Hey guys, remember I used to have some pretty crazy ideas with making sigs? Well now I learned a bit and made this sig real quick. It's the first that I can actually call a sig and not just symbols and player images, but real effects and all that good stuff. Comparing it to you guys' sigs this is still crap but here it is anyway. STOCK: Bungie.net : Halo Reach : File Details Thanks for any advice you guys have. EDIT: I corrected the image per Orlando's advice, should be better now.
I would remove the effects from over the spartan to give the focal some more power. Also, the spartan seems sort of small to be a good focal. The colors are monotone (not black and white) though based on the name of this thread that was by design. Flow is not great overall, many different directions in the background, though the primary direction is more or less towards the focal. There is too much dead space, most of the signature is merely the background, too little of the focal. Anyway, its an improvement over your old stuff.
What he said. ^ Another thing to note that real-world photographers and designers alike use is the Rule of Thirds. Which basically states that good focals are set intersecting one of (or both) thirds of an image, rather than being placed directly in the center. Now depending on your style or message you're trying to send with the image you can most certainly bend this rule, being that it is not set in stone. However it seems that more often than not amateur photographers (Theatre can be considered a form of photography) just don't know about this guideline, leaving their focals centered on the screen awkwardly. Give that some thought and you'll be certain to improve. More information upon the rule of thirds
I agree with you on the spartan being kinda small, but i wanted the focal to be the spartan contrasting with the Halo behind. Should I just reduce the focal to be the spartan only, or should I also include the Halo in the background? I'm not sure which would make a better focal. Also, should I reduce or altogether scrap the effects I added to the image?
Just to show you somewhat what I meant, here is a cropped and resized version, it looks like crap because I just took urs and changed the size, but this is the idea: Less dead space, spartan slightly off centre, the lines of the ring pointing towards him without many other different lines. For you, you would want to take the original stock layer which should be the bottom layer and pull in the original stock to get the right size. EDIT:Man, I just checked your stock, and it sucks... Don't use stocks that are that sort of black and white, it doesnt look great.
Ok, I'll fix this one up, make it better, and then I'll make another one, probably from my fileshare, though I'm not sure cuz they're all taken with effects and stuff. I'll make some regular photos that I can make into sigs though. EDIT: Which photo, however effect-laden, is best for making another signature? http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileShare.aspx?player=Xtermin8R645
You should really just work with a stock that is simple, with little or no effects. Most of the screenshots you have are flat out useless in my opinion, the only one I might even consider using is reactive because it at least has a solid character, obscured though it is by effects. That said, I think it is still worse than what you want. Just go take some screenshots, jump around in an empty map and take screenshots of it. If you want you can use my screenshots that I took a while back, for the most part they dont contain any effects Bungie.net : Halo Reach : Recent Screenshots