Welcome to another Sig tutorial, any feedback is welcome. Today we will be trying to achieve something like this:


Resources
-Ad Hero Reactions
-Tim's Abstract Brush Set
-Phantasm
-Insane Is Enough Fractal Set

Tutorial

Step 1

Open up a new canvas, I will be using 350x125 and fill with a:
-Black Background for a darker sig or
-White Background for a lighter sig.
I used black.



Step 2

Next scale your render to fit inside the sig and paste it in on a new layer. I like to paste my render in early because it allows me to create my sigs around it, not making a background, pasting in the render then doing the foreground. This method saves a lot of unneeded trouble with blending in your render and overall flow of the sig.



Step 3

To start, we are going to add some texture and detail to the background. Create a new transparent layer and place it underneath the render layer. Select your brush tool, then select one of the Ad Hero brushes. Change your foreground color to white and make a couple of clicks around the sig, filling up most of the space. Open up your Layers, Channels and Paths dialogue and set this layer to Normal at 100% opacity.



Step 4

Make a new transparent layer and place it above everything except the render layer. Get out your brush tool and select another brush from Ad Hero Reactions Set. Change your FG color to black and make a couple of clicks around the sig, but make sure some white is still visible. Set this layer to Normal at 100%.



Step 5

Make another transparent layer and move it just below the render layer. Now with the same or similar brush from Ad Hero Reactions Set, change your FG color to white and make a couple of clicks. Then change your FG color to black and make another couple of clicks. Set this layer to Overlay at 100%.



Step 6

In this step we are going to make our solid BG that we will be working from for the rest of the tutorial. Go Edit>Copy Visible, then Edit>Paste on a new layer. Move this layer below the render layer, then go Filters>Motion Blur and set the length to 80 and set the angle to something that flows with the render. Set this layer to Normal at 100% opacity.



Step 7

Make a new transparent layer and move it just below the render layer. Select a brush from Tim's Abstract Brush set, change your FG color to black and make a couple of clicks around the sig. Set this layer to Overlay at 100% opacity.



Step 8

Here we will start adding the interesting parts of the sig. Make a new transparent layer and move it just below the render layer. Now choose a brush from the Phantasm set, change your FG color to white and make one click somewhere in the sig that helps give flow to the render. Set this layer to Normal at 100% opacity.



Step 9

To give life to the brush we just added I use this technique. Duplicate the layer we were just working on in Step 8. Change your FG color to one of the main colors of the render, then go Layer>Transparency>Alpha To Selection. Then just go Edit>Fill with FG Color, then to finish off go Select>None. Set this layer to Overlay at 100% opacity.



Step 10

Repeat steps 8 and 9 a couple of times but move these layers above the render to blend it into the sig.



Step 11

Now we are going to start work on adding some effects and detail to the render. Duplicate the render layer and move the duplicated layer underneath the original render layer. Go Filters>Blur>gaussian Blur and change the settings to around 20. Now go Filters>Distorts>Shift and change the settings to around 10. Set this layer to Normal at 100% Opacity.



Step 11

Duplicate the original render layer once more but leave this duplicated layer where it is. Go Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and leave the X and Y settings at around 20. This bit is rather tricky so listen carefully. Go back to your original render layer and go Layer>Transparency>Alpha To Selection, then Select>Shrink by about 5 pixels, then Select>Feather and change it to around 10 pixels. Then select your render duplicated layer which is above the original render layer and go Edit>Clear and set this duplicated layer to Normal at 100% opacity. Almost done so bare with me, now go Select>Invert, go back to the original render layer and go Edit>Clear. Hope you're still with me :D



Step 12

To add a little more detail to the sig create a new transparent layer and move it to the top of the stack. Select the brush tool and choose a brush from the Insane Is Enough Fractal Set. Make a couple of clicks around the sig to add some detail. Set this layer to Overlay at 100% opacity.



Step 13

In this step you decide to overall result of the sig. Go Edit>Copy Visible, then Edit>Paste on a new layer. There are a few different things you can do here, to see what they look like refer to the images below.
To get the first outcome you must:
-Select two main colors from your render, then go Colors>Map>Gradient Map, and set this layer to Overlay at 50% opacity.
To get the second outcome you must:
-Go Colors>Desaturate and select Lightness, then set this layer to Normal at 100% opacity.
To get the third outcome you must:
-Go Colors>Hue-Saturation and change the Saturation bar to around -20 to -30 and set this layer to Normal at 100% opacity.







Finishing Touches

Add some text and a simple border and you're done! I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and have learnt something from it. If you got lost at any part of the sig refer to the image of the Layers Dialogue below:



Optional

Only do if your BG lacks detail and the motion blur is easily visible and makes the sig look plain and dull. Go Edit>Copy Visible then Edit>Paste onto a new layer. Move this layer to just above the motion blurred BG. Now go Filters>Artistic>Gimpressionist, click on the Brush tab and select Chalk 1 and click OK. Now duplicate this layer, then go Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and change the setting to 20. Select the Eraser tool, then get out a soft brush, preferably one the the Fuzzy Circle brushes and erase the Gaussian Blurred layer until most of it is gone. Then make a new layer just above this layer, get out a soft grunge brush, change your FG to black and make a couple of clicks, set this layer to Overlay at 100%

And if you want more color, like the one in the sig below do the following. First off go Edit>Copy Visible then Edit>Paste and leave at the top of the layer pile. Duplicate this layer once. On the original layer make your FG color a strong red and your BG and string green. Now go Color>Map>Gradient Map and set to Overlay at 60-70%. On the duplicated layer, change your FG to a strong Blue and your BG to a string Yellow and do another gradient map. Set this layer to Overlay at 70-80%. If you do these last two steps you should come out with a sig looking more like this:

any tutorial that helps me get closer to your style is a tutorial i like

i will definately try

only thing was my colors for the fantacism didn't stand out very well

Nice result, congratz.

I have added a new step at the end which, in my opinion, makes the result much better.

cool, thanks for adding the part about more color 

wow. great tut thanks

O_O thats like..beast rite there..
hows mine look :O?

Awesome tut!

Please don't double post!

what glider said ^

I like Dante. He has nice guns. And this is a great tutorial. Nice sig style. I'll definitely try this out.

awesome tutorial

and great brushes


lol

very nice effect and very nice tutorial. i will be trying this for sure. thanks for sharing it

very nice tutorial. I finished it but there was one spot that was hard, Step 9. I brushed with same brush set as you in step 8, but in 9 it didnt select even half of the what i brushed leaving most of it plain with :/?

anyways heres what i came up with, im not 100% happy with it since im just a beginner and didnt surely know what colors to use etc etc..

i made this using your tut :d thanks