As some of the images are a bit big I put them all in Spoiler tags. When I first started making avatars/signatures, I sucked. I sucked BAD. I have lost a lot of the first images I made and all of the old signatures as I had them online and didn't transfer the images to my new computer, and out of shame deleted the online ones, not realizing I had deleted them forever, what I have below is what I have. It is in no particular order in terms of chronology, but you can generally tell how basic or defined they are. For example the first image blows, made that one a few years ago. I'm not going to say that I am currently great at editing pictures with Ghetto Image Mirror Photoshop (GIMP), but I do believe I certainly have gotten better. I remember a few years ago, I had reached out to people on here for help with image editing, but as my 'Gimp Mentor' Fragman (Now Banned), told me, after the starting push, much of what you are to learn in Gimp is that which you explore yourself, gradient maps, layer effects, blur/smudge tools etc, (Rendering is a *****), everything. In Gimp, I found if you don't know how to use something, just use it and see what happens, and go from there. Well, anyways, do you think I improved all that much? Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler School Days Spoiler/Gore Image Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Recent: Spoiler Spoiler
No. A major thing to point out is that when I started out, I did not alter the image all that much from what it was, now I use images together with a lot of different effects used on them. The main art of this image editing is the editing of the image to enhance or make use of it, I did not draw any of it just as many others who make avatars/signatures do not draw what they use in their pictures. But for example, for the letters and background design for the last image, the picture wasn't anything like that, by putting just the right layering of some images I found with some effects + a lot of careful erasing, I was able to come up with that design you see in the background, the letters I created from basic text. I rendered the characters (made their background transparent otherwise they would not fit in with the image. Anyone have constructive feedback? Btw, the poll was a bit of a joke.
...and will be voted in as such. I'm not a fan of anime, but you've done some pretty good image editing on some of these so I assume if I liked anime these would be good.
Not always the case, but it's getting harder and hard to find people like that sadly. Anyway I would suggest doing SOTW (see that you already have) for practice and just keep trying to make new effect and everything work. Personally I don't like any of the designs or idea that you've already had and wish to see something more of actually signature size or at least have more work done into then then some C4D smoke effects in the background or a render being somewhere else in another image. If you just want anime tutorials there a nice hand full on deviantart which pertain just to that.
I'm not into anime at all, and seeing how you didn't draw this, it is not interesting to me at all. But since we're talking about your GIMP skills, I'll go ahead and say that they're OK... the backgrounds in most are simply C4D's/fractals from the internet or from brushes with little else to add flow or make it interesting, and depth also seems to be a missing piece. Keep working, you'll get better if you practice more and also change your usual work. I'd suggest trying something other than anime.
Well, tbh I didn't use any C4Ds in any of the pictures, though I will admit that there is a limit to one's expression using other peoples' artwork as the basis. At the end of the day, I find it fun and interesting and I have gotten a lot better and can do much of anything I want to do with image editing save such techniques I have yet to find or have time for as a college student now at a top us engineering college (gt). I think I'm going to go more into AMVs and video editing though using my image editing as an amplifier. I realize I am still a noob, but a noob with passion and self-fulfillment is not a bad thing in my eyes. Thanks for your responses.