So nice to see all the activity in here. Think I'll make something new soon.
Would anyone be able to give me a crash course in shading, or link me to a post explaining how to shade?
This one
was helpful but I think I need more instruction (and more practice
).
Lesson 5: Unaligned Shading
Shading in an unaligned logo will definitely enhance its effect and make it look much better. Shading unaligned is using spaces, periods, colons, and semicolons, in that order. Here is an example of shading:
|….:::::;;;;;|
It looks 3D but... admit it. It looks 3 sided, not round. So, mix up the characters a bit, like so...
|:..:.:::;:;;;;;|
Now that's shading
Regular shading should go like this:
. .. ... … ...:.::.:::.:::;:;;;;;;;;;;;
And that's how simple unaligned shading is.
Lesson 6: Unaligned Imprinting
Like with aligned imprinting, putting your name in cold turkey will horrible misalign your logo, so you need to 'cushion' it with apostrophes and periods.
Start with your picture:
………….;
…………,'
………., '
…...¸,-´
,,.-·´
Add in your name:
………….;
Val****…………,'
………., '
…...¸,-´
,,.-·´
Delete some periods until it's almost right:
………….;
Val***r…,'
………., '
…...¸,-´
,,.-·´
It may be just over or just under. So, delete some periods and add an apostrophe or two.
………….;
'Valtuar...,'
………., '
…...¸,-´
,,.-·´
Or you can do the alternative; find out how many periods your name takes up like this:
Val***r|
……….|
Just a tiny bit under. So I'll add a tilted apostropie to my name. (it is the same size as two ( ' ). Use combinations of ' and . to get it right.)
`Val***r|
***..|
Perfect! Now you just replace that amount of periods with your name (including extra apostrophes)
Now start replacing those periods with semi-colons ( ;;; ), colons ( ::: ), more periods ( ... ), and spaces ( ).
Arrange them from darkest to lightest where you want them, you can either shade outwards or inwards.
A few general rules on shading:
- Always mirror the shading, BUT the shading must be after the signature is finished.
- Don't use commas in your shading. EVER.
- It may look messy if you go both inwards and outwards in the same signature, but it can also look very good.
- After the font change colons and semicolons are no longer the same length as periods. This is very inconvenient in that you have to realign after shading.
- You should have approximately the same amount of periods, colons, and semicolons.
- Never go straight from : to a space, or from ; to a period.
This is where shading goes professional. Advanced shading is a wide variety of different techniques from simple shading, which look much better.
Advanced shading usually goes like this:
;;;;;;;;:;;:;:::::::.::.:..... .. . .
See how I "blended" the characters to make it smooth, and not 3-sided like |;;;;;:::::....|?
Just try and gradually ease onto the next character.
This looks very professional and obviously looks much better than normal shading. With advanced shading, there's also a new technique: double shading. This is where you shade from between different waves outward, to the waves. It's hard to explain.
Then you'll need to start deleting one period at a time, constantly alternating the side you take it from. (using both delete and backspace helps) Keep the count of how many you've taken away.
Keep going until a reasonable amount of periods are left (2-4 on each side, 4-8 in total)
In this one, I counted six periods. Now we'll replace those with the same amount of colons
( ::: ) on each side, and an equal or larger amount of semi-colons ( ;;; ) in the middle.
Since you're now shading AWAY from the waves, do this for the top line too. But since
there are no waves on the sides of the signature, you'll have to shade outwards.
).
