We will be using this Gorillaz stock image to create our signature. As you can see, it has a lot of different shading, colors and characters on it. This is good!

I started with a canvas size 320 x 110, open a empty canvas and fill it with a dark color, I used #212121

Now we’re going to fill our canvas with a pattern. We used this one, you can use one of your own if you like. What’s important is that it has an attractive color. We will be inverting the color of this pattern later on, so if you use a black or white pattern the outcome might not look as appealing. Also, the colors sort of match our stock.

Pattern used (you can copy this if you like, Paste in new file > Edit > Define as Pattern)

Filling our canvas:

Take a splatter brush (we will be having lots available soon in our resources section) and erase around it untill it pleases you. Try to create some sort of flow from left to right.

Take your soft brush around size 15 and choose the patterns colour with eyedropper tool and brush around the edges, set it to lighten and take a normal brush and smudge the circles you made with the soft brush.

Invert your previous pattern and you will get something similar to this one. We changed the color slightly, if you like you can copy ours (Paste in new file > Edit > Define as Pattern). Fill your canvas with the pattern, and grab your splatter brush eraser again. erase most of the pattern, but leave some on top.

Our result after erasing most of the pattern:

Now take your stock, and slice out a good looking section of the canvas. We will be using the blue guy at right with the hat as focal. Put the stock in your signature and erase and erase everything around him, and set this layers blending mode to lighten.

Stock used:

Now create a new layer below the stock layer, take a soft round brush around size 10 and brush behind the stock with a darkish color. We picked #212121.

Result of the brushing with the stock hidden:

with stock shown:

Take your soft brush again, choose a slightly brighter pink and make a new layer above the stock layer and brush around just a little bit and smudge/erase it untill you get what you want. Create some lighting around the main character. Our result:

This is the tricky and hard part of the sig. We’re going to use the pentool to create a divider between several parts of the stock . Select your pentool, set it to paths, and try creating paths like shown in the image below (or any other sort of divider):

Now select Paths on your layer palette, right click and select fill. Choose a white or light color:

Slightly burn the edges of the white area, or smudge if it’s too sharp. Our result:

We’re going to add the next part of the stock. Paste your stock onto your canvas, resize, and erase everything around it. Place it somewhere near the divider we just created:

This is the stock we’ve used. As you can see, we havent erased everything around the layer, because we’re going to change the blending mode to lighten. This way you won’t really see the dark edges because they will blend into the background:

Now rotate the stock to following the flow of the divider we’ve made, and set the layers blending mode to lighten:.

Paste the original stock back in again, and place it to fit the upper left hole. Make sure the layer is placed under the white divider we’ve made:

We’re going to remove the area that is outside of our divider. You can either use a layer mask for this (more detail about layer masks can be found in this Depth layer mask tutorial) or simply use your eraser tool.

We will again insert our stock into our sig and move it around untill we get the look we want. The guy has some interesting text on his T-shirt, so we’re going to move it around to fit into the other hole we have left.

Once again take your pentool (you can also use the lasso tool if you feel more comfortable) and select the other lines of the space. Erase the area outside of our divider again:

Create a new layer and place it on top of the stock we just placed. Set this layers blending mode to lighten. We’re going to brush with a bright pinkish color over the Hand With The Rising Thumb area. You can use a different color, we used pink selected with the eyedropper tool:

Blending mod eset to lighten:

We’re almost done with our signature. There’s some final touches you can do. For example, the section next to the head of our main character looks a little empty. You can use a Cinema4d Render set to Lighten or Screen, or you can softly brush in this area with a good looking color. Try smudging the brushing around. Our final result:

Thanks for viewing this tutorial! Thanks again to scalper for providing the tag and being an awesome dude!

1. Create a new file, we used size 400 pixels by 200 pixels. Find a good wallpaper to work with:

2. Paste your wallpaper in the canvas and place it on your canvas:

3. We’re going to use the pentool to create some nice lines on our canvas. Grab the pentool, and select these settings on the toolbar:

With these settings we will use paths to create our lines. The advantages of using paths over shape layers is that we can reuse it at a later time if we need it some more.

4. We need to set some brush details. Select your brush or press B, then click on the brushes panel (Toggle Brushes Panel) in the right top corner.

In the brush settings, select a 5, 6 or 7 pixel sized hard brush. Set the angle to 8 to 10 degrees, and set its roundness to 1%.

5. Use the eyedropper tool to select a color on your canvas. Select the Paths window on your layer palette, and right click on the path, and select stroke path:

In the dropdown menu, select your brush.If you’ve picked a good color in step 5, you should have a nice result:

6. In the paths window, create a new path by clicking on the New File icon in the right corner. Repeat the same step on the other side of your focal. Our result:

7. We’re going to smudge the sections around our focal point. Make a new layer (Layer > New Layer, or SHIFT + CTRL + N), and go to Image > Appy Image. Grab your smudge tool, and start smudging. You can pick the smudge settings you like best:

8. We’re going to create another line with the pen tool with a lighter color. Right click > Stroke path, select your brush, and press ok:

9. Repeat the same step on the other side, make sure you add some variation but you keep following the flow of the lines:

9. We’re going to add a bubbly cinema4d render. You can find plenty of cinema4d renders in our Resources section. Erase the section around your render. Set its blending mode to Lighten, and keep the opacity high. This layer was kept on 100%. To illustrate what our layer looked like, heres the layer on a transparant background:

the result of this effect:

10. Add another render, and keep duplicating the layer. Move it around everytime and erase parts you dont like. Remember to set the layers blending mode to Lighten. These are the layers set on a black background so you can see its effect:

after duplicating and moving:

Blending mode changed to Lighting and 100% opacity:

11. We’re going to add an effect cinema4d into our canvas. This is our layer shown on a black background. Erase this layer around the focal point:

Set this layer to Lighten (this image is shown in a rather low quality because its saved as a .GIF file):

12. Make a new layer, and apply the image (Image > Apply Image). Grab your burn tool, and burn near the side to add some depth:

burning the sides of the canvas:

13. We’re adding a little lighting to the top of the signature to increase depth. Use your brush tool, and make a white spot where you want to add some depth.You can set this layer to Lighten or keep it. This is the layer with a black background to show you what it looks like:

on the background:

14. Make a new layer, and apply the image (Image > Apply Image). Select Filter > Other > High Pass, and keep the default settings:

default settings:

result of the high pass filter:

15. Set this layer to Soft Light, keep the opacity on 100%:

16. If you feel like canvas needs some work on lighting, create a new adjustment layer. Layer > New Adsjustment Layer > Gradient Map. Set this to Luminosity, and reduce the opacity. Our opacity was set to 30%!

Gradient Map:

Gradient map result:

17. The following step is optional. We’re going to use the Topaz filter. You can find more information about Topaz in this article. First, select Topaz Denoise/EQ, then select Filter > Topaz Vivacity > Topaz Sharpen. You can play around with the filter until you’re satisfied.

18. Apply the image on a new layer, and grab the burn tool once again. Burn the edges and sections that you’re not satisfied with.

our result:

19. We’re basicly done at this step, all you have to do is add a border. This signature has a wide black pixel border on the side:

20. Add text, sharpen or burn whatever you like, and you’re done!

Please show us your result in the comments below! If you like we will feature your signature result in this post. (if you need a host, check out uploadstop.)