Rikr's stuff :)

Holy cow, how'd I miss this thread? That background kicks ASS!!!! Please feel free to post yer stuff. I definitely would love to see it all =)

what font(s) did you use on your girlfriend's sig? :thumbsup

Font is called Bernhard Tango Swash for name and guild.
Bernhard Modern Bold for server.

:)

I feel like I'm slowing down, getting stuck in one style of sig. Where do you find inspiration to try something new? Just trial and error, or do you have any special tricks?

I look at other sigs from other artists. Its more or less trying something new. Sometimes it just comes together on its own, really. Experimenting is the best way for me.

Yeah, looking at stuff other artists do definitely helps from getting stuck in a style rut. Sometimes you might see something someone else does that you may want to interpret in your own way and incorporate into your own style, or maybe their style might just inspire you to experiment with something new. I know after I saw some of Mae's work I started working on brightening my colors and adding more shine to metal, etc. Our styles are still markedly different, but her ideas have helped me in working on my own.

Do you look at or participate in any art communities? That could give you a boost.

I used to Ryala, but not anymore. Any suggestions? I robbed a lot of what I do from Mae. (only cuz she's a great artist :o )

We both go to www.norrathsstudio.org. That's a great place to start, get ideas and they have a library. =)

yeah. i got to see mae go from "blech" to "wow" when she joined up there :p

Whoo yeah, I sucked! I mean, for real. It was painful. :teehee

well certainly not as bad as some of those newbies were.

i mean, Slaine isnt much of an artist, but when he looks over and says "what the hell is that supposed to be?" you KNOW its bad lol. but no mean feelings toward it. when i started out i know my shit sucked worse =p there were MUCH fewer artists to learn from back then.

Mae / Nyx,

One thing I have a hard time trying to do, is how do you get your colors so vivid on the toon? are you adding airbrush, or just dodge/burn ? I've started using auto levels to fix darker screenshots, but it doesn't look like enough.

I edited my eq sig. Brightened up the kitty and played with the different R G B Levels individually. The pointing sword and the left shoulder, actually kinda look like metal. :) I kinda like this change. the old one was kinda muddy still even after doing an auto level on it.

Think this one is too bright?

I think that looks good. Maybe tone down the sword, that's a huge bright spot. I think it looks great though =)

/agree. Will work on that :) Thx for input :)

increasing saturation by a notch ( on SOME colours ) works for making it more vivid. reds and oranges/yellows - this works excellent, but something like blue.. the higher saturation blue is almost completely different colour than what you may be wanting. so its a bad move. same w/ purple.

but dodge burn.. sometimes i like to use "midtones" instead of "highlights" on the dodge/burn tool. try it out. i used that to enhance the cheekbone definition on my sig ;) also works well for defining the nose line ( VERY SOFTLY THOUGH!!! ) highlight tends to make skin "Grey" when you want them a richer fleshtone - midtones does that. ( i mean when you burn - not dodge ;p )

[edit] brightness/contract is one of the very first things i do to a potential-sig. sometimes i don't even bother w/ levels.

/nods and looks for cookies

Re-did Turco, and added a couple since last time I posted in this thread. :)

LOVE Turco...a very clever way to represent the mage powers. And thanks for posting some of your other ones. They're really good :)

Thank you much. :) Didnt know what else to do. couldnt arrange elementals any way that looked correct.