I've actually never used a signature before--I only do work with bases and I'd feel kinda weird putting my own watermark/signature onto someone else's base, even if I did my own stuff to it, y'know?

But from a logistical point of view, if I were to do it, I'd have a folder with a few different watermark/signature PNGs saved so I could quickly paste it onto any image I want.

hmm fair enough! & yeah that's a good idea i might start doing that actually. genuinely just the idea of organizing new folders won me over on this one gfhkkfdj

yeah that's what i usually do with either my initials or my tumblr alias - and RIGHT i forgot about those, theyre so nice?? i see one of those little things on some art and i'm just like 'now THIS is illustration'

yeah, my handwriting and my tablet's sensitivity uhh don't really come together very well in terms of readability lmao x___x i guess that's where the premade things come in handy as well.

I sign my work with a tiny pixel-art logo in the right hand corner. People can see it because it's sharp and clear, but it's out of the way. I also date my artwork by year, so people can track my progress over time. The pixel logo is small enough so I recreate it every time for each pic. It pays to put some effort into making a proper, consistent signature and adding it to each picture as a new layer.

Due to the persistence of random people re-posting artwork on other web sites, I get annoyed when artists don't sign their work. I want to know who the artist is so I can search for their main gallery. Web links aren't important, though, since search engines can find galleries on social networks just fine.

Watermarks that cover the artwork are just dumb. Most of the time they can be easily be removed with a difference layer and it won't stop people from tracing/referencing your art.

Using a stamp at least guarantees its legible, which helps when your hand-writing is chicken scratch!