these are the basics to tagging

[gramp anime scholar]

:l Stolen from me by me from KHV. They suck harder than you guys do.

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1. I WANT TO MAKE A [s]SIG[/s] TAG!!!
Ok shut up. First go ****ing download Photoshop. Any version higher than 7 will do (CS=8). Don't like downloading/pirating? Enjoy GIMP.

2. WHERE DO I START
Get a ****ing stock. No it's not called a render. I don't know why the hell you guys call it renders anyway. Planetrenders is stupid for calling them renders (despite the fact that I use it since I'm too lazy to cut stocks). In layman's terms, a stock that one would normally use for tagging would be the cut out of some character from a shitty anime or game, since most people who make tags enjoy some form of anime or gaming. However, they're not limited to that and can include sprites, irl people, cars, etc.

3. WHY ISN'T IT A RENDER
Because a render is a 3D model created by a 3D modeling program (See: Cinema4D). You aren't rendering the stock, since that would be physically impossible. You are simply extracting or cutting out what you need for your tag.

4. WHAT IS A RENDER THEN YOU FAGGOT
This: Browsing deviantART
See? DeviantArt knows what the **** renders are, why don't you?

5. OK S-
I'm not done explaining renders you ****face. Anyway, now you know what renders are and that they look ****ing cool. So what? Well, generally renders are used to 'create' effects on your tag. Renders are generally used the same way by everyone. You take a render, set the blending mode to "Lighten" or "Screen", then you move it around depending on what kind of composition is brain-****ing you at the moment. When used, they generally have a shiny look to them such as in my Kim Jae Hoon sprite tag:

As you can see, the shiny parts are the renders, although there are more renders there than what you may see since I used the larger, and more dull renders to set the base composition. Contrary to ****ing popular belief, composition plays a bigger role than you can god damn imagine.

6. OK SO I LEARNED WHAT STOCKS AND RENDERS ARE, AND I LEARNED COMPOSITION WAS IMPORTANT. WHAT NOW????????
Calm the **** down with those question marks you twat, I'll ****ing tell you. Anyway, you want to start off with the canvas. Most tags are roughly 400x110 pixels, or for you mathematicians 44,000 px^2. Once you have the canvas opened and fresh like my anus, then you want to place your stock. This is important since you want to create everything else to correlate to the stock placement. Having shitty stock placement can ruin a tag even if the effects are FUCEN SWEET not unlike me (lol get it? it's a double negative).

7. OK SO I BUILD MY BACKGROU-
STOP YOU ENORMOUS HOMOSEXUAL. A background isn't the only thing that you may include in your tag. Although you may not know at first, but tags can have a background, middle ground and a foreground. Being able to incorporate these effectively can make or break a tag. Remember that well.

8. ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD KNOW
Yes. Don't over ****ing blend your stock. It looks horrible and I want to drop kick you in the face for doing it. Yes, Barareisfasdfsdfawhatever, I'm looking at you along with many other people. I just know your name (somewhat) because I enjoy bugging you the most.

9. OK LET'S GET GOI-
STOP YOU DEROGATIVE TERM FOR AN AFRICAN AMERICAN. There are other things you might want to know.

i) Composition: We already handled this. Think about it well.

ii) Flow: WHAT'S FLOW? Ok I'll tell you. Take a look at my incredibly SHITTY Hyolee tag:

See how the renders form a "V" shape around the stock, but don't deviate too much away from that nor do they try and conflict by forming some kind of "X"? That's flow. A "V" flow is pretty common, but sometimes you can have flow like "/" (in either direction). However, flow is a part of composition, but sometimes important enough such that it can have it's own section/explanation.

iii) Depth: What's depth? If you do photography, you'll realize that this term is basically what you guys call the Depth of Field. Again, we'll use my horrible (well no I kind of like it) Hyolee tag as a reference.

First, look at the stock. OK GOOD, now stop you idiot. Now look at the large thing to her immediate right. STOP. Now look at the one to the left. STOP YOU NEET. Notice a difference? The stock and the render to the right are rather sharp, but the one to the left is blurry. This is what we call depth. By doing this, you can create focus more of the attention to the stock rather than the effects. Remember, effects aren't the main component of the tag. Effects of a tag are there to make the stock look good by supporting it.

iv) Blending: Blending mother****er, do you know it? Of course you do. You guys do it so much it's DISGUSTING. Let's take a look at the same tag I've been using in the past two examples again (hooray).

SO MAKE EVERYTHING ONE COLOUR? Not entirely. Although it can work at times, you want the stock to sort of "blend" into the background, but not so much you lose your focal point. >:l I mean you Bararararasdfsdaf. Blending is so that the stock doesn't overly contrast the colours of the background, middle ground or foreground. If the contrast is too strong, it looks bad, but it's possible to have a strong contrast and still look good. That's where the more advanced people come in.

v) Colour&Lighting: Ok le- ok whatever here's the ****ing reference.

Again. Anyway, colour and blending work hand in hand. You want a colour that supports and helps your stock, but not to the point where everything is one colour and looks boring. Although this isn't the BEST example, if you take a look (eew), you can see that although the main colour is a pastel yellow, it's not the ONLY colour. There's purple, some pink and yellow's delicious complementary colour, blue. The bright yellow and dark blue contrast each other such that it looks nice and not ugly. This is using colours to your advantage. If you have a bright portion of the tag, you don't ever want it to be just white. White's boring and so is black, unless it's a black and white tag, but that's different. Usually, you want a bright off-white. The off-white looks white, but has a faint glow to it so that it doesn't look unnatural. Although, if you raise the brightness enough or **** around with the blending modes after doing some ****, the brighter parts will become white, but it will still have a faint glow to it. By doing this, you can set the complementary colours as the shadows. As said earlier, this creates a nice contrast between the highlights and shadows. For a stronger example of LIGHT YAGAMI, here's another tag of mine:

This tag was more of a composition tag than anything, since it lacks overly abstract effects and whatnot, but as you can see between the two canyon walls in the back, a strong, strong, strong, strong, strong, yellow light is shining through. As such, I added a blue tint to the shadows. Although you won't ever see blue this apparent in real life, we're not trying to mimic irl are we? >:l No, we're being ARTISTS (ahahha no, tagging for forums isn't an art) and ****ing around with complementary colours.

I forgot the number. OK SO WHAT NOW
Open photoshop and suck less.

Asterisks everywhere.

Now I can go back to telling you all how much you SUCK.

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haet khv's filter system. too many asterisks.

[Xidon]

lol blending

Nice tut or whatever the Hell it is.






Also, unrelated, but love the Monoblos tag.

[› KB‹]

:D Aah! So much enthusiasum!