Diva's Whimsical Tutorial

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Diva's Whimsical Tutorial; A neat sig using colorful whimsy
Topic Started: Jan 7 2008, 09:48 AM (92 Views)
Diva	Jan 7 2008, 09:48 AM Post #1
Administrator Posts: 82 Group: Admins Member #1 Joined: Jan 6, 2008	Whimsical Wonderland This tutorial is going to show you how to create a sig using Plasma and Qbist layers for coloring. You'll also be able to play around with brushing and Curves. This is what my final result looks like: You'll need 1) Some basic knowledge of GIMP 2) A pattern 3) Some brushes 4) Plasma and Qbist layers 5) Gradient maps 1) Open up a new canvas. I'm choosing 400x150, but you can have yours any dimension you want. Make sure that the background is white, however. Now get out your Brushes, Layers, Patterns, and Gradients dialogs. 2) Duplicate your white canvas layer twice. Hide the top layer, and get out a pattern of your choice from the Patterns dialog. Now go under Edit, and choose Fill with Pattern. Do nothing with this layer, except name it after the pattern you chose. 3) Un-hide your top canvas layer and duplicate it. Now hide the duplicated layer. On the first white canvas duplicate we're going to use an abstract brush. Get out an abstract brush from your Brushes dialog, and one medium-sized, and start painting the canvas with black. After that, go under Colors-->Curves, and mess with the curves on the Red, Green, and Blue, as well as the Alpha, until you get something you like. Set the brushing layer on Addition at full opacity, and merge with the pattern layer. 4) Now it's time to use that duplicated layer. Un-hide it, and get out a second abstract brush. Paint the canvas with black. Go back to your Curves, and play with them some more until you get something you like. This time, set the second abstract brushing layer on Burn at full opacity, and don't merge. 5) Okay, now make a new layer and fill it with White. Go under Filters-->Render-->Clouds, and select Plasma. Make a new seed, and keep hitting that button until you get something you like. Now sharpen it by bringing the turbulence to somewhere around 2. Hit OK, and set this layer to Overlay at full opacity. 6) Get out your crop at this time. Now, scale it down to a suitable size. If it's a bit large, scale it down further so you can see more than just the face. Now copy it to the clipboard, then paste it to the image. Get out your Move tool (this is done by going under Tools-->Transform-->Move, or just hit 'M' on your keyboard), and move your crop until it's at the desired position. Go under Layers-->Layer to Image size. This should clean up excess selections. Now go under your Layers dialog, and paste the floating crop to a new layer. Name this layer after your subject. This is the crop I used: 7) Copy visible, and paste it to a new layer. Now we're going to get a bit artsy. Go under Filters-->Artistic, and choose a design that goes with your pattern and brushing flow. Adjust the settings to whatever you like, then hit OK. Now set the layer at Burn on whatever opacity you desire that makes it look good. There should be a few effects on your crop, so alpha to selection that layer, make your artistic layer active, and feather by a healthy amount. I chose 50. (To feather, go under Select-->Feather) Now hit Delete to clear unwanted effects. Name the layer after the artsy effect you chose. 8) Copy visible again, and paste it to a new layer. Now go under Filters-->Artistic-->GIMPressionist, and choose a design that counters your pattern and brushing flow. I chose Ballpark. Hit Apply, then hit OK. Now bring the layer underneath your crop layer, and set to Overlay at full opacity. Name the layer after the GIMPressionist effect you chose. 9) Now we're going to do more coloring. Make a new layer, and fill it with White. Name the layer 'Qbist'. Now go under Filters-->Render-->Pattern-->Qbist, and choose a design from the Qbist grid that you like. You may have to do this more than once to get the one you like the best. Hit OK. Now get out your Vine brush from the Brushes dialog, hit 'S' on your keyboard to bring up your smudge tool. In the Brushes dialog, there is a scale called 'Spacing'. Bring it down to one, and start smudging until there are no hard places. Set the Qbist layer on Multiply at 30% opacity. Alpha to selection your crop layer again, feather it, and then hit Delete to clear. 10) Now we're going to color it even further. Copy visible and paste it to a new layer, then duplicate the pasted layer so there are two pasted layers. We're going to use two gradient maps, one on each pasted layer. Go under your Gradients dialog and pick a gradient that you like. Now go under Colors-->Map-->Gradient Map and color your image with the gradient you chose. Set the mode to whatever looks good to you, and to an opacity that looks good to you. Now go to your second pasted layer, and get out another gradient. Repeat the gradient coloring, and again, set the gradient map layer to a mode and opacity that looks good to you. This is the first gradient map I chose: and this is the second: 11) Now comes the fun part. We're going to paint using some small brushes. Make a new transparent layer and call it Glitzy Painting. Now get out your glitziest brushes, and set the foreground color to White. Start painting around your crop with the first brush, and repeat with the other two smaller brushes. Go ahead and duplicate this layer if you want more lighting, and then merge the glitzy layers together. 12) Now for the final part. Make a new layer, and fill it with white, then name it Plasma Border. Go under Filters-->Render-->Clouds-->Plasma again, and make a new seed, different from your last seed. Keep the turbulence the same. Now hit OK. Select all, then select-->Shrink. Make it two pixels, and make sure that the Shrink from Image Border box is checked. Now hit Delete to clear the remainder. And there you have it. A nice whimsical/glitzy sig.



Viral Labs	Jan 19 2008, 12:42 PM Post #2
Posts: 35 Group: Members Member #3 Joined: Jan 18, 2008	Haven't used gimp much, so i don't know what it's fully capable of. That being said, I like this tutorial and its outcome. Nice colors, good stock, cool effects.
Posts: 35 Group: Members Member #3 Joined: Jan 18, 2008


Diva	Jan 19 2008, 01:02 PM Post #3
Administrator Posts: 82 Group: Admins Member #1 Joined: Jan 6, 2008	Thank you. I stumbled on this style while trying to something with a stock I got of Xiao Qiao from Dynasty Warriors 6. Other than that, I had the aids of brushes, a stock of Linda Park that I managed to extract myself, a colorful pattern, and some rendering filters (Plasma Cloud and Qbist) that provided some neat colors.



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