General Sig/Tag Outlines
Quote:
Introduction;
As I sit here in my room, listening to mix tapes stacked to the ceiling, I come to realize every tag needs certain aspects to be considered acceptable by your peers. I think to myself, what qualities are important? Which tools and techniques do I use every time? What do I keep in my mind prior to, during the creation of, and post-completion of a tag? Running through my mind was a single thought; if I were to collect all, or at least most, the ideas used in creation of a tag, I could surely excel. So I did. I burned into the very depths of my mind the process of tagging. I could make a tag with my eyes closed (Sure, it's just a figure of speech, it doesn't really fit with a vision based hobby), so long as I followed my guide. But what good will it do to keep this guide and build upon it if I weren't to share it with anyone? So, read on. I present you with my little black book, you could say. Only read this if you are serious about following it, if you are one of the stubborn few who are going to "learn, but not follow" or "pick out certain pieces" you can hit the back button before you waste your precious breath, because this is a step-by-step process of the creation of a tag. Though I will not be teaching you actual techniques (don't be surprised if I throw in a hot key or brief explanation, though) you will learn more from this tutorial than any of my previous tutorials, should you have read them. That said, lets begin the show.
Where to begin?
Simple, you don't. Close photoshop, turn off your computer, and walk away. If you even have to ask yourself "how do I start?" you are not ready to make a tag. Why? Because a true tagger feels when he or she is ready, and thus does not need to force upon oneself the creation of a signature. Now, lets say you truly don't know where to begin, it's easy. Look around your room, find a color, find a movie, find a song, find your report card for all I care. Pick up your item/stare at it. What stands out about said item? Maybe you picked up Eminem's Curtain Call CD, and are gazing in to the lime green text, deep read roses, or the cobalt fabric that hangs in the background. Maybe you picked up your Finding Nemo DVD and read a few words of the text on the back; "carried far from home" stands out to you. Maybe you are staring at your wall, which once was in its glory as white, but is now faded to a soft cream color from years of not being touched up or cleaned. You dirty boy/girl, but this could pay off now. Take what you see, and implant it in to your brain. Isolate it, and let it absorb. Now work. Take those cobalt curtains and put them on a canvas, take that phrase and type it in mustard yellow font, take your lack of environmental hygiene and find that cream color in the color picker and make it your background. That, my friend, is how you start. Anything and everything, literally, is inspiration. Just use it to your advantage.
Where to go from there?
Here's the trouble. You're thinking "Sure, my filthy wall color is now on my canvas, but what in the world do I do next?" You decide. Lets think about what your aim for the signature is. Grunge? Abstract? Maybe vector. Did you ever think of making a tag without a stock or sprite? Possibly you could try incorporating more than one stock! It doesn't really matter, just plan slightly ahead. Let's say you find a stock prior to approaching this step. Whip that thing out like your on a hot date, and paste it on your creamy-tan document. Do your little cut-out jig, or blend it in, whichever. Now shrink that kid down to the size of a quarter. For those of you unAmericans, a little larger than your thumb, depending on if you are gargantuan or not. Why, you ask, does it have to be this small? Because I said so. But also because it will give you plenty of room to have a sufficient background, but still keep focus on your stock, which you are working around.
Ok, I've got the stock, and a plain background, but I want more! What next?
Be patient, true art takes work. Now, lets collect a few basic tips to help you with the process of tagging. First and foremost, simplicity is the key to a complex design. Sure, sounds ironic almost. It's true, though. Too much in a tag clutters it, not enough makes it empty. Which is better to lean towards? Empty, of course. If you have less in your tag, the less you can mess up with your utter lack of skill and direction. Now how do you achieve simplicity when your eager little mind is filled with thousands of ideas for a tag? Woah there, skipper, just because your a photoshop encyclopedia and know hundreds of techniques doesn't mean you use them all in one tag. Like stated earlier, depending on your aim for the tag you will need to choose certain techniques. Maybe you brush or smudge for a grunge, but use 3D abstract models and gradients for abstract. Who cares, maybe you, but not me, so do whatever you want. I'm not your mommy. When you choose which you want, just know that too much of a good thing turns in to a bad thing. Don't pack 80 layers of C4D on your tag, and call it a masterpiece, cause all it will be is a master-P.O.S. Know when to say enough is enough, little Jimmy. Ok, I've corrupted you with that tip enough, what's next? Color! Ha, our favorite, huh? There is no such thing as too much color, but there is a such thing as too many colors! The problem is that photoshop recognizes color as saturation, and thus in PS language, there CAN be a such thing as too much color. Don't be afraid to be vibrant, instead of the boring black and white I've been seeing so much of recently. Build upon your tag like you have an infinite supply of paint, and you haven't seen color your whole life. Go wild. STOP! Before you go throwing water-based at your computer screen, you must know, how many colors is a good idea? Never more than 5. Ever. Even then you are pushing the limits. You wouldn't want a tag with dull purple, red-orange, deep yellow, hot pink, and neon green in it, would you? If you say yes, hit the back button, please. Keep it reasonable. My tags usually consist of TWO colors, on a gradient map. Red, and green. Two opposite ends of the color wheel, provides nice coloring, and nice contrast of colors, without overusing it. But go wild, you'll figure it out on your own someday.
Thanks for the tips, teach! Now I have a few ideas in mind, what should I do?
By now you should have a very basic tag. Background, few effects, basic foreground elements, and your focus. Hopefully you unified coloring and lighting levels, but we'll hit that later if not. Type is next, my child. There is only a few rules for text. 1). No font is a bad font. 2). Too big is too bad. 3). Be unique. What I mean is that any font can work, so keep all your fonts, some day you may need that old western saloon style font. Big font works sometimes, but not usually, so keep it reasonable. Be unique, self explanatory. We get sick of BD Bardust and SimSun, so get your own ideas you lazy slackers.
Wow, you're so amazing, Rick! Teach me more!
No. Wrap it up. How, you ask? Adjustment layers are your friends. In every tag I have made for the past year, I have added at least one of the following: Curves layer, Levels layer, Gradient map, Brightness/Contrast layer, Hue/Saturation layer. The occasional Photo filter and Color Balance layers are needed, but they can be done without. Ok, so you always want a nice contrast of dark and light, usually more dark than light. This is your curves and levels effect, they balance lighting out. Gradient maps and hue/saturation layers are for keeping color tied up, experiment with them. I can't describe how to use them, because as you progress in the world of tag making, you will learn your tools more and more, and you will learn how, where, and when to use these adjustments.
I'm not done though! My tag still looks bad!
I know, you haven't finalized your product. Two words: Depth. We do this very simply. Make two new layers, apply the image on each layer, and hide the top one in your layer pallet. On the bottom one, we will Gaussian blur it at 1 pixel. Now, ctrl+click your foreground layers to select the area they cover, and simply delete that area of the blur layer. Lets say you are stupid and didn't use a cut-out cause you are too lazy to learn the pen tool, you're stuck with the 100px soft round brush to erase the areas in your foreground. Now you can lower the opacity on the layer as you see fit to balance out too much blur with not enough blur to make it focus out real nicely. Now make the other applied image visible again, and this time sharpen it. Now this one should always be done by hand. Go through with the 65px soft round brush and erase areas in the background that don't need to be sharpened, and areas in the foreground that were over sharpened. Now we have created the illusion of depth based on focus, but we aren't done. Make a hue saturation layer, and lower the saturation slightly. Now on the layer mask, brush black over the foreground. We have just greyed the background, creating the illusion of depth based on color. Done? Close. Brush white in the foreground, black in the background on a new layer, set the opacity to about 15% and set the layer to soft light. Another focal point achiever. Cool.
Yay, my tag looks half way presentable! What now?
Nothing. Experience is the only thing left on the agenda, and it can't be achieved so quickly. Try and try, learn and learn, know and know. Eventually, you WILL be great. Don't give up, and don't overexert yourself. You know how to make a tag, you know some tricks, you know the process. The above is what I do in EVERY single tag, no exceptions. I just vary my style from piece to piece. Do the same, and you will be up in the ranks. This tutorial will not improve your skill, or even help you make better tags, but it will simplify some of the more complicated parts of tagging, and allow you to produce tags much faster and more efficiently. Experience is the only thing that will allow you to make better tags, so get out there and try harder, you hobo.
As I sit here in my room, play list winding down to the last song, I realize I just wasted part of my life typing up this useless crap.
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"© Rick Rogozan, 'Metal' 2007"
Original Link
Metal's/Rick's Work
Yes, I did get permission from Rick/Metal to repost this here. If need be, anyone that doubts can contact him and ask him yourself. n_n
I thought it'd be very (hm, what's a good word) helpful to new (as well as advanced) sigmakers as it was to me.
Just a quick F.Y.I., if you don't know what a Tag is, it's another word for sig. ;P
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01-15-2007, 08:16 PM
