Looking for a tutorial or just some basic instructions on how to make a custom sign for a town/village mod. I have experience with nifskope, Gimp. Have done a bit of retexturing and played around with trying to get text on basic wood textures. Just can't quite get it right. Would appreciate any helpful hints.

What doesn't go right?

Take an original sign texture and cover over the original text ... add new text. That way it's all properly sized to fit on the mesh. If you want to do it all from scratch you can still use the original texture for size comparison. Or pull the UV map from the mesh and work from that.