a tag being 'animated' oesn't means it's any good.

Well, the thing is people who judge set contests are often not set makers, so they don't realize the work that goes into non-animated sigs. They often choose winners that did almost nothing to a picture--you know the infamous crop-sig winners. That is NOT the case with our monthly contest in this group though. The judge is a fellow set-maker, so their judging should be more "fair."

this will sound arrogant but i know FOR SURE a single sig i make possess 2x (at least) more layers + manipulation than 90% of animated sigs (even the gify-clippy ones). that is saying something.

I make animated sets, and outside of AF I make gif sets. For contests and auctions, I always offer the non-animated version of anything in case the person would prefer that or don't like animated sets. I think the trick to making a nice animated sig (or gif) is to use a texture that has a grainy/sandpaper look to it to keep the colors from making the entire thing look awful. An animation for me, shouldn't take away from the image itself, or be distracting. *In case no one knows what I'm talking about with the texture, I mean like this one here that I made where I applied it. I apply the same thing to a signature, although about 80% of the time I prefer to to make normal non-animated sets.