Here's my newest try at color + better depth and lighting. I like the text as well, this time. I took the same stock and made that effect in the background. I tried to make it explosion-ish looking. I never knew color had so much to do with how great sigs look, I know this isn't a giant step up, but am I following the right path?
Alright...thanks for the comment Nicasus....I'll try to come up with another tag and post it up when I finish...
Yeah so I'm 2-3 atm, I'mma really step my game up to impress Esuna Inverse and Nicasus, maybe in the next few days I can change your mind about my color and depth. Thanks Verbal.
well, you don't always need to have borders on your sigs. often, a border can harm the flow in a sig. as for colors and effects, this sig has a pretty limited palette. that's fine if you wanted it that way, but it limits what i call the "visual interest" in the sig. "visual interest" is anythings that keeps the viewer's attention and focus on the sig. it's usually what's lacking when people say a sig "needz moar effex lol". creating visual interest is done in any number of fashions. you can add many colors, a detailed BG, a great stock...the list goes on and on. a sig doesn't have to have ALL of those things: for example, you can have a great, detailed black and white sig. it's lacking colors, but the detail and composition provide enough visual interest to hold the viewer's attention. likewise, you can have a pale, simple sig that's very empty - but if the colors and composition and text are good, the sig has enough visual interest. how does that apply to your killzone sig? well, you've got an explosion-ish background, but nothing else in the BG - no factory silhouette, no faint flags, nothing to place the explosion within a context. now, the effects on the render are decent, but here's where the limited color palette comes in: the render has the same colors as the BG. from a color perspective, there really isn't much to distinguish the render from the BG (even tho you made the BG from a smudged copy of the render ) so, when you have a BG and render like that, try to add more colors, or add some detail and context to the BG. the text is good, but i think it would look better with a different blending style: perhaps color the text with a gradient instead of solid colors, and try to make the smoky BG cover part of it.
Pepsi thanks for the tips. I realise now the explosion was all alone with nothing to back it up. The color of the eyes and the explosion were completely Identical which was also a bad idea. The Factory idea was an awesome example, so I went about and got some landscape stocks, and tried it out. I added a bit of wireframe for a more advanced effect, with some jet plane stocks to make it look a bit more real. The text gradient with a bit extra blending didn't sound right until I tried it, and I loved it. I'll make a new sig tonight following your strategies, and see if I can make some of you say "Wow," Here's my Version 2 outcome with your strategies: Am I in the right direction?
you're well on your way. i'd say take out the wireframe, and erase most of the brushing/effects on the render. mebbe make what's left of them a paler indigo color like in the bottom left.
