i wanted to make a neon sign for quite some time, but its pretty hard

when i started learning Gimp, i used to look at a lot of lightsabre tutorials
now rewatching them again, i dont like any of the techniques and good neon tutorials are hard to find too

i picked some inspiration from a very lengthy PS tutorial, but other than ideas, i came up with all of it myself
its okay for a start, i guess

the tubes were made in Inkscape, which was hard for me too
im not very good with the Bezier tool, but doing it, helped a lot with learning it better

will try this again some other time

Nicely done, very impressive Esper!

Very nice! Only thing I'd say to improve is make the color less white and more "neon" in color. :>
Other than that it's perfect!
Good job, nice work!

thanks Odin and Moko

i had stronger blue glows at first
it looked better this way, imo

thinking about it, the whole thing has a pretty cold vibe to it
all the grayscale with only the blue as colour.....

Well now that I look at it again, it looks kinda old movie-ish. :>

good tube shapes, you did very well with inkscape.

That's cool !!

Wow, you can see the tubes

The first neon sign that actually looks like a neon sign. Cool!

please do !

One thing I've noticed from having looked at hundreds of images of neon signs is that the mount of "white light" one sees depends greatly upon the color of the tube. Blue, for example, tends to only show the white of the tube on the inside edge. The other caveat to neon is in that one can visibly see the blacked out tubing which connects one letter to the next. It's an incredibly difficult effect to achieve with any degree of realism.

esper: great job on that, brother! for realistic neon effect this is one of the best i've seen. i think i generally prefer the less realistic neon effects, though, they look more like my impression of neon signs than a photographic reproduction of them. still, if you want realism this is an impressive job.

That's lovely Esper - very precise work as usual and nicely lit.

thanks for all the comments, especially K1te and Mike !

i was thinking about your suggestions, K1te
all i can say is, im not so much about realism
while i find photorealistic 3D stuff impressive, its not what i would want to do
i agree about all your points regarding lighting and shadows and stuff but something was missing for me, as the piece seemed to work anyhow

then AnMal nailed it with her comment
i wanted it to look like a neon sign and in that way its good

i wasnt too happy with my result, because, well i rarely am (lol) and the greater goal is something else
this was just a first step or test

because i want to do something like this, some day



EDIT: oh and btw, the texture is real brick
i got it from texturemate.com

Nicely done in my opinion Esper.

forgot to add the tutorial, that got the ball rolling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnCtDkXF5Pk

i know K1te and i like hearing your input form a different angle

also i think your 3D neon sign looks great, dont know what you want

oh and thanks for all the compliments, thats very flattering