you are looking for! Cartoonish like renders work great for this type of signature.

    I have made a small selection of renders you can use to create your signature:

    Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image

    For the background try to pick something in a similar style: If you pick a space render, try to go with something tech like. Since I picked an archer I’m going for some tree/forest like render. Look for a render that has interesting parts which you can use for your background.

    Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image

  • Adding the render and background

    Create a new document (I used 500px x 280px) and add your render. Go to sharpen > smart sharpen and sharpen the render with 25%.

    Posted Image

    Now add your background on a layer behind your render.

    Duplicate and rotate the background a couple of times and erase / move parts around to fill the entire background.

    If the color in the background don’t match that of your render (my background was green while my render is blue), recolor the background. To do this first merge all your background layers into one big layer and edit the Hue/Saturation (CTRL+U) so it matches that of your render.

    Posted Image

  • Adding color highlights to the background

    Create a new layer between the background and your render. Using the bucket tool, fill it with black. After this take out your brush tool and select a soft round brush (size around 50px) and brush in certain area’s to create highlights. Set this layer on color dodge (you can also lower the opacity of this layer, I changed it to 75%)

    Posted Image

    Keep adding layers like this where you brush with color or black to highlight certain parts or make other parts darker. Try various brush sizes and layer blending modes and take your time! A good signature is never made with just a couple of layers, during the rest of the tutorial you will see that every now and than more and more color highlights where added to the sig.

    The Result after this step:

    Posted Image

  • Blending the render with the background

    The render still looks like it is on top of the background, and not part of it like it should be.

    To blend in the render we are going to add parts of the background on top of the render.

    Posted Image

    As you can see I once again added more blue highlights on various parts of the background.

  • Adding text and C4D renders

    Now we will add some text and C4D renders to the signature. While both of these can really improve your signature, they can also ruin your signature. It takes some practice to really get good at these!

    For the text always try to keep it simple and never ever use outer glow or bevel and emboss! Go with easy to read fonts and perhaps a subtle gradient.

    Don’t tuck away your text in a corner, place it around the main focal point. Our main focal point in the signature is the face, so place the render up/down and left/right of this render. Since there was some nice space left near the bottom right of the focal point, this is where I placed the text.

    Posted Image

    I picked an orange bubble C4D render and added it on top of all other layers, after this I removed parts of the C4D render which I didn’t like using the eraser tool.

    Posted Image

  • Gradient Maps

    Now I added some Gradient Maps using Layer > New adjustment layer > Gradient Map. You can create your own gradient maps, or pick some of the default maps. Pick gradient maps that match the colors in your sig and play around with the blending modes and opacity!

    I used three gradient maps:

    Posted Image

    To get the following:

    Posted Image

  • Final adjustments


I can’t really help you with this step, since it really depends on your signature what kind of final adjustments you need. Here are some things you could try:

  • Various filters (I used the topaz filter, which you can download just google it)
  • Sharpen / blur parts of the signature
  • Color dodge to make parts of the signature lighter.
  • Color burn to make parts of the signature darker.


This is what I did:

Posted Image

and here is the signature all finished (a simple border is also added)

Posted Image

  • Conclusion

In this tutorial you learned how you can make a great looking signature with some basic technique's. Don't forget that the biggest part of your outcome is determined by the render and background you pick!

Tutorial and signature originally made by Markcape
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