Artwork for All - challenges, graphics, tutorials

[ShaViva]

Thanks Lt.Col, Sarai - looking forward to making some art once I'm done with NaNo - I'm WAY behind (have to write 20K in the next four days) so gearing up for a huge mad dash to the finish

Big thanks Jumble, aren't you nice!! The 12th is perfect (my sister's birthday, plus it's 12/12/12 this year!) and I'll have plenty of time to recover from NaNo first

[Jumble]

Y'welcome, yami. I will try to get it up today.


You beat me to the punch! Just for the record, I'd also be willing to give up the 21st if someone wants a day, too. We have a lot more members this year than we did last year.

We were all so quick to sign up, but apparently we're just as quick to hand back I've got masses of artwork to do, what with Advents, SS's, vids and Martinmas, so one less thing to do is great

Big thanks Jumble, aren't you nice!! The 12th is perfect (my sister's birthday, plus it's 12/12/12 this year!) and I'll have plenty of time to recover from NaNo first

I'm just spreading the Hippy/WooHoo love Oooh! I hadn't realised the significance of that date! Special birthday for your sis then

[Hyndara71]

Yeah, me too! I've also got the Sam/Jack Advent as well as the Secret santa! I can't believe I'm participating in so many when it's actually my first....well...everything!

The AfA-calendar is all I do *shrugs*, gave up the Secret Santa - well, crying but I think it was unfortunately the best I could do. I was so looking forward to it ... *sniff*. My personal "not so Secret Santa" is already done, so I think I will do the calendar-art and than hiding somewhere till the new year. This will be the second worst Christmas ever I fear

[ladygris]

Okay, sorry it took me so long to get this tut written up. It's the one for my current sig that yami asked for, but I'm using the wallie as an example since it shows so much more.

To make this in Gimp:

Spoiler:

You will need:

NOTE: Unless otherwise specified, each layer will be opened as a layer in the canvas, not a separate picture. Also, none of the textures are mine! I just found them online, either on dA or through tuts others have written.

Open your canvas and fill with white. Or whatever color you want.

Open your first picture, your character. For the coloring to work right, you want something with a similar coloring to the pic of Renner that I chose. Yellows, browns, etc. Scale and arrange as you need. For mine, I had to mix two layers together to cover the entire canvas. I used a much larger copy of the picture and blended until it looked right. I came up with something like this. As you can see, you still see the outline of his shoulders around him. That's okay!

Open the second image, the flowers. Set to Overlay, opacity 100%. Scale up as tall as your canvas (or down, if making a sig), and move to the far left. Erase what's over your character image.

Open the third image, the snowy lantern. Scale up until you only have the snow and not the lantern. Set to Screen, opacity 70%. Using a large fuzzy eraser, lower the eraser's opacity to 50%. Then, erase over your character/actor carefully until it looks like he/she is standing/sitting/kneeling in mist. His/her face needs to be clear.

Open the fourth image, the abstract texture. Set to Overlay, opacity 100%. Move to the left of the canvas, to where the berries are somewhat showcased. Blend the right edge in and erase over your character. If needed, carefully erase however much of the writing on this texture you want. For a larger piece, such as the wallie, duplicate this layer and flip it, moving it around and erasing until you're happy.

Open the fifth image, the pay phone doors. Scale as necessary and set to Overlay, opacity 100%. Move to the left side of your canvas and, using the smudge tool, remove the words “Pay Phone” if you want. Cool story about this stock image:

Spoiler:

A friend of mine has a sister who is into antiques and is wanting to start her own antique/craft boutique type place. She found these antique pay phone doors, took the picture, and sent them to my friend. My friend showed me the pic, and my first words were, “OH! Those would make AWESOME stock images!” I went home and found the pic in my email inbox!

Open the sixth image, the starry one. Go to Filters-->Blur-->Selective Gaussian Blur. Use the default setting. Scale up or down as needed and set to Lighten Only, opacity 100%. Move this around until you're happy with how it looks. Erase anything over your character.

Open the seventh image, the dove. Set to Overlay, opacity 100%. Using your smudge tool, remove the details of the image over your character. You want the coloring but not the detail. You want the detail on the rest of it.

Open the eighth image, the glitter. Set to Overlay, opacity 25%. Once again, remove the detail from over your character, leaving it over the background. This image might need to be scaled up until it's just glitter covering the canvas.

Open the ninth image, the hanging lights. Scale as necessary and set to Overlay, opacity 100%. Move to the upper right side, where the lights can blend and accent the other stuff. Blend the edges in.

Layer-->New from Visible.

Duplicate this new layer. Desaturate, and set to Overlay, opacity 100%. This will return a lot of the detail to your character/model that you lost. Erase all of this layer except for the model/character.

TEXT

Spoiler:

For this one, I used LainieDaySH in color #c6a370. Set to Screen, opacity 100%. Duplicate your text layer, change color to #2b190c. Set to Normal, opacity 100%. Move just a pixel or two down and to the side and behind the lighter color. This will give a shadowed effect.

Layer-->New Layer-->Transparent. Using a tiny text brush with a slight blur to it (I couldn't find the link to the actual brushes I used), add the tiny text behind the name in color #c6a370. Just enough to accent it. Set to Screen, opacity 100%.

Layer-->New from Visible

COLORING

Spoiler:

This one's pretty basic.

Color Balance
Shadows: -13, 0, 15
Midtones: -8, 0, 12
Highlights: 0, 0, 0

And you're done!

If you've got any questions feel free to ask!

[Hyndara71]

Not completely sure if this fits into the challenge ...




Funny, I started making a christmas/advent-sig and finally it turned out as a hero/personal nightmare aka villian-set. Uhm ... okay.

[ladygris]

I like it, though, Hyn. I used the exact same texture in my sig, but look how different they are.

[Hyndara71]

Yeah, I see. That's funny, lg!

[Ikorni]

Not completely sure if this fits into the challenge ...

Funny, I started making a christmas/advent-sig and finally it turned out as a hero/personal nightmare aka villian-set. Uhm ... okay.

It's still great! At least the muse for the challenge is still there!

[Hyndara71]

Thanks, Ikorni . Well, I still think it's not the best set I'd ever made. Still not really in the mood I fear, don't know. At the moment, after the whole year bothered by RL now my online-life seems to crash completely (more or less). All the things I was so looking forward to I had to give up. Still thinking that I'm using the cap of SadNick so often (it was now the third or fourth time I used it for art) tells something about myself. Yeah, he looks worried, I AM too!

[maneth]

I'm loving all the art so far, but my muse seems to have deserted me... *sigh*

[Hyndara71]

Not for the challenge but ... I was in bitter need of a Grimmnas-WP and it turned out ... well, interesting.

[yamiinsane]

I like it Hyn

Here you can find some Helen Magnus icons I made for the community tvshow20in20 on livejournal.

[Hyndara71]

Great icons, yamii And thanks for liking

[Sarai]

Banner by Josiane

AFA Secret Santa

Those of you who signed up to participate in the AFA Secret Santa should now have
all received your PM's detailing who you are making a gift for.

The deadline for artwork is 19th December for distribution in time for 21st December.

If for any reason you find you will not be able to
complete your gift for the 19th December please PM me ASAP

Thanks all and have fun

Sarai

[Hyndara71]

Okay, that was my call now. I'm out here for the next four weeks, sorry.
Can someone please tell me (via PM or VM) to whom I have to send the entry(s)?
*runs off crying*