almost every tut involves blending, you'll find a few tuts about smudging, but imo don't start smudging like everyone else....here is a resource thread where you can find some tuts and just about everything you need....just please don't make a shitload of smudged sigs, try a style of your own, yeah you'll get bashed if you ask for CnC on it here on jsp, but who gives a fuck...

Anyways, here's the resource thread.
http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=13207507&f=246