I actually worked hard on a signature.

Mushroom Queen · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 6:10 pm

This was like..a full-blown mini photomanipulation. I worked on it over two days, two or so hours each day. I think it came out really well. I haven't made a really good signature in a long time so yeah. What do you think? The only thing that kind of bothers me is that the tree shadows don't look all that spectacular.

My favourite part of this sig is the rose petals. I got the idea to do them when I accidentally had one of my brushes on Scatter.

Adbot · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 6:10 pm

Harkaan · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 6:58 pm

Thats a really cool signatures, did you use a gradient map?

But really, its really cool and I also like the rose petals, it was a good idea, keep making sigs

Mushroom Queen · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 7:03 pm

XD NO. I didn't use a gradient map.

:cry:

Am I ever going to live that down?

Steven · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 7:11 pm

The render's hair looks... weird. It just looks funny

Great signature though, MQ! I was looking at your dA Gallery earlier and pretty much drooled all over my keyboard. =P~

Good job, only thing I would change (or try to) is the render's hair.

Rad · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 7:21 pm

Wow! Congratz on making that! I really like it

5/5

Sev · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 7:58 pm

All of it looks great except for the head. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but the head ruins it for me. It think it largely the hair and the gact the face looks a bit... plain I geuss is the word.

Other than that the background is marvelous, nice job Queeny!

Adbot · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 7:58 pm

Mushroom Queen · **Posted:** July 30th, 2009, 8:52 pm

I'm quite inept at painting hair, I know. XD I'll try to do something to fix it. I might even take it off altogether and leave the original hair. I don't know yet.

Thanks, guys!

Slimppu · **Posted:** July 31st, 2009, 7:02 am

To me, the render ruins it. It looks really out of place for one and then her head? Well the hair is really pixelated so that bothers me, but also her face looks just... dead. Also I don't think the pop-out effect works in this case.

That may sound a bit harsh, but what I'm saying, it'd be a whole lot better without the render or stock or whatever it is, because the background is lovely and putting a person in the middle awkwardly just takes your attention off it and makes you think about how flawed it looks. My suggestion would be to place her further in the distance (if she has legs that is), because plain background would be a bit too plain and a little character walking in the background doesn't take your eyes off the scene too much.

Chief Snake · **Posted:** July 31st, 2009, 5:31 pm

Slimppu wrote:

My suggestion would be to place her further in the distance (if she has legs that is), because plain background would be a bit too plain and a little character walking in the background doesn't take your eyes off the scene too much.

Wow, that's exactly what I was thinking. XD I don't really mind the render, but then again having it right in the middle there, and so thin, goes against the fundamental rules of signature design! Just something subtle in the distance I think would look very effective with this background - which incidentally is fantastic. My one gripe is that I would slant the shadows of the trees on the right a little more. Right now they're angled straight down and even to the left a bit, which looks to be the opposite of what you want. You're the expert on lighting though so I might've got that totally wrong; it just doesn't seem right to me.

Colouring looks great too. I, for one, believe that you do not need to worry about gradient maps at all.

Mushroom Queen · **Posted:** August 1st, 2009, 12:58 am

Okay, I was on the verge of trying out Slimppu's suggestion when I realised that.. XD I flattened the layers in the final sig. The old .psd isn't at all similar to the final png, sadly. I tried redoing the colouring on the PSD file to make it at least look similar, because I thought I did pretty well on it..but Colour Balance wasn't working in my favour so I scrapped the idea altogether. :\ Sorry. I really wanted to give it a try.

I tried to smooth out the hair the best I could and touch up the face. I do actually like having her in the centre of the signature. I wasn't too crazy about the background because the original picture of the ground had weird natural light/dark shadows that got conveniently covered up by placing her body over them. And, wow, Chiefy. Now that you mention the shadows, XD they're totally the wrong way. I need to not make my signatures at 2am. :\

Here's all I could fix up:

I was planning on submitting to the SOTW but I don't know now. It's not..perfect.

Anubis · **Posted:** August 2nd, 2009, 8:07 am

I think it's great. I feel bad considering you've said they're your favourite part, but I think the saturation of the rose petals need to be toned down a little in order to keep a gloomy feel to the signature. It looks awesome in contrast, but it makes the signature feel a bit too 'friendly'. Other than that, don't feel put off entering the SOTW just cause you've gotten a ton of comments, you're getting a lot of critique because it's worthwhile for people to post, not because it's imperfect.

Mushroom Queen · **Posted:** August 3rd, 2009, 2:59 am

Anubis wrote:

I think it's great. I feel bad considering you've said they're your favourite part, but I think the saturation of the rose petals need to be toned down a little in order to keep a gloomy feel to the signature. It looks awesome in contrast, but it makes the signature feel a bit too 'friendly'. Other than that, don't feel put off entering the SOTW just cause you've gotten a ton of comments, you're getting a lot of critique because it's worthwhile for people to post, not because it's imperfect.

Thank you! The rose petals are a little on the bright side. I got a little lazy when it came to adding definition into them, so I really ought to tone the colour down a bit.

Jaden · **Posted:** August 7th, 2009, 8:49 pm

I have no experience with hair so I'm unsure of its fierce difficultly, but in all honesty I have to say that the hair looks a little smudgy and needs some work or a few minor touch ups. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

Amazing signature though. Unique and original.

Iron Maiden · **Posted:** August 13th, 2009, 2:42 pm

Your best so far, without any doubt. I dont think I would be able to make something like this myself. The background is my personal favorite part.

Veggie Eater · **Posted:** August 16th, 2009, 7:24 pm

I liked the eyebrows in the original one better. The new ones give a whole new feel to her facial expression and I don't like it as much, but you might have been going for that. The hair still looks weird but I mean it's better than I could do. It just is kind of frustrating I suppose because it really does take your attention away from the rest of the signature because it looks wrong. Also, her waist looks out of proportion. As in if she really was that skinny, her arms would be a lot smaller too.