so many people on these forums make such excellent banners,
I thougth maybe this would be a neat idea. Star Wars Spangled Banner; more than a game, it's art class 101. The idea is this,
make a banner 500 x 80 and post it here. (and if you can explain the steps you took to make it. (in my case, I am interested in how Darklighter makes his 3D lettering? the Manipulation banner I use for my signature has it. He and Lexx make great stuff, others to.
anyhow if you wish to get involved with this thread here are the options you can chose:

(1) make a banner for someone else. sometimes an outside person as an observer can think up something creative that would not occur to you. *and if you can explain how you made it, which programs which steps you took, etc.* (or if someone PM's you maybe you could be generous.

(2) make a banner for Star Wars or some other sci-fi you like. with X-Men 2, and Matrix Reloaded out in five days, I see already many have Matrix banners etc.

(3) do not make a banner for yourself and post it here, the idea is to try to put yourself into someone elses shoes.

(4) do not make disrespectful or towards a fellow forum member, and make sure the material, does not go against Lucas forums policies etc.

*here is a banner I made,
it's not great I just made it to try and get this thread going.

http://www.wsmcafe.com/new_users/0/3/03202346p63/image1page6.jpg)

how I made this (as said it is not great) BUT...
the image of darth maul had it's background turned into
a transperancy using PSP6. the back ground was one dark
color, and then using the airbrush tool set at right slash,
100 in size 25% opacity I made long slanted kind of tile things,
and then I overlapped them with the dark color of maul's cloak.
(before I put darth maul in, I took my banner with the slash airbrush strokes and using the image effect called wave I believe it turned it from a hard geometric series of tiles and turned it into something that kind of looks like a tree trunks rings. then using Milton (Matrix) true type font, I placed Modtrix on it.

like I said a fast basic one to start the thread off, I know so many of you can do so much better than this. thats why I hope people will contribute to this thread. it will help people like me learn how to make cooler graphic designs.