I'm pretty plaesed with ths one

Please feel free to post C&C.

I'm guessing you are a beginner/intermediate at making sigs. If you're not, then disregard my crit.

Not bad, but there is always room for improvement. Here's where I saw some issues-

Background: The sig itself would look so much better if you cut Gandalf out of the picture and placed him on a plain background. Right now, the brushes and lighting effects you used clash with the image. It's too busy, and it takes away from the main focus. Right now, the brushes don't work with the image. If you had a plain background, it would look awesome. There's actually some really cool-looking effects in there i.e. the bright orange.

Text: The font for "Gandalf" is great since it fits with the theme. You might want to try playing the the colors and opacity so that it blends a little better with the image and doesn't stand out as much. I can't read the font in the bottom left corner, although you might have done that on purpose. Same thing as the other text, just play with the color and opacity. Make sure you make this one a little more opaque than the other text.

Lighting: You should probably try playing around with the lighting a bit next time. Maybe making Gandalf a little darker so the brushes show out more. Also, moving the contrast around can often help make things look a little smoother.

All in all, it was a great start! You've got some awesome brushes going on there, and that's a great picture of Gandalf to use. Don't be too discouraged by my crit, because the sig still looks great for your level. Keep up the good work! =]

Thanks for the c&c! I'll see what I can do tomorrow.

I think that cutting gandalf out of the sig would be pretty hard, as he has allot of hair flying around. What mightwork is that I could blur the sortoundings. I'll try and fix that.also, what type of background were you proposing?

Yeah, the text in the botom left corner isn't meant to be readble. Maybe I should make it a tad smaller to make it clear, and maybe a different colour.

I'm not sure I want to darken gandalf, but I could darken the brushes, see what that looks like.

Anyway, thanks for the crit, I think it will really help me as I'm an beginner/intermediate sig maker.

What program are you using?

I use photoshop. When you go to cut something out, it has an option to feather the edges. What that basically does in smooth out the edges of what you are cutting out. That way, you don't have to cut it out perfectly and you can skip the painstaking process of the different hairs flying around. If I wasn't at work I would post a picture as an example.

As for the background, you might want to go with a solid color or a plain kind of pattern. The brushes will pretty much cover it up anyway. Try looking for something that will compliment the colors. The reason why the background doesn't work now is because of two things: 1. The people in the background distract ht viewer from the main subject and 2. The people are wearing dark colors, which clash with the overall orange/yellow color scheme you were going for. Look for something orange or red, even if you just use a stock photo of the sun or something like that. Anything that will compliment the main subject and the brushes.

You can go ahead and leave the text in the bottom left the way it is. The only thing you should do to it is make it more opaque. When something is typically a bold black color, that means it's important and should stand out. That's the opposite of what you were going for. Just play with the visibility until it turns into a ghost-like text. The viewer will know it's there, but they will also know that it isn't meant to be read.

I hope that helps.

I can't give as an in depth comment, but I will say that if you look closely and think about it, the background doesn't exactly clash with Gandalf. I think it clashes with our idea of him. Otherwise, I suppose it works because all the colors are light colors.

Now that I'm at home, I thought you could use a visual example of how to feather edges when you crop a selected portion of an image. (I'm 99% sure this is the same Gandalf picture you used)

PART 1 :: Here we have the main image of Gandalf (left) and the blank Sig with a black fill (right)

PART 2 :: As you can see, I have selected the outline of Gandalf (left) that I want to use.

PART 3 :: This is an example of an unfeathered edge (right).

PART 4 :: This is an example of a 10 pixel feathered edge (right).

If you use photoshop, the feather box should be located in the upper left corner. You fill in the amount of pixels you want to be feathered once you have selected the Lasso Tool. If you don't use photoshop, you might want to look for some online tutorials or ask someone you know who has the program.

I hope that helps.

Right, I have made another one, hopefully something along the lines of what you were talking abot.



And a similar one;