Hard Abstract Signature Tutorial, Level 3/5

Hard Abstract Signature Tutorial
For all those who have made abstract signatures, try out this tutorial

You will need a good set of hard abstract brushes. I like Total Deviance from DeviantArt. Make sure you import them before starting this tutorial.

1) Make a new document, 400 x 150 with a transparent background. Fill your first layer with black (hit Shift+F5 and click on black using the settings shown.



2) Switch your foreground colour to white. Grab one of the brushes from the brush pack and click on the background. Then grab another brush and click on the space. Do this until you fill. A good thing to keep in mind is to use the brushes that go together in one layer. If you use the lightning brushes in Total Deviance, make sure you use just those. It will bring about a better effect. Try to keep it not too dark and not too light. Use the Brightness/Contrast tool (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast) to keep a good contrast to it. Here are a few outcomes for a layer. They may look b ad now but they get better:


3) If you want a variety of colours, you can Colour Balance now. I will be doing that after I merge. First, change around the blending modes to Overlay. Then play around with the layer order, and even add more brushing in where needed. Merge Visible (Shift+Ctrl+E). Then Colour Balance the later (Ctrl+. I will be using these colours:

Midtones: Blue 60, Cyan -60
Highlights: Cyan -40
Shadows: Blue 40
Preserve Luminosity is unchecked

This is what I came out with:


4) Now we shall add some background effects. Duplicate your background layer and desaturate it by press Shift+Ctrl+U. Then apply a Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic with a Cell Size of 10. Then apply a Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. Set the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%.
Now, grab your magic wand tool and select your bottom layer. Now, click on all the light spots of the background like this:

Then, create a new layer over the Mosaic layer (with the light parts still selected). Right-click one of the light parts, and select Fill with these settings. You may have to define the pattern used:

Now, set that layer's opacity to 10%

5) Now we will be working with a render. I will be using this render for PlanetRenders. Open your render in Photoshop, take off any Rendered by Signs. Then resize it so it's 300 or 500 pixels high depending on the render (use Image > Image Size for this). Copy it all and plop it into your sig on either side.


6) Duplicate your render layer. Apply an Image > Adjustments > Photo Filter with these settings to the original render layer:

Now on the copied layer, apply a Filter > Blur > Motion Blur to the layer with these settings. Then set the blending mode to Overlay.

Also, add an Outer Glow in Blending Options with the default settings and this colour: #308fbf
Which should give you something like this:


7) For a border, create a new layer, hit Ctrl+A. Then right-click on the sig, and select stroke with these settings:

Then change the blending mode to Soft Light, which gives you this:


That's about it, this is the outcome with some quick text added:


2006 Wipeout Studios

VERY nice tut i will sure try it later on

the antirip part sometimes confuses me lol
besides who would want to steal ur tutorial
(jk)

Thanks for the tut. Ill give it a try

Tried it, this is what I got:


I made some modifications of course, and did some different things, but kept the same idea basically. Mainly because the Magic Pen tool in CS3 is so noobed up. Anyways, I'm using it now instead of my old sig. Thanks!

Does anyone know how to covert a rar to a brush file?

Without downloading softwere

you have to downlaod like winrar or somthing

Lol I didn't know that's how Adobe packages their brushes. I thought you just define a bunch of brushes and export em as a brush pack.

That is basically how it works, it saves as an ABR.

People use WinRAR to zip them to save file space, I guess. Waste of time imo though, because once it's extracted, you have the RAR file along with the actual file.