I made this quite a while ago, but I'll put it as a premade. If anyone wants a custom of a certain colour then you can mail me, I'm not going to make more colours as premade just because they're so time consuming. So feel free to use this free one but it's only one colour, mail if interested in a custom :)
Remember I take no sympathy with stealers who take away credits, or sell them on, I won't hesitate when reporting :)
It's very exciting, first time making a Youtube video, so I hope I haven't disappointed anyone!
This is the first free layout of the new style, click on the screen print preview to see the thing in full and to receive the code if you wish to use it.
Also I will be updating the coding tutorial...so yeah (:
Of course inevitably if you steal I will hunt you down and feed you to the lion in my back garden :D
I can only apologize for my absence, but I did make some new signatures, we don't have that many, continuing with our movie theme of course. I know these are more like blends, but I don't really care much for the technical name. I mean if it is meant to be used as a signature, it makes it a signature right? :D
For the Harry Potter one feel free to add text, like "Harry Potter" or a quote or something. I don't know, I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan.
Feel free to use, just use your common sense, don't claim as you own work, take away credit etc etc :)
I've never been trick 'r treating before, but I am this year! I'm going as a ninja ^^
Anyway here is a lovely (well...not lovely as such lol) halloween themed signature, with thanks to the Tazmanian Devil :D
There is a new poll, a interesting one. How do you rate this site? You can answer if it so happens to be the random poll in the left sidebar, if not just go the the poll archives, link is situated right underneath the random poll.
All graphics from now on until further notice (probably a few weeks) will be movie or TV themed (apart from halloween of course, still adding those). Mail me if you want to submit a movie or TV suggestion because I won't do Twilight unless I have to :P
I recommend scan lines, it definitely adds to a signature or banner. When using scan lines, I recommend that you only use them on a background, preferably just a gradient background. There are two methods for this. The quick one and the slightly longer one.
| Quick Method | Longer Method |
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Quick Method
This method is really simple.
1. Go to 'Filters'>'Distorts'>'Video'.
2. Select 3x3 and tick the 'Addictive' and 'Rotated'
3. As you can see, it's very bright so mess around with the brightness and contrast to what suits ('Colours'>'Brightness-Contrast...').
Here is the end result.
Longer Method
Although this is the longer method, you only have to do it once as you make up a pattern which is then saved (:
1. Open a new transparent image, dimensions at 5 by 5 px.
2. As you can see it is very small, so you'll have to zoom in a lot. Go to 'View'>'Zoom'>'Other' and set at 50 like below.
3. Now you can actually see it, set your pencil settings to this. Use the smallest default cirlce brush, set at a scale of 1.00. Use the colour black obviously.
4. Now draw a diagonal line. Don't be fooled, one big dot is actually only one pixel.
5. Go to 'Edit'>'Copy' then go to 'Edit'>'Paste As...'>'New Pattern'
6. It'll ask you to name it. I named it as 'Scanlines'.
7. After you click Ok, you should be able to go to the Fill tool in the toolbar and select the Scan line pattern, make sure you select 'Fill Whole Selection'.
Use the fill on your background and whala! You can of course change the opacity to suit.
Any one who know me knows that I am seriously a super, super Star Wars fanatic! First time I've rendered images and put them together and I have to admitt, I'm pretty proud of how it's turned out. If anyone claims as their own work, I will not hesitate to report you to staff. Feel free to use as a signature though, click image to get url. hehe I'm currently using this as my forum sig xD
This Tutorial of a sort was inspired by starlette7310 recent topic which askes for ideas on how to improve her site. I did post but I thought it would be good if I wrote a more in depth version which everyone can use :D
Apart from no1, the rest are in no particular order.
1. Content
Obviously it's the single most important factor. Almost all of the time, when people go to a site, they want information. That is of course what the Internet is for. Images, text, the web layout itself are all forms of information, so inevitably there will be information on your site, regardless of whether it's good or not. In terms of Mara-related websites sites - graphics or help sites - the content must be of a high quality. When writing like I am now, whether it be a tutorial or this, what you are writing must be well thought out. And that includes the obvious, grammatical and spelling errors (for spelling errors, I always use the spell check button on the google toolbar for Firefox. The google toolbar is also useful for many other things!) must not be present, it should be useful, and it must be clear and it must make sense. (All of these I am at least attempting lol) In terms of graphics, examples and premades should be of the best of your ability showing a wide variety of your techniques. When making up tutorials I will always recommend that you either use images showing each step, or if you have the resources, a video showing you do every step. If you are using images, there of course should be a very clear detailed description of what is happening. Although in a video, obviously that is pretty self-explanatory. Content is the whole point of your site, the point of most sites for that matter, so it must be good! Pages I recommend having for any site (graphics, or help) are: Homepage with either a brief description or recent posts, an about me page, (don't get too caught up in that, too many people give too much attention to that rather than the main content) affiliate page (great way to have incoming visitors and a way to give recommended sites) and of course there is the main content which should be the main bulk of your site.
2. Layout
Many people, quite sensibly, use webs (formally Freewebs) to host their site and domain. Webs is a fantastic resource, I have to admit, although it does come with one or two downfalls. Webs offer free layouts, the actual design of these are pretty great, but due to the fact that Webs is widely by those in Mara, the layouts are seen constantly and everyone can tell if you've used one. This does affect the first impression. Firstly it takes away your sites uniqueness, it would look like a billion other sites out there, secondly it shows that you don't have the ability to do one yourself, which isn't a bad thing but if you can't do it yourself you should get a custom made one. And obviously, the layout must look decent! The layout is the first thing your visitors will notice, and it gives the first impression, it helps if that impression is a good one.
3. Usability
This is important, you want people to actually be able to get around your site without hassle. Most people do this anyway, but I will mention it nonetheless. You should put your content in categories, and if it suits, sub-categories. This I would have thought was pretty obvious, but to some certain people, apparently not. If you have, for example, Tutorials, there should be a category for that. If you have many tutorials, perhaps ranging over several graphics program, you should have some sub-categories like these: 'Gimp Tutorials', 'Photoshop Tutorials', 'MS Paint Tutorials'. Many people have a side or top bar, you can either have the parent categories in there and links to the sub-categories or all the sub-categories and categories present in the side or top bar (like I do). One thing that is not so much on mara-related sites are a search feature. This is a great thing to have, if you have a large site it definietly makes it easier to get around.
4. Extra Features
Many sites have additional features to basically make it more interesting. These include chatboxes, inactive siggy making, polls, quizes...the list goes on and on. These are great to have, as long as it doesn't become more important than the main content, that should be the most important. Also take care when placing things like comments, people can post links to dodgy sites which you can get nasty viruses from clicking on, and get blocked by google (when this happens, people get a warning like this image shows, when they try to go to the site - before they even see the site). Usually it's not people who post, but software programmed to find blogs with a comments feature, as it was in my case, it was just a link of random letters.
I hope this helps if you want to improve or start your site! :D
Some people seem to be having trouble finding the coding tutorial, so I'm making this post so it will come up in the categories. With the advanced tutorials, I recommend that you have some background knowledge. For this, I recommend sites such as MaraHTML, and/or HTML help pages you find on Google.
Advanced Tutorial Part 4 (Just adding the finishing touches - Coming Soon!)
Easier Tutorial (Coming Soon!)
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