The Digital Art Club

[Frozen]

@Rainy: Oh, I forgot to answer this earlier: Yeah, Gradient Maps definitely could cause over saturation, especially if you have several different colours etc. on high opacity, or Normal blending more.
With regards to pixel fonts, they're acceptable sometimes, but generally they look very.. newbish, and rarely complement the flow, or the effects in the signature. Text can make or break a signature if not done right. For one it should always, always be placed using the Rule of Thirds (this is like, the no. 1 most important rule when it comes to Signature making), and it should fit the style of the image. This and this are two pretty decent looking tutorials (I haven't actually read them, but they sound like they know what they're doing) :b.
Anyway, yeah, I'm no text expert myself, but that's just my two pence.

 

[Flurried Rains]

@Rainy: Oh, I forgot to answer this earlier: Yeah, Gradient Maps definitely could cause over saturation, especially if you have several different colours etc. on high opacity, or Normal blending more.
With regards to pixel fonts, they're acceptable sometimes, but generally they look very.. newbish, and rarely complement the flow, or the effects in the signature. Text can make or break a signature if not done right. For one it should always, always be placed using the Rule of Thirds (this is like, the no. 1 most important rule when it comes to Signature making), and it should fit the style of the image. This and this are two pretty decent looking tutorials (I haven't actually read them, but they sound like they know what they're doing) :b.
Anyway, yeah, I'm no text expert myself, but that's just my two pence.

Yeah I know the rule of thirds from my Digital Video and Photoshop classes. I'll have to watch out for gradient maps now, thanks for that. :3. I'll also try to stay away from pixel fonts for a bit too, as I use that font a bit much as well. Oh and I just realized that there is already a contest in the Digital Media section (which I recently only discovered a couple days ago LOL), so I'll have to think of ways to spice up the contests here and make them different. Although I have time for that, we need a bit more members before we start contests.

 

[PurpleMew]

Welcome to the club Nick! Just wanna say I REALLY like your style in all of those threads. :3. Oh and I'm thinking about entering one of those contests in your signature; probably the digital media one because I'm not too good at spriting, or possibly the fan art one.

And I completely forgot about discussion questions lol, I guess I'll add that in to the first post. But I've already said my answer to the question is CS3, although I might be getting CS4 soon from a friend.

Haha thanks ^^; I try to learn new styles and then edit and mess with them, I prefer to mess with colour the most though because you gotta' love colour manipulation ;] I lookk forward to your entry/entries.

What program do you use to make your digital art?

I used GIMP 2.6 for most of my art but got Photosop CS4E a couple months ago and have been using that more but I still use GIMP for different bits I haven't learnt to do in PS yet. c:

 

[Frozen]

Yeah I know the rule of thirds from my Digital Video and Photoshop classes. I'll have to watch out for gradient maps now, thanks for that. :3. I'll also try to stay away from pixel fonts for a bit too, as I use that font a bit much as well. Oh and I just realized that there is already a contest in the Digital Media section (which I recently only discovered a couple days ago LOL), so I'll have to think of ways to spice up the contests here and make them different. Although I have time for that, we need a bit more members before we start contests.

;D Gradient Maps are wonderful for colouring, and you can do some really cool stuff with them. I like Solid Colour layers too, I used them in my current sig, and it looks tasty (in my humble opinion of couse! xD)
I looked at that competition too, but it looks pretty lame to be honest. I don't like being restricted to their crappy sizes, I'd rather just have a range so you can choose your own. And the themes aren't open enough either.. I like there to be a variaty in the entries, you know? :/

 

[Flurried Rains]

Haha thanks ^^; I try to learn new styles and then edit and mess with them, I prefer to mess with colour the most though because you gotta' love colour manipulation ;] I lookk forward to your entry/entries.

Yeah color manip. is always fun, although I always end up making stuff too monochromatic and I start over. I'm probably going to hold off a bit until I enter something into the contest though, I wanna get a bit better at Photoshop stuff and wait until I get my tablet (most likely tomorrow!! :3). I still have a couple of days anyway.

;D Gradient Maps are wonderful for colouring, and you can do some really cool stuff with them. I like Solid Colour layers too, I used them in my current sig, and it looks tasty (in my humble opinion of couse! xD)
I looked at that competition too, but it looks pretty lame to be honest. I don't like being restricted to their crappy sizes, I'd rather just have a range so you can choose your own. And the themes aren't open enough either.. I like there to be a variaty in the entries, you know? :/

Yeah, I just made another banner and I used a bunch of gradient maps in it. I'm always tempted to leave them exactly as they are at 100% opacity and normal blending options because they look kind of trippy. :3. And by Solid Color layer do you mean making a layer completely one color and then dropping the opacity and that stuff? I wasn't sure 'cause I've never heard the term before and I've never seen it in the options or anything. Meh, the competition might not be as open as anything else, but it'll give me something to do, plus the sizes don't bother me too much.

Well now that I've made this banner I kind of wanna work on icons now. I haven't made many of them at all and it would be nice to get better at them lol. The only thing is that I always want to add MORE and MORE and MORE until it gets really messy and disgusting. I have a simplicity problem I think. >_<.

 

[mangaeyes]

You all make really awesome banners and mine usually suck...although I am proud of these few (use them for club art if you want I consider them my best)

Not great...give me tips on how to improve!!!

 

[Frozen]

EDIT: Woah ninja'd or something.
Mangaeyes: I don't really understand the Serebii style, it all seems like you make completely different stuff to the rest of the GFX world. A microclimate or something. x) I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice on SPPF banners, because I make more mainstream graphics kinda stuff. From what I can see though, it's all essentially photomanip. In that case don't be afraid to some colours stand out more to achieve the affect you want, try and add lighting and stuff, and ***** textures.

I like that sig, Rainy. :3
It's pretty, and the text is much better. I quite like the way it's split up too, it's not cliche, which things like that often are. The colours are omfgpretty too. ;D
Solid Colour layers are in the thingy just above Gradient maps, but that's the general idea, yeah. I writed a tutorial for my current sig a little while ago, you can have a looksie if you're interesting. :b [/shamelessplug]
Also I am jealous of your tablet. D:

 

[mangaeyes]

EDIT: Woah ninja'd or something.
Mangaeyes: I don't really understand the Serebii style, it all seems like you make completely different stuff to the rest of the GFX world. A microclimate or something. x) I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice on SPPF banners, because I make more mainstream graphics kinda stuff. From what I can see though, it's all essentially photomanip. In that case don't be afraid to some colours stand out more to achieve the affect you want, try and add lighting and stuff, and ***** textures.

I'm sorry I don't know what you mean...Serebii style?
Whats the difference between 'mainstream graphics' and 'serebii style'?

 

[Flurried Rains]

You all make really awesome banners and mine usually suck...although I am proud of these few (use them for club art if you want I consider them my best)=

Not great...give me tips on how to improve!!!

My favorites of yours is the first Zuko one and the one with Robin in it (that team something show I forget). Most of your others are wayy over textured (Ike and the Black Parade) and some of the text doesn't really blend in at all and just looks like it was plopped in there (Ike and the Darkness one). The only advice I can really give you is to do a couple more tutorials, that really helped me a lot.

I like that sig, Rainy. :3
It's pretty, and the text is much better. I quite like the way it's split up too, it's not cliche, which things like that often are. The colours are omfgpretty too. ;D
Solid Colour layers are in the thingy just above Gradient maps, but that's the general idea, yeah. I writed a tutorial for my current sig a little while ago, you can have a looksie if you're interesting. :b [/shamelessplug]
Also I am jealous of your tablet. D:

Thank you for liking my sig Frozen. :]. I'll do that tutorial later since I am going out now, and my mom JUST brought home my tablet while I was at work, but I can't play with it yet since I'm going out. D:

I'll be up all night on it lol. :3

Oh and I got a deviant Frozen, I favorited your bubbles sig. ^_^

I'm sorry I don't know what you mean...Serebii style?
Whats the difference between 'mainstream graphics' and 'serebii style'?

Compare you're style to Frozen's banner's style. And there you go. Also if you look on Planet Renders forums you'll see a lot more mainstream banners.

 

[Frozen]

I can't really think of a way to explain it, manga eyes. If you look at my signatures they're more effecty and stuff, where as yours are a lot plainer in that respect. The styles are just completely different.
And you all call your signatures banners for some reason I cannot fathom. >__>

And Rainy, I'm still jealous of your tablet, you should send it to me or something! xD
(I watched and stuff on you dA. :>)

 

[suicune lover]

Username/Nickname: suicune lover, or just Sl

Some examples of your art: Erm. None. to learn to make some, but I couldn't find any good guides. So I wish to join this club, and get some advice for the experts to help me. I will try make some soon. I can make userbars though....

http://i41.*******.com/nmxkrs.jpg

http://i43.*******.com/nyimns.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/23mocok.jpg

http://i42.*******.com/ivc0i1.jpg

http://i39.*******.com/28sn5hz.jpg

http://i41.*******.com/xayv6r.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/2w1tmcp.jpg

http://i44.*******.com/2ajdiev.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/an0xfc.jpg

http://i43.*******.com/30dccnk.jpg

(Yes, all made for clubs :<)
I do have some sprite Banners though....I make better things with sprites and feel easier using them.

How long have you been making digital art?: No clue. Not very long though, I just started fiddling with Gimpz.

Have you read all of the rules?: "Yessir Mister Rains" tbh I don't think thats a good idea Flurried... Somewhere, I read, its a bad idea to do that, becusomeone may read the rules, but because they put that in, doesnt mean they will follow them. I would quote it, but I can't find it.

 

[Flurried Rains]

I can't really think of a way to explain it, manga eyes. If you look at my signatures they're more effecty and stuff, where as yours are a lot plainer in that respect. The styles are just completely different.
And you all call your signatures banners for some reason I cannot fathom. >__>

And Rainy, I'm still jealous of your tablet, you should send it to me or something! xD
(I watched and stuff on you dA. :>)

I just call signatures banners now because when I first called them signatures here everyone got confused. So now I just kind of do both. :3. And I'm playing with my tablet now. It's so much fun. Now I just gotta find a good render to make a signature with. >:]

Username/Nickname: suicune lover, or just Sl

Some examples of your art: Erm. None. to learn to make some, but I couldn't find any good guides. So I wish to join this club, and get some advice for the experts to help me. I will try make some soon. I can make userbars though....

http://i41.*******.com/nmxkrs.jpg

http://i43.*******.com/nyimns.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/23mocok.jpg

http://i42.*******.com/ivc0i1.jpg

http://i39.*******.com/28sn5hz.jpg

http://i41.*******.com/xayv6r.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/2w1tmcp.jpg

http://i44.*******.com/2ajdiev.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/an0xfc.jpg

http://i43.*******.com/30dccnk.jpg

(Yes, all made for clubs :<)
I do have some sprite Banners though....I make better things with sprites and feel easier using them.

How long have you been making digital art?: No clue. Not very long though, I just started fiddling with Gimpz.

Have you read all of the rules?: "Yessir Mister Rains" tbh I don't think thats a good idea Flurried... Somewhere, I read, its a bad idea to do that, becusomeone may read the rules, but because they put that in, doesnt mean they will follow them. I would quote it, but I can't find it.

Yayy welcome Suicune Lover! :3. Have you looked at any tutorials on Planet Renders or deviantArt? Those have really helped me out quite a lot, although I forgot how I first started out with making banners. If you are wondering where to start you can either take a stock image or an abstract render (from Planet Renders) and place it on a black (or any color really, I just use black most of the time) canvas and blur it/use blending options, OR you could take the original render you want to put in, duplicate it, and use the smudge tool to smudge over the whole canvas (that's what I did with the Star Wars banner). You could also just use brushes for textures depending on what type of style you are going for. Don't know if you understand all that or not, I'm not familiar with GIMP. Oh right, you might need to look for GIMP tutorials then. >_<. Tell me if you have any questions on that much, and then I could try to teach a bit more; although tutorials might be the best way to go, I've never really taught this to anyone before.

EDIT: Oh, and about the "Yessir Mister Rains" thing, it's better if they read the rules at all and break them rather than ignore them completely.

 

[Frozen]

Username/Nickname: suicune lover, or just Sl

Some examples of your art: Erm. None. to learn to make some, but I couldn't find any good guides. So I wish to join this club, and get some advice for the experts to help me. I will try make some soon. I can make userbars though....

http://i41.*******.com/nmxkrs.jpg

http://i43.*******.com/nyimns.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/23mocok.jpg

http://i42.*******.com/ivc0i1.jpg

http://i39.*******.com/28sn5hz.jpg

http://i41.*******.com/xayv6r.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/2w1tmcp.jpg

http://i44.*******.com/2ajdiev.jpg

http://i40.*******.com/an0xfc.jpg

http://i43.*******.com/30dccnk.jpg

(Yes, all made for clubs :<)
I do have some sprite Banners though....I make better things with sprites and feel easier using them.

How long have you been making digital art?: No clue. Not very long though, I just started fiddling with Gimpz.

Have you read all of the rules?: "Yessir Mister Rains" tbh I don't think thats a good idea Flurried... Somewhere, I read, its a bad idea to do that, becusomeone may read the rules, but because they put that in, doesnt mean they will follow them. I would quote it, but I can't find it.

Hey there, suicune lover. :>
With regards to looking for tutorials, there are dozens of brilliant sites out there. Planet Renders is an excellent resourse, Guild Inn has loads of tutorials for Beginners and Advanced artists alike, and deviantART has hundreds of good tutorials. Have a look round, it's well worth it! ^__^

I just call signatures banners now because when I first called them signatures here everyone got confused. So now I just kind of do both. :3. And I'm playing with my tablet now. It's so much fun. Now I just gotta find a good render to make a signature with. >:]

I'll never be turned to your evil ways, Rainy! x) I swear, Serebii is one of the weirdest places I've been for Graphics. I think they must have a wall of 12/13 year olds defending them from the rest of the internet. :B

 

[suicune lover]

Yayy welcome Suicune Lover! :3. Have you looked at any tutorials on Planet Renders or deviantArt? Those have really helped me out quite a lot, although I forgot how I first started out with making banners. If you are wondering where to start you can either take a stock image or an abstract render (from Planet Renders) and place it on a black (or any color really, I just use black most of the time) canvas and blur it/use blending options, OR you could take the original render you want to put in, duplicate it, and use the smudge tool to smudge over the whole canvas (that's what I did with the Star Wars banner). You could also just use brushes for textures depending on what type of style you are going for. Don't know if you understand all that or not, I'm not familiar with GIMP. Oh right, you might need to look for GIMP tutorials then. >_<. Tell me if you have any questions on that much, and then I could try to teach a bit more; although tutorials might be the best way to go, I've never really taught this to anyone before.

EDIT: Oh, and about the "Yessir Mister Rains" thing, it's better if they read the rules at all and break them rather than ignore them completely.

I looked fr some on dA, but I don't know where to go. I first need to think of an idea, and then figure out how to work brushes ._.

Hey there, suicune lover. :>
With regards to looking for tutorials, there are dozens of brilliant sites out there. Planet Renders is an excellent resourse, Guild Inn has loads of tutorials for Beginners and Advanced artists alike, and deviantART has hundreds of good tutorials. Have a look round, it's well worth it! ^__^

Hey :3
tbh I've never heard of the first two, I'm having a look at them. tbh I would stick to dA, but can you please tell me where to look? lol, I only just joined it and I'm still finding my way round it ._.

 

[Flurried Rains]

I looked fr some on dA, but I don't know where to go. I first need to think of an idea, and then figure out how to work brushes ._..

In the search feature type in "signature tutorial". People just make images of their tutorials and put them up there. Hope that helps you out. :3. If you need something to put in your signature/banner you can find a lot of images with transparent backgrounds on Planet Renders, you just have to join so you can get them.

In my boredom of the last day of summer vacation, I made two banners (one of which is in my signature currently) and started trying to make icons. I've made three so far, and wanna see how I did. So yeah, here they are.

I call them Toph-y-kins, SexMePlease, and RainbowCat! xD

 

[interstellas]

Username/Nickname: interstellas
Some examples of your art: ha-na 하나, dul 둘, set 셋.
How long have you been making digital art?: five to six years.
Have you read all of the rules?: Yessir Mister Rains

 

[Frozen]

In my boredom of the last day of summer vacation, I made two banners (one of which is in my signature currently) and started trying to make icons. I've made three so far, and wanna see how I did. So yeah, here they are.

I call them Toph-y-kins, SexMePlease, and RainbowCat! xD

I don't really understand icons, but these seem nice. They're simple and clean, not too complex etc. The cat one is a little oversaturated, perhaps, but it's alright.

Username/Nickname: interstellas
Some examples of your art: ha-na 하나, dul 둘, set 셋.
How long have you been making digital art?: five to six years.
Have you read all of the rules?: Yessir Mister Rains

I love your style. You do text really nicely. :>
Hope you have fun etc.

Anyway, I haven't made anything in agges, I just haven't had any good ideas, I guess. :/

 

[mangaeyes]

Okay I know I really fail and I know I'm TERRIBLE at text and I know I follow the 'serebii style'.......but...

.. or ..

More than anything I need help with text...please!


Also you all really hated what I'd consider my best work...is there any hope for me?

 

[Flurried Rains]

Okay. Serebii is going very slowly so I'm not going to bother quoting.

@interstellas OMG I love your current signature, especially the text (like Frozen said). Welcome to the club! And thanks for reading the rules. :3

@Frozen Well the cat is like that because of the rainbow pattern overlay I put on it. It was really saturated at first but I put a black and white gradient map over it so I could bring it down a bit, but I still wanted the rainbow to show. :l. And if you haven't thought of any ideas maybe you should try some icons.

@mangaeyes Hey! I never said I hated your stuff, in fact, I said I really liked a few of them, however some of them were ruined by poorly placed text yadda yadda. Here's what I would suggest for you (and I just recently got most of this advice from my digital art thread):

1. Focus on the render more than the text (Frozen also told me this before). The render should stand out much more and the text should just be a minimal detail. You can use bigger text if you want to, as long as it doesn't take away from the render itself and flows with the banner. There were some text tutorials that Frozen showed me at the top of the page that you could look at. If that doesn't help avoid using text at all for a while.

2. When using text, DON'T use shadows or blending options (I have been guilty of this, but now I avoid it as much as possible).

3. Try darkening the outside edges of the signature around the main render so it stands out and you have a focal point. Also, create a light source in your render (Filter > Render > Lighting if you use Photoshop).

4. Some of your images aren't really high quality either, and it definitely makes the whole image look wrong (your first two examples).

5. FINALLY. Rather than using textures for backgrounds try duplicating the main render and smudging it across the whole canvas (you might have to duplicate the render multiple times). After that you can add in textures for backgrounds if you want, but personally I don't use them at all. I just use abstract renders.

Hopefully that helped. >_<.

 

[interstellas]

Thank you and I'm happy to be here.

Text is a problem with everyone. I honestly ADMIT that it is (and can be) my weakness when it comes to designing over with Photoshop. First off, when you use text, make sure that you select the right font, the right type-size and you arrange it in a way that doesn't make the graphic scattered.

Ask yourself if you want the type to be the focus point or no. If not, make it a little less noticable-- but nice and clean. I'd say a little more buuuut I'm on my way to school. xD

I take a Commericial Art tech school. It's really nice. My Photoshop skills have been improving there and what makes my life easy when I learn there, my art teacher is Adobe Certified. ^_^ Joy~