This is something I posted on Shattered Vectors which I might as well post here.
Dark Suit Samus Sig
IntroductionThis is a basic tutorial showing how to make a good looking sig quickly and easily using GIMP. I will be using a render of Dark Suit Samus but you could use something else to make it your own.
Parts/programs Needed - GIMP (I am using 2.6.3 but any 2.x should be fine)
- A render (I will be using this one)
- A fractal brush (the one I will be using is here)
A good place to look is here for GIMP brushes and here for .abr files (only if you have GIMP v2.4 or later)
Tools/skills Needed - Basic understanding of GIMP tools and menus
- Basic understaning of layer effects
Difficulty rating: 4/10
Average First Time to Complete: i.e 15-20 mins
Tutorial Notes: The only thing to remember that this is not absolute, for example the angle you choose for the motion blur will depend on which render you use and not what is written here.
Step By Step Tutorial:1- Open up your image and remove the background if needed. I will be using the Fuzzy Select Tool to select the white parts in the background and then deleting it. You should end up with this.
2- Create a new image of size 500x200
3- Copy your render into the new image as a new layer and scale it down if necessary. I scaled my render of Samus so that the shoulder pads fitted nicely into the image.
4- Duplicate the render layer a few times, 6 should be more than enough.
5- Spread the duplicate layers around randomly ensuring that most of the background is covered. Move your original render to the top.
6- Merge down all the background layers, leaving your original
7- Now to get started. Select your background image layer and go to Filters>Blur>Motion Blur...
8- These are the settings I used.
9- Duplicate the blurred layer 2 or 3 times and rearrange to get a nice background like this, with most of the transparent parts covered. One you are happy with it, merge them together so you have just the render and the blurred image.
10- Duplicate this layer, and go to Colors>Desaturate and desaturate the layer by LUMINOSITY.
11- Create a new layer filled with black and move it to the bottom.
12- Set the two background layers to 'screen' layer mode. This is what you should see so far, if you're getting lost, go back over it or ASK.
13- Now for the fun part. Create a new layer above the background layer, then select the Blend tool.
14- Choose the 'Deep Sea' gradient, with these settings.
15- Now drag the tool across your image from corner to corner like so.
16- Set the layer mode to Overlay.
17- Duplicate the gradient layer and set the opacity to 60%
This is what we should have.
18- Create a new layer.
19- Draw an ellipse shape using the Ellipse Select Tool and fill it with white using the Bucket Fill Tool.
20- Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur... and use these settings
21- Change the layer mode to 'Soft Light' and move the ellipse where you want to have it. I placed it over Samus.
22- Create another new layer and find a fractal brush you like and use it if you want. I used the first brush in the set linked to at the top scaled to 0.71
23- Add your text if you want some. Maybe add some decoration. A good technical, sans-serif font is good for this tutorial. The font I used was
Supreme24- Now add a border if you want. You can do a solid colour if you wish, but one I like to do is this:
25- Make a new layer. Go to Select>All. Make sure that your foreground colour is black.
26- Go to Edit>Stroke Selection and choose a stroke width of 9.5px.
27- Repeat step 26 with white as your foreground colour with stroke width 7.5px.
28- Repeat 26 with black as your foreground colour and stroke width 5px.
29- Set the layer mode to 'overlay'
DONE!
Here's what I had in the end:
FAQ/Troubleshooting/Tips- When getting your render from the image of Samus using the Fuzzy Select Tool you may notice that parts of Samus' suit will be selected as well as the background due to the reflection. To overcome this choose a threshold as close as possible to what you want and select. Then using the Free Select Tool search the image for any problems and hold down Ctrl to unselect areas you want to. This can be imprecise but that is not too much of a problem
