post a pic up of the ones your refering to, i remember the axl one, but dont know of the other your talking about.
that last one is nice. Altho im wondering, Why use a color at all where the blue is on that? your using photoshop arent you? cut the color out, make it transparent and save as a gif. then it'll work on whatever color message board you put it on.
As for my backgrounds. my preference is using brushes, (altho lately i've been playin around with the 3D Transform on photoshop)
thats all brushes. i usually mix and match brushes from different things. many i've gotten from
www.deviantart.com some i make myself. but since i dont know what im lookin for when i do it. downloading is usually easier, cuz i just throw stuff on untill it has a look to it. lol.
so that pic is what i would start a sig with, then begin adding stuff ontop of that.