The secrets on how to make artwork of the Sam/Jack ship family thread

[madaline_7]

Firefly...

Spoiler:

Browncoats rule!! Glad to find another one on gw... hey, if you like shipping Mal and Inara you should come over to a thread I started especially for the Mal/Inara ship!

I'm glad you liked the sig! Just made another, btw, in light of the many deaths on gw. It's dedicated to anyone who has suffered loss. If you guys have any hints of how to make it better, feel free to post them!

[ATTACH]6049[/ATTACH]

Lili.. that is so nice of you to do!

[josiane]

Gorgeous artworks Jumble and LiliJ!

Jumble, I can't decide which of your three I like best! I keep looking at them in turn and changing my mind Maybe the third one, but it's close! Suffice it to say they're all fab!

LiliJ, the Firefly sig is definitely better with the border, just lifts it that little bit. But keep the dark background, it suits Mal/Inara perfectly

[Jumble]

Thansk Josiane

New banner

Told you I was bored

[josiane]

Bored Jumble is clearly a good thing!

[LiliJ]

LiliJ, the Firefly sig is definitely better with the border, just lifts it that little bit. But keep the dark background, it suits Mal/Inara perfectly

Yeah I like that background - it seems to be the Firefly colour!

[Blacky Kitten]

Bored Jumble is clearly a good thing!

Indeed

[TrueRomantic]

Okay family...I need help. I just downloaded the newest version of Gimp, and I need help. I've never used any type of program before, so I don't even have any past experience with making stuff.

How do I work Gimp?!?!?!

[madaline_7]

Okay family...I need help. I just downloaded the newest version of Gimp, and I need help. I've never used any type of program before, so I don't even have any past experience with making stuff.

How do I work Gimp?!?!?!

What do you want to make?

I usually start with a picture I like, and then get a texture that I like, or I can make work. Shrink it to 640x180 and run with it.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I got a LOT of useful info from the first few pages of this thread. They walk you through everything.

[Luvnjoe]

Okay family...I need help. I just downloaded the newest version of Gimp, and I need help. I've never used any type of program before, so I don't even have any past experience with making stuff.

How do I work Gimp?!?!?!

Uhhhh...*looks around desperately for help* Well, CNTRL+N is how you open a new project. And then it depends on what you want to make. I do my sig lines 200x600 pixels. CNTRL+ALT+O opens pictures as layers within your project. If you just use CNTRL+O, it opens a picture in another project window.

Never fear, I'll find a tutorial.

[josiane]

Okay family...I need help. I just downloaded the newest version of Gimp, and I need help. I've never used any type of program before, so I don't even have any past experience with making stuff.

How do I work Gimp?!?!?!

(((Kim))) Yeah Gimp is not exactly intuitive when you first start! Maybe try one of the tuts on this thread, as they walk you through something step-by-step and hopefully should introduce you to some of the tools. Then come in here and post if you need specific help with things! Or pm one of the gimpers - Jumble put a list on the first page, but basically me, Jumble, Oma, luvnjack... there's loads of us and we'll be happy to help if you pm us

[Luvnjoe]

Here are some tutorials to help get you started...and actually, I might try some too! Making mistakes and playing around it the best way to learn in Gimp. And we're always here to help!

[josiane]

Here are some tutorials to help get you started...and actually, I might try some too! Making mistakes and playing around it the best way to learn in Gimp. And we're always here to help!

Just remember you can always undo anything! So click and see what happens

[Luvnjoe]

Juuuuumble! I need a good close-up of Jack! I'm going to try Oma's tut, and it MUST be Jack!

[Jumble]

Okay family...I need help. I just downloaded the newest version of Gimp, and I need help. I've never used any type of program before, so I don't even have any past experience with making stuff.

How do I work Gimp?!?!?!

(((((TR))))) Its so daunting when you first start! This is one of Oma's little gems that will help you get familiar with Gimp

Spoiler:

Oma’s instructions for doing nearly everything!

1. Open new file (well, d’uh!) sized 600 x 180.

2. Adding a Colour Gradient to the Background.

Click on the foreground colour and change to silver (colour code cececf ). Then click the gradient button (to the right of the paintbucket). Click on the left hand side of the background layer, in the middle, and drag the cursor all the way over to the right. You should get silver on the left graduating to white on the right

3. Adding a Picture as Layer, Feathering and Resizing.

Next we’re gonna add APA’s wonderful Sam cap (it’s a really great quality shot which is why the sig turned out so well), cutout the section we want with the lasso tool and then re-size it..

Open As Layer. File>Open As Layer>Sam Pic.

Feather An Image. Click on the lasso button. We’re gonna change the feathering radius to 50 (double click on the lasso to get up the tool options box, click the feathering tickbox and change the radius slider to 50). Then drag the cursor around the outside of Sam’s head and shoulder, leaving a little gap between your cutout line and Sam’s head. Don’t worry about the line being exact, with the feathering radius being so large it’ll smooth everything out.

Right now, Sam’s head is selected, so we need to invert the selection so it cuts away the bit we don’t want. Click Select>Invert, then Edit>Cut and you should be left with Sam’s head and shoulder with a really soft blended edge.

Re-sizing. Next I enlarged it a little. Click the Scale button (looks like littlepictureArrowBIG PICTURE ) Make sure the little chain link is closed together, then englarge to the size you want.

Move the pic into position. As you move it, you will notice borders around where you cut out. You can cut them out, or you can leave them in. I left them in cos I liked the effect.

(Hit the save button now if you haven’t already!!!!!!!!!)

Before I go any further, if this bit confuses you too much, just use a cap of them fishing, and dont' worry about it at all!!!!!

4. Manipulating an Image – including Copying & Pasting Sections, Rotating images, Changing Perspective and Cropping

Add the fishing pic. This one took a lot of manipulation, so you’ll need to open this one in a separate window. The first thing you’ll notice is it’s HUGE! So scale it right down to around the size in the sig. That’ll make it a lot easier to work with. Click the Scale button, make sure the chain link is together, then reduce the size.

Next cut out the fishing picture. I used the lasso tool with a radius of 10.

Manip-ing the Pic. Since there’s no bottom edge to the picture frame, I added this by copying the left hand side of the frame (the top of the frame is too light to blend in). So using the lasso tool again, select around the top of the frame, then click Edit>Copy. Then Edit>Paste, then anchor it to a transparent layer by clicking the new layer tab on the bottom left of the layers window. Now you can move the edge of the frame into position. You’ll need to rotate the layer a little to get it to line up (that’s the button to the left of the scale one with the two arrows on it) and move it around a bit more until it’s lined up with left side of the pic. Don’t worry about it not fitting properly because the right edge is going to be hidden anyway. Its not a perfect manip by any stretch of the imagination But don’t worry, we’re adding effects and other layers that will hide the imperfections

Changing the Perspective. If you look at the frame, it looks like its tilting forward cos of the angle of the pic. We need it tilting backwards, so we need to change the perspective. Click on the Pespective Tool (it looks like a pic with two arrows pointing outwards at the bottom, making it look wider at the bottom than the top). Put your cursor on the top left hand corner of the pic frame. Then click and drag the cursor along the top of the frame to the right. You’ll see the perspective start to change. When you’ve got about a quarter of the way along, stop dragging - that should be about it. Then go to the bottom left corner. You’re gonna drag this corner diagonally towards the top right corner, until the bottom of the frame is horizontal. Then click “transform”. Next you need to drag the bottom right corner towards the left a little bit to make the sides of the frame parallel.

Cropping. Now we’re gonna crop around the image because we don’t need all that transparency going into our layer. Click on the crop button (looks like a scalpel) then drag the cutout frame around the image. Click in the centre to crop.

Now we can add our fishing pic to the sig. Just copy and paste it into a new layer. You can close down the extra window. (I saved the manipped fishing pic in case I want to use it again. Btw, that’s also why I cropped it instead of just using the select tool to cut and paste it into the sig.)

Now we just need to rotate it and move it into position and rescale if necessary. Then move the layer down the stack so it’s behind Sam’s shoulder.

PHEW! Give yourself a pat on the back (And save the file!)

5. Adding Bush Effects, Gaussain Blur and Transparency

Brush Effect. The pink pattern layer was a brush effect. So first of all, change your foreground colour to the colour you want. I used bc5959. The brush effect was the flower one from a set of brush textures by Neko Sama Inc. (I can’t find the link again so I’ll email the file if anyone wants it!) So, add a new transparent layer. Adjust the size of the brush (either in the tool options box or double click on the paintbrush and use the slider) so it’s the right height (about 140 px) , then brush it on! I think I had to put 5 brushstrokes across the layer to cover it all. Just be careful to get them all lined up right.

Gaussain Blur. Next I blurred it a little to soften the effect. Filters>Blur>Gaussain Blur. Set the blur radius to 2.

Making A Layer Transparent. I wanted the effect to cover Sam’s face gently, but more in the background. So first of all, duplicate the layer. Put one layer under the Sam layer, and one on the top of the stack. (It is possible to select an area and make just that part more transparent, but if you decide to move the layers around or the move the pics, you have to start the layer again. That’s why I did it this way.)

The bottom brush layer I set to half transparency. I used Layer>Curves>Alpha (in the drop down menu) and moved the point to half way down the graph. (Or you could use Layer>Transparency>Colour to Alpha).

The brush layer on top I set to barely visble. Layer>Curves>Alpha, and set it to about half way down the bottom section of the graph. (You can play around with the transparency levels to get whatever effect you want )


6. Softglow Effect

To get the soft dewy look on Sam’s face, I used the Softglow effect. Select the Sam layer, click Filters>Artistic>Softglow. I reduced the brightness slider to 40. I love this effect – it’s really beautiful.

I applied the same Softglow effect to the fishing pic. Highlight the fishing pic layer. Click Filters – the first two options show the last used effect. (You can either repeat it or re-show it so you can change the settings first.) Just click on repeat Softglow.

7. Adding Text & a MOP Logo

I think everyone knows how to do this (since you guys showed me ), but for anyone reading this who doesn’t….

First of all, change the foreground colour to the colour you want your text. Again, Gimp uses the foreground colour as the default for your text. I used 848181. Click the Capital A button. Then click on the pic where you want to add the text. (This function will put a text box in as a new layer automatically, you don’t have to open one yourself.) Type (in this case) “Password:Fishing” in the box and check the Use Selected Font box. Go to tool options and select the typeface and size you want. I used Onyx typeface, font 11. Then I adjusted the spacing using the a_b button at the bottom of the tool box. Set that to 3.

Change the foreground Colour to White (ffffff). Then add another text box for Shippers Live for Confirmation! Use the same settings as before (it should have opened the text box with these settings anyway, and will keep them until you change them or exit gimp).

MOP Logo. Next add the MOP text (as before).

Open a New Layer for the penguin brush – I think everyone has these now right? Josiane put the link in a few pages ago.

I merged the MOP layer and Penguin layer down into one layer. To merge layers, right click on the Penguin layer and select Merge Layer. It will combine it with the MOP layer directly below. You don’t have to do this, I did it so that I could just copy that layer into a new file and save it as my MOP logo for use on other sigs You can make your own in the same way

Save the file! Congratulations - you're done! (I hope )



Edit: No you're not! I forgot the border *facepalm*


8. Adding a Border

I always add this last. Select the background layer. Click Filters>Decor>Add Border. Change the colour for the border to cececf. Make the x and y border size both 2.

NOW you're done

Basically, you need to explore and click on stuff to see what happens, just practise opening new frames, putting pics in and then play with them. Don't worry, couple of months ago I didn't even know what Gimp was And don't be afraid to ask 'dumb' questions, we all did and thats how we learnt everything

[madaline_7]

Just remember you can always undo anything! So click and see what happens

I swear that's half the fun! Oh let's see what this button does... Oh that's cool... what was that again?