MyLifeIsRandom
07-10-2010, 04:00 PM
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/3708/hazamasignature.png
Again, if anyone can tell me where Windows Vista holds screenshots, I'll gladly post one showing me with the .XCF file in Gimp. Until then, you'll just have to take my word on it.
I rendered this image of Hazama. That is, I cut him and the evil, little, poisonous monsters from their former background. I did so in a lazy fashion using the Selection by Color tool, as the entirety of his background was a dull grey color seperate from any colors on Hazama himself. I used the Color Selection tool to grab the green from within the mouth of the left monster. It's this color that I simply used to fill in an alpha selection of Hazama and then Blur filtered to give him an ominous aura.
The background is a photograph of Tokyo that I grabbed off DeviantArt. It's a great place to find various stock photographs for use in signatures. Being photographs, they're not an intellectual property or published product, so it's basically free for use if not modified. I took a light blue and the previously mentioned green and performed a gradient map on a duplicate of the stock. It was either before or after this that I used a Sharpen filter. My short term memory is horrific beyond belief. Anyway, I lightened up the photo before all this with a Dodge and Screen layer. Dodge to lighten the lights, and to darken the darks. Screen to brighten up the entire thing to make it clearly visible.
On to the present time, I took a dark green from the left monster and, with a duplicate of the gradient map layer, colored over it. This was because the gradient map came out far too bright and far too blue. This layer helped me get back into a dark and green coloring. From then on, I abused Clipping Masks and Splatter brushed to make a hectic looking background. Being how psychotically destructive Hazama is, it was only proper. After a few Clipping Masks, I duplicated the final product and flipped it upside-down. I erased with the previously mentioned Splatter brushes and fine tuned some spots with a default circle brush.
Finally, I made a long, rectangular selection for my text to rest upon. You can see it over on the far right. I'm thinking my text was a bit too bright, but I usually screw up and make it impossible to read when darkening. So, I left it bright and proud as it is. Then I slapped on a 2px black border around the whole thing, using a Sharpen filter here and there to pronounce the details in the Hazama render and the background. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Constructive criticism welcome. <3
Again, if anyone can tell me where Windows Vista holds screenshots, I'll gladly post one showing me with the .XCF file in Gimp. Until then, you'll just have to take my word on it.
I rendered this image of Hazama. That is, I cut him and the evil, little, poisonous monsters from their former background. I did so in a lazy fashion using the Selection by Color tool, as the entirety of his background was a dull grey color seperate from any colors on Hazama himself. I used the Color Selection tool to grab the green from within the mouth of the left monster. It's this color that I simply used to fill in an alpha selection of Hazama and then Blur filtered to give him an ominous aura.
The background is a photograph of Tokyo that I grabbed off DeviantArt. It's a great place to find various stock photographs for use in signatures. Being photographs, they're not an intellectual property or published product, so it's basically free for use if not modified. I took a light blue and the previously mentioned green and performed a gradient map on a duplicate of the stock. It was either before or after this that I used a Sharpen filter. My short term memory is horrific beyond belief. Anyway, I lightened up the photo before all this with a Dodge and Screen layer. Dodge to lighten the lights, and to darken the darks. Screen to brighten up the entire thing to make it clearly visible.
On to the present time, I took a dark green from the left monster and, with a duplicate of the gradient map layer, colored over it. This was because the gradient map came out far too bright and far too blue. This layer helped me get back into a dark and green coloring. From then on, I abused Clipping Masks and Splatter brushed to make a hectic looking background. Being how psychotically destructive Hazama is, it was only proper. After a few Clipping Masks, I duplicated the final product and flipped it upside-down. I erased with the previously mentioned Splatter brushes and fine tuned some spots with a default circle brush.
Finally, I made a long, rectangular selection for my text to rest upon. You can see it over on the far right. I'm thinking my text was a bit too bright, but I usually screw up and make it impossible to read when darkening. So, I left it bright and proud as it is. Then I slapped on a 2px black border around the whole thing, using a Sharpen filter here and there to pronounce the details in the Hazama render and the background. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Constructive criticism welcome. <3