0
Skill : Advanced
1. Open up a new document. Mine is 400x125 px @ 72 dpi, white background.
2. Some people prefer to do Filter > Render > Clouds before brushing but I like to start directly with my brushes. Anyway, grab some brushes, set foreground to black. You can find the brushes I used here:
http://www.silent-sc...l/congrunge.zip
http://www.silent-sc.../congrunge2.zip
On the background layer, start brushing with black then create a new layer, set it to Overlay mode and press "x" to switch foreground color to white. Take a different brush and just brush around to give the background some depth. The image you see below only has 2 layers.
3. Next up make another layer, set that one to Overlay as well, switch foreground color to black and brush around with a different brush. If it looks too dark, make another layer, set it to Soft Light, switch foreground to white and brush around the black parts. This is the result so far.
4. Ok now you can stop here or just make more layers, alternating between Soft Light and Overlay to give it a more special look. This is what I've achieved so far with about 13 layers.
5. Ok what I like to do now is give it an extra grungy feel. Make a new layer, from the ConGrunge set grab the border brushes, set foreground to black and start brushing around the borders. 1 layer of these is sufficient and just leave it at Normal. Here's how it looks like now:
6. Next up grab a picture of your choosing. I'm going to use a picture from Starcraft. You can find the original here:
Now what you want to do is take the lasso tool, set the feather to 10 pixels and carefully go around the edges of the character like this:
Next hit Ctrl+C, go to your signature document and hit Ctrl+V. Place the picture under the grunge border layer. Press Ctrl+T to go into Free Transform mode and while holding Shift, drag a corner of the image to resize it. Now it looks a bit dark so go to Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight and set the top bar to 25%. This will adjust the contrast.
7. Next up grab your lasso tool again, feather = 10px and go around the edges of your picture, careful so as not to bite into the picture itself. Now with the lasso tool still active, right click inside the selection and press "Select Inverse" or go to the Select menu (Alt+S) and press Inverse. Now hit delete about 3-4 times to blend the picture better into the background. This is my result now:
8. Now some people prefer to Desaturate the image so as to color it with Color Balance layers later but I'd rather leave the original colors since they look best. Ok now select your last grunge layer, right under the picture layer.
Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation. The settings are Hue (0), Saturation (35), Lightness (-15).
Now hit Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. Select the Highlights button and turn the Red slider to +100. Hit ok and don't mess with the other settings.
Make another Color Balance layer, leave Midtones selected and write these settings in: +20/+100/0.
Make yet another Color Balance layer, select Shadows and write these in this order: -10/+100/-35.
Ok now select each Color Balance layer. Press "D" to reset your foreground/background colors and go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Do this for each layer, including the Hue/Saturation layer.
Now that you've done this, grab a brush with scratches, make a new layer on top of everything (including the picture), set it to Soft Light and press a few times to give a more grungy scratchy look. Here's the final effect:
9. Now comes the text. On top of the color layers write your name or whatever you wish. Make sure the text color is white. Set the Fill to 55%, leave the Opacity on 100% and the layer mode is Normal. I'll be using a font called "Rubber Stamp LET". You can find it on www.dafont.com/en/. After you type your name, right click the layer, go to blending options and use these settings:
Now what you do is duplicate the text layer (select it and press Ctrl+J) and hide one of them. Select the eraser tool from the ConGrunge set and click on the text layer. When it asks you to rasterize it, click Yes. Now erase some on the text layer to give it a worn look:
Final effect :
