First Signature

[HrC]

After looking at some tutorials, I decided to make my own signature. Please rate and maybe CnC. Thanks

[Distello]

I think its remarkably brilliant for your first attempt and you should be proud that you managed to produce a signature of this standard straight away =)
I absolutely love the colours and the vibrance is just fantastic, but heres some points I would improve on:

Try not to oversharpen the focal/render, at the moment the colours and shadows on the render are perfect but the sharpness is killing it for me, although the focal is usually the most sharpened part sometimes too much can be too much.

Have a go at creating some depth in the background on your next tag, remember that depth usually needs to be made from the ground up so keep focussing on that while your creating the tag.
Include some colour difference between the background and the render, somtimes things can look a little too blended and it ruins the signature entirely, this one isn't so bad for this because the red on the render is deeper and the black shadows stand out.

Experiment with text, placing is usually the most important thing and I can see in this image you're already getting on top of things with that, I can see you have really thought about the font and the placing and even the blending! So well done you =) I tend to leave out text but if you want to include it try to vary the fonts a bit, usually 1-3 words will suffice and you can really bring out certain words purely down to the typeface, try to avoid things like setting it on softlight/overlay and/or using a black stroke, it makes it stand out but hurts the sig while its at it. If I ever include text I usually like to have a mix of a sans-serif typeface and a script all bunched close together and in an area where your eyes can still see when looking at the focal.

Finishing, in my opinion, is one of the most important things in making a signature. The general rule of thumb is that you build up a sigs composition before focussing on any colouring changes etc... Things such as a bit of lightness, high pass, simple gradients set at a low opacity or set to use an effect, can finish a sig off perfectly.
Borders are also as much of a pain to get right as text so its best to leave them out, if you do use one try and make it really really thick so you can still look at the sig without being distracted by the border.

Finally, some last notes to focus on while your finishing a tag - lighting, look at where the lightsource may be, ie where light is reflecting on to the render, this can be quite the killer when producing a proper tag.

Good luck!

[Intrepidmisfortune]

I think its remarkably brilliant for your first attempt and you should be proud that you managed to produce a signature of this standard straight away =)
I absolutely love the colours and the vibrance is just fantastic, but heres some points I would improve on:

Try not to oversharpen the focal/render, at the moment the colours and shadows on the render are perfect but the sharpness is killing it for me, although the focal is usually the most sharpened part sometimes too much can be too much.

Have a go at creating some depth in the background on your next tag, remember that depth usually needs to be made from the ground up so keep focussing on that while your creating the tag.
Include some colour difference between the background and the render, somtimes things can look a little too blended and it ruins the signature entirely, this one isn't so bad for this because the red on the render is deeper and the black shadows stand out.

Experiment with text, placing is usually the most important thing and I can see in this image you're already getting on top of things with that, I can see you have really thought about the font and the placing and even the blending! So well done you =) I tend to leave out text but if you want to include it try to vary the fonts a bit, usually 1-3 words will suffice and you can really bring out certain words purely down to the typeface, try to avoid things like setting it on softlight/overlay and/or using a black stroke, it makes it stand out but hurts the sig while its at it. If I ever include text I usually like to have a mix of a sans-serif typeface and a script all bunched close together and in an area where your eyes can still see when looking at the focal.

Finishing, in my opinion, is one of the most important things in making a signature. The general rule of thumb is that you build up a sigs composition before focussing on any colouring changes etc... Things such as a bit of lightness, high pass, simple gradients set at a low opacity or set to use an effect, can finish a sig off perfectly.
Borders are also as much of a pain to get right as text so its best to leave them out, if you do use one try and make it really really thick so you can still look at the sig without being distracted by the border.

Finally, some last notes to focus on while your finishing a tag - lighting, look at where the lightsource may be, ie where light is reflecting on to the render, this can be quite the killer when producing a proper tag.

Good luck!

I agree with most of this, Dist has an eye for things

But I don't want to add about colours. For some reason that has evaded me for centuries, monotone tags are never that good for depth. Also, monotone is a tad plain. It's always best to have at least two complimentary colours. Depending on the tag the colourscheme will vary. The use of c4d's is a good way to add a second colour, as well as just brushing some spots and smudging it in to match the tag.