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Hihi, Kouhai here. :> I've dabbled in photoshop (and GIMP) before, but stopped some 6 months ago. I noticed the SOTW competition and was pretty interested so I spent yesterday cooking up a few things. 2/3 were failures, but it was fun. (here is the decent one). .GIF(1) + .GIF(2) *Note: Signatures in spoiler aren't 100% updated/ Latest Work CnC is always welcome, and I look forward to being part of the gfx community.

Here is some of my works that I have done. Since the site crashed...I have to re-upload my stuff back on here, plus I have new ones. Love to have your opinion... SIGs Also...I am always making new ones...so keep an eye out for them as well.

WINNER'S CIRCLE Click on the winner's name to see their entry. COMPETITIONS #1-100 WINNERS

Hi ladies and gents, how's it going? Okay, so I'm back with a stupid idea because my inspiration is low. So? What's your idea? The A-Z challenge! Basically the goal is to make 26 works, one for each letter, going in order from A-Z. The first work will have to consist a character's name starting with "A" (atsuko, asuka, amy, ariel), or a series starting with "A" (A channel, Ai Yori Aoshi, Agents of SHIELD, Alliens), whatever. Seems like a lot of work. Why would I do that? Why? Well, because... um... Maybe you're like me, and you can't motivate yourself without a bit of direction. Or maybe you have run out of ideas lately. Perhaps you just want to try something different, or want to do it for fun. I guess if I have some free time I can give it a shot. How do I sign up? There is nowhere to sign up, it's something you do in your own time for your own leisure! I personally am going to start uploading it to my showcase and just caption each one "A-Z challenge- A", or something. If there is other people who are interested, maybe we can do an A-Z showcase thread where everyone puts their work. Like an art gallery? haha. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thanks for reading, if you do decide to try it out (even if you don't finish it), leave a post to let me know. I'd love to see all of your works. :3

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #175 Theme: Musicians RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, December 19th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #173 Theme: Pokemon RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, December 5th.Your entry must be related to the chosen theme.Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline.Signatures must be your own work.Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed.Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition.In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used.Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

BANNER OF THE MONTH: NOVEMBER RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Nomvember 23rd. Voting will take place between November 24th and November 31st. The theme this month: CHRISMTAS Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Banners must be your own work. Entries are to be GIF or PNG format, and should be 1600 (or more) x160 pixels Text must say KAMETSU not KAMETSU FORUMS! Animated banners are allowed. Pre-made banners are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.

Most graphic work can now be viewed at my Flickr gallery! As always, constructive criticism is welcomed. If you wish to make a request, please send a PM; I do not have a request thread. Animated signatures:

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #171 Theme: Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, November 21th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #169 Theme: 2013 - 2014 Games RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, November 7th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

BANNER OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER RULES: All entries are to be submitted by October 23rd. Voting will take place between October 24th and October 31st. The theme this month: HALLOWEEN Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Banners must be your own work. Entries are to be GIF or PNG format, and should be 1600 (or more) x160 pixels Text must say KAMETSU not KAMETSU FORUMS! Animated banners are allowed. Pre-made banners are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. HALLOWEEN

BANNER OF THE MONTH: September RULES: All entries are to be submitted by September 23rd. Voting will take place between September 24th and September 30th. The theme this month: Childhood Cancer Awareness Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Banners must be your own work. Entries are to be GIF or PNG format, and should be 1600 (or more) x160 pixels Text must say KAMETSU not KAMETSU FORUMS! Animated banners are allowed. Pre-made banners are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Koby is a huge advocate of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. So in honor of that which is this month ALL banners entered must consist of children and the yellow ribbon which symbolizes Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #165 Theme: Manglobe INC [Animation Studio] RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, October 3rd. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #163 Theme: Legend of Korra RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, September 19th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

*After Note: Damn, writing tutorials are hard. haha. A lot of this is messily written. If you have any questions or parts that I need to clear up let me know in a post and I'll answer to the best of my ability. *Another Note: All resources can be found in the tutorial when you reach the point of needing them. Hi guys and girls, I finally made a clean signature (LOL), so I thought I could make a tutorial out of it. It's fairly simple, and some parts aren't the best. But here I go!~ OUTCOME To start it off: Canvas Size. I did mine 500x220, because that's what I'm comfortable with. You can use whatever size, it shouldn't matter too much. Go with what you're comfortable with. Blank Canvas Step 2, Getting your background / stock. For this tutorial you want a stock which has an obvious fore-ground to it. I chose a scene from 'Garden of Words' (Kotonoha no Niwa). This is the stock I used (already re-sized though). You want to resize it, rotate it (if you think it would look better), and place it. This stock is pretty easy in this case since the foreground needs to be vertical, you can't rotate it too much. Just resize + place. This is what mine looked like. *Note: This will be your bottom/base layer. Stock + Placement Now that you've put your stock down, you're pretty much done with the background. Easy, right? The next thing you have to do is render the fore-ground part of your stock, in this case it's the pole + leaves. I'm not the best at rendering (I'm pretty terrible), but it shouldn't matter too much. It's not the focal point of your signature. This is what my render looked like. *Note: I didn't render the right side of the pole because I knew I wouldn't place my render there anyway. It would be better to render it completely, but I'm lazy, and as I said, not the best at rendering. Pole Render So you've got the background / foreground separated now. Time to do the in-between. That's the character render. Pick out your render. I had a garden/park scene, so I picked a render I thought would fit it. Resize it, rotate it (if you like), and then place it where you want. This is the render I chose + where I placed it. This layer is in between the BG and the FG. Character Render + Placement: <Warning, Pantsu Shot> It's starting to come together already! The colours seem a bit mismatched though, so to match them a bit more I placed a copy of my render over the entirety of the background/foreground. I did this twice, Gaussian blurred one on Overlay (56% Opacity) and motion blurred the other on Normal (5% Opacity). Once I had these two layers, I duplicated them again. And I used two for the FG, and two for the BG. I used a clipping mask so it would only effect the background and foreground, and not the render itself. To do that, alt+click in between the adjusting layer, and the layer you want to apply the changes to in the layers section. (So starting from the top, the order of youre layers are: Adj1+Ad2+Foreground -> Character Render -> Adj1+Adj2+Background) BG/FG Colour Adjust I want to add in more lighting now, to make the signature more scenic. As you can see by the render, the light is going this way. Lighter-->Darker. So you want the light source coming in from the left side of the signature. I used a soft-rounded brush to put white in over the upper left, and gradually eased up as I reached the middle-bottom of the signature. Once I had the foundations of it set, I motion-blurred (Angle 53: Distance: 287) the light source. I then put it on overlay (77% Opacity). This layer will be on-top of all the other layers. Lighting We have a light source now, yay. It looks a too bland for my personal preferences, so I want to add a little more depth to the character herself. Duplicate the character render directly on top of herself, and Gaussian blur it. (~5) It made the white parts too bright, so you want to render it out so you only have the hair left. Set the layer on hard light (100% Opacity). It gives it a nice, soft feeling to it. Fun to look at. Hair Adj Again, the lighting needs a bit more work. Or rather, the shadows. She's underneath cover, but there is no shadow over her, so it looks a little funny. Just use a soft-rounded brush to brush in some black where you think the shadows will be, and set the layer to Normal (19% Opacity). Shadows Time to spice it up a bit. Add in a cool, flowy stock or c4d. Place it where you think will look nice on Screen (46% Opacity). This is the one I used, and where I placed it. +Flow It's looking nice, but because of the adj1 + adj2, the colours of the leaves are a bit unnatural! (oops!). Duplicate the stock BG and put it under the lighting layer, but on top of every other layer. Motion blur it (same settings), and then get an eraser on 50% Opacity, and erase where the render would be visible. Put it on overlay (100% Opacity). Adj3 Nice, the colours are looking nice. It's pretty much complete here, but I thought glowing things would make it look nice. I added in some c4d bubbles, duplicated the layer and put them on Screen (75% Opacity). I Gaussian blurred the bottom layer to give it more of a glow. Glow Time for adjustment layers! Yay! No need to explain these, they're for adjusting your layers, silly! My first adjustment layer was a Black->White Gradient Map. I put it on Overlay (24% Opacity). My second adjustment layer was a photo filter on "Yellow", 25% Density, +Preserve Luminosity. My third adjustment layer was a grey(#202020)->white Gradient Map. Softlight (33% Opacity). My fourth adjustment layer was a Black->gold(#7b7c2b)->light yellow(#feffd5) Gradient Map. Normal (28% Opacity). *Note: I'll put the settings in screenshots underneath + the changes. Final Adj Layers All that there is now, add text + Border. Border is a 1 pixel white border. Text is Code Light 18pt in white. And you're done! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial. The good thing about this is you don't need any brushes! (Banzai!) Outcome

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #161 Theme: Halo RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, September 5th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. We've been lenient about this lately, but we're bringing this rule back. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #160 Theme: MegaMan RULES:All entries are to be submitted by Friday, August 29th.Your entry must be related to the chosen theme.Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline.Signatures must be your own work.Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed.Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition.In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used.Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.Only entries should be posted until voting begins. Anything besides entries and staff announcements will be treated as spam and will be deleted. Comments, criticism, and discussions should be saved for voting. We've been lenient about this lately, but we're bringing this rule back. Complaints about the theme will not be tolerated, as this is disrespectful to the previous winner. As such, these posts will be deleted.

BANNER OF THE MONTH: August RULES: All entries are to be submitted by August 24th. Voting will take place between August 25th and August 31st. There is no theme this month: None! Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Banners must be your own work. Entries are to be GIF or PNG format, and should be 1600 (or more) x160 pixels Text must say KAMETSU not KAMETSU FORUMS! Animated banners are allowed. Pre-made banners are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply. Please make sure to read all rules for they have changed!

TUTORIAL: ADJUSTMENT LAYERS So you've made a signature--the hard part is over! These are some quick adjustments that can take your signature to the next level. DISCLAIMER: I'm using Photoshop CS5 on Windows 7. There are probably differences between versions of Photoshop and/or between operating systems. I just don't know what those might be. And please excuse the quality of the signature being used in this demonstration. I literally threw a few stocks and render together, pffft. PREFACE: I'm a pretty organized person, so I like to make use of the Groups function. In the Layers window, click the manilla folder icon to make a new group. I make a "Work" group, and put all of the actual signature layers in there, and make another for "Adjustment Layers." [x] To create a new adjustment layer, click the ying-yang icon in the Layers window, and select the adjustment layer you desire. Now let's get to work! STEP 1: GRADIENT I use this layer to help improve lighting and flow. Look at your render to see where the shadows fall--this is the direction your gradient should follow. [x] Line up your gradient to follow the light path of your render, and leave the other settings as is. [x] Before hitting Done, change the gradient to black>white, this will give you both light and shadow later on. Change the blending option to Overlay and the Opacity to 25%. (You can sometimes go higher, but I always start at 25%) STEP 2: SELECTIVE COLOR I use the Selective Color layer to really tweak the coloring of the image--it can help a lot with blending. This is by-far the most arbitrary step. All I do is go color-by-color and move each slider back and forth until I think it looks okay. It's really just trial and error. Here's an example of the Reds. [x] However, this layer plays a big role in determining the final outcome of the signature. See the difference between the image from step 1 and the after image? STEP 3: COLOR BALANCE This is really similar to the Selective Color layer. Again, I just slide the sliders until it looks right to me. This layer helps fix any over-coloring you might have done in the previous step, and helps if you want your signature to be more red, or more yellow, etc. Here are the settings I went with. [x] OPTIONAL STEP: VIBRANCE Sometimes, a signature is too brightly colored for the look I'm going for. If that's the case, I use a Vibrance layer and turn down the saturation slightly. Somewhere between 5-20, usually. On the other hand, if you wanted to make a signature more brightly colored, you can turn up the vibrance. In some cases, you can crank it all the way up! STEP 4: BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST This layer can help give your signature more depth. I recommend increasing the contrast first, then adjusting the brightness. [x] NOTE: I usually use the Levels layer, but for the purpose of this tutorial, I used Brightness/Contrast instead. Levels is more complicated. AND VOILA! The layers can be adjusted at any time, so if you notice something looks weird, you can always go back and fix it. Otherwise, you're finished! Here are all of the layers! [x] Compare the before and after images! PRO TIP: You can change the color of the canvas background in Photoshop! Before completely finishing a signature, I'll change it to Kametsu's post background color to check what it'll look like on here. This can be helpful for SOTW entries, wink wink! Set the foreground color to #121212, and select the paintbucket tool. Hold shift + click anywhere in the area outside of your signature to change the canvas background color. Let me know if anything is unclear, and I'll try to help. Comments and criticisms are encouraged!

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #153 Theme: Blue RULES:All entries are to be submitted by Friday, July 11th.Your entry must be related to the chosen theme.Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline.Signatures must be your own work.Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed.Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition.In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used.Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #152 Theme: Noblesse RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, July 4th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #151 Theme: Purple [Color Theme] RULES:All entries are to be submitted by Friday, June 27th.Your entry must be related to the chosen theme.Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline.Signatures must be your own work.Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed.Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition.In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used.Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #148 Theme: Kemonomimi [Kemonomimi, literally meaning "animal ears", is the concept of drawing animals as bishōjo/bishōnen or having bishōjo/bishōnen wear animal accessories (such as ears or tails). Catgirls/boys are the most prolific in this category, although bunnygirls, foxgirls, and dog girls are also common. Kemonomimi characters typically appear human except for added animal-like qualities.] Wikipedia RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, June 6th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.

SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK #147 Theme: Knights RULES: All entries are to be submitted by Friday, May 30th. Your entry must be related to the chosen theme. Only one entry per participant. However, you may edit your entry until the deadline. Signatures must be your own work. Entries can be in GIF, JPG, JPEG or PNG format, and should be no larger than 600x220 pixels. Animated signatures are allowed. Pre-made signatures are allowed, as long as they have not been used in a past Kametsu competition. In addition to your entry, please also submit a theme idea for next week's competition. Please check the SOTW Themes thread to make sure your theme has not already been used. Please read all Graphical Division Rules and Forum Rules before entering. All rules apply.

Firedogx10 GFX Shop Type of graphic: (Signature, avatar, etc.) Size: (Dimensions; signatures are 600x220px maximum, avatars are 150x150px maximum, Standard is 500x200) Character: (Links to render or images are a great) Text: (Main text; please note any specific colors) Sub-text: (Any other text; again, please note specifics) Things to avoid: (If you don't like pink, this would be the place to mention it) Other comments: (Any other instructions that do not fit into the above categories; matching avatar for signatures sets, border, etc.) Firedogx10's Showcase: ← (If you want to see my previous work)