.::How To Make a Pixel Rainbow Signature::.
In this How To, I will be teaching you how to create a pixel Rainbow Signature to use in your email or forum signatures.  You can create this tutorial in ANY graphics program that will allow you to do pixel art (art that is usually done pixel by pixel).  It's a good idea to know your program, because this tutorial will be VERY basic, as I wanted to make sure that all programs could be used, so I will not be talking about tools as each program is different.

Before doing this tutorial PLEASE read my Terms of Use first.

Here's an example of what we'll be creating (other versions will be at the end of this tutorial):


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Supplies:
A graphics program (again any graphics program that will allow you to work with pixels)

My outlines for the Rainbow and Boxes
Color Palette
 (these will open in a new window - just click on Outlines/Palette link below)
Outlines/Palette

A small pixel font (I'm using PF Ronda Seven - which can be found at most free font sites)

And an Animation Program (optional)

A Snack and something to drink ;)

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Okay now that we've got our supplies, let's get started shall we?

Let's first start by opening our chosen graphics program, and then opening up our Rainbow Outline and Palette.  We will start with the clouds, and work our way around the rainbow.

(Right about now would be a good time to remind to Save often.)

Start with the first color of your white palette, and color in the outline of your clouds, you can do one cloud at a time or do both at the same time, that's really up to you.  Here's what I have so far for both clouds:


Now we will move on to the second color in our white color palette, and start shading around the cloud going on down to the last color in the color palette.  You should then have something like this:


Okay now that we have our clouds done, it's time to start on our Rainbow.  Now we all know that a rainbow has 7 colors (at least that's what we're taught in school), so we are going to do our very best in bringing out the 7 primary colors of the rainbow - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink.  With that in mind, let's start with the color red, and work our way down to pink.  This is how I did mine pixel by pixel, you can use this as a guide:


As you can see, I just basically traced the outline with each color of the palette, here's what I have so far:


Neat huh?  Okay now we need to work on the boxes, I'm going to use the big box, but you can use the smaller box if you'd prefer.  Since I work with layers, I'll be adding a new layer to my shaded rainbow, and start shading my box like so:
(Note: I'm using the color gold, but you're free to use whatever color you like.)


Alright, now that we have our first box shaded, and again since I use layers, I'm going to duplicate this layer 6 more times (since my name has 7 letters).  Once I'm done with that, I'll use my text tool (or whatever it is that you use to create text on your graphics), and spell out my name one letter at a time with my pixel font.  When doing this, I'll take the letter and place it on the box that I want it on, and merge the box and letter (again I'm using layers so my text will be on it's own layer).  Once you're finished you should have something like this (with your own name of course and enlarged to see better):


Now from here you can save it as a .gif and do nothing more, OR if you know how to use your Animation program, you can take it into there and animate it.

Here are a couple more that I have completed using this technique:
  

I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial, and if you have any questions please feel free to ask me, and I will do my very best to help you if I can.