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

[AstraPerAspera]

You all are very kind. I do have the MOP brush and will add the little penguin before I put it on the MOP site. Might be a few days, though...we're hosting an office party at our house this weekend and significant prep is required between now and then. See you all on the other side!

[LiliJ]

Hey guys, I have a question. Do you think my top image (the second rectangular one) should be centred, or bottom right?

[Jumble]

You all are very kind. I do have the MOP brush and will add the little penguin before I put it on the MOP site. Might be a few days, though...we're hosting an office party at our house this weekend and significant prep is required between now and then. See you all on the other side!

Hope the party goes well, and that you enjoy it

[SeNedra]

Hey guys, I have a question. Do you think my top image (the second rectangular one) should be centred, or bottom right?

Sorry still cannot see any pics

[Oma-1]

Smooch sig

This sig came about because I made a wallpaper for a friend of mine who just got married using pics of her and her hubby smooching that she'd put on her blog page Her fave colour is, yep you guessed, pink. I changed the pics for S&J...I made a few different versions of this one cos I couldn’t decide what other background colour to use



This sig has 9 layers.

Canvas Size 600 x 180.

Background Layer – light pink background (f8d6d6) with canvas effect (Filters>Artistic>Apply Canvas)

Layers 2, 3 & 4 are the kiss layers. Open each pic as a new layer (File>Open As Layer).

Then I resized and used the rectangle tool to cut away the part I didn’t want, then the move tool to place it where I wanted it. Then I adjusted the colours on the POV and BD pics to make them more uniform. I lowered the saturation, and adjusted the colour balance. Trial and error really until they looked right. (cept I messed up the POV one - it's too pink!)

I didn’t know about the selection editor at the time to put a border around it (Select>Selection Editor>bottom right icon), so I did it the long winded way of highlighting the layer, cut and paste into new image. Then I used the crop tool to cut away the rest of the layer just leaving the pic. Then used the Filters>Add Border (colour 931616). Then copy visible (so it copies both the layers without having to merge them) and pasted it back into the original sig and move it back into place.

If I was making it now, I’d just resize the pic, use the rectangle tool to select the part I want, use the selection editor to put the border in, then invert the selection and cut away the rest. Of course, if you don’t know that you want a border or what colour you want to use at this point, you can come back to the layer later and still use the selection editor to add the border. So much simpler (((Hugs Josiane for figuring out the selection editor)))

Layer 5
Next I added the text layer. I used the script-fu for this rather than the text box because I didn’t want just plain text and shadow. For this one you use Xtns>Logos (if you have an older version of gimp it will be Xtns>Script-Fu>Logos). There are loads and loads of different settings, I’ve spent hours and hours playing with them all to see what they do . For this one though, I used Glossy.


The big red circle to the right for Jumble, so she doesn’t get distracted…

You’ll get a dialogue box come up with lots and lots of info in it. Text: Smooch. Font Size:40. Font: Ravie semi-expanded. Blend Gradient (text): Foreground to Background (just click on the gradient box to change it). Blend Gradient (outline): Foreground to Transparent. Outline size: 2. Don’t worry about the rest of the stuff. Click OK. It’ll put your text into a new window. If you click on the eyes, you can see the effects the different layers have. I ditched the shadow and background layers and kept the other ones. Then I used the hue saturation sliders, moved the saturation slider right and the lightness slider left to make the colours deep and dark. Then copied and pasted it into the sig.

When I finished the sig, I decided it didn’t stand out enough so I went back to the smooch text and used the brightness/contrast sliders to make the colour really light pink, the put that in behind the original text layer and positioned it so it was just showing behind the first. Then I merged the two text layers.


Layers 6 & 7
Next I added the hearts layers. This was before I knew about brushes too So I used heart pictures I got off a google search and faded them using the Colors>Curves (cos I didn’t know about the opacity slider either *facepalm*)


(This one is actually a brush set )


Layer 8
Next I added another light pink layer (same colour as the original background one) and set it to about 50% opacity to create a highlight layer. Then I cut out sections around the kiss pics and the text layer. I screen capped it without the background layer showing so you can see better.



Layer 9
Finally I added the border around the outside the same colour as the ones on the inside.

Oh, I moved the text layer to the top above the highlight layer.

These are 2 of the different background colours I used.

This one I used the border colour as a background and applied the canvas to it.



This one has a plain black background.

[LiliJ]

I just talked to you on the family thread!

And yes I know, that's cos it only shows them if I save it, and then I can't make any changes! Hey, I'll show you the top layer...



And the background...



Does that help?

EDIT: Oma, I prefer the one with the plain blackground! But they both rule.

EDIT2: Have decided! Right, so anyone got any better ideas for the text than "Sam and Jack: seperated but never truly apart"?

[Jumble]

Smooch sig

Spoiler:

This sig came about because I made a wallpaper for a friend of mine who just got married using pics of her and her hubby smooching that she'd put on her blog page Her fave colour is, yep you guessed, pink. I changed the pics for S&J...I made a few different versions of this one cos I couldn’t decide what other background colour to use

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...smoochsig3.png

This sig has 9 layers.

Canvas Size 600 x 180.

Background Layer – light pink background (f8d6d6) with canvas effect (Filters>Artistic>Apply Canvas)

Layers 2, 3 & 4 are the kiss layers. Open each pic as a new layer (File>Open As Layer).

Then I resized and used the rectangle tool to cut away the part I didn’t want, then the move tool to place it where I wanted it. Then I adjusted the colours on the POV and BD pics to make them more uniform. I lowered the saturation, and adjusted the colour balance. Trial and error really until they looked right. (cept I messed up the POV one - it's too pink!)

I didn’t know about the selection editor at the time to put a border around it (Select>Selection Editor>bottom right icon), so I did it the long winded way of highlighting the layer, cut and paste into new image. Then I used the crop tool to cut away the rest of the layer just leaving the pic. Then used the Filters>Add Border (colour 931616). Then copy visible (so it copies both the layers without having to merge them) and pasted it back into the original sig and move it back into place.

If I was making it now, I’d just resize the pic, use the rectangle tool to select the part I want, use the selection editor to put the border in, then invert the selection and cut away the rest. Of course, if you don’t know that you want a border or what colour you want to use at this point, you can come back to the layer later and still use the selection editor to add the border. So much simpler (((Hugs Josiane for figuring out the selection editor)))

Layer 5
Next I added the text layer. I used the script-fu for this rather than the text box because I didn’t want just plain text and shadow. For this one you use Xtns>Logos (if you have an older version of gimp it will be Xtns>Script-Fu>Logos). There are loads and loads of different settings, I’ve spent hours and hours playing with them all to see what they do . For this one though, I used Glossy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...xtnsglossy.jpg

The big red circle to the right for Jumble, so she doesn’t get distracted…

Spoiler:

You’ll get a dialogue box come up with lots and lots of info in it. Text: Smooch. Font Size:40. Font: Ravie semi-expanded. Blend Gradient (text): Foreground to Background (just click on the gradient box to change it). Blend Gradient (outline): Foreground to Transparent. Outline size: 2. Don’t worry about the rest of the stuff. Click OK. It’ll put your text into a new window. If you click on the eyes, you can see the effects the different layers have. I ditched the shadow and background layers and kept the other ones. Then I used the hue saturation sliders, moved the saturation slider right and the lightness slider left to make the colours deep and dark. Then copied and pasted it into the sig.

When I finished the sig, I decided it didn’t stand out enough so I went back to the smooch text and used the brightness/contrast sliders to make the colour really light pink, the put that in behind the original text layer and positioned it so it was just showing behind the first. Then I merged the two text layers.


Layers 6 & 7
Next I added the hearts layers. This was before I knew about brushes too So I used heart pictures I got off a google search and faded them using the Colors>Curves (cos I didn’t know about the opacity slider either *facepalm*)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ts_brushes.jpg
(This one is actually a brush set )


Layer 8
Next I added another light pink layer (same colour as the original background one) and set it to about 50% opacity to create a highlight layer. Then I cut out sections around the kiss pics and the text layer. I screen capped it without the background layer showing so you can see better.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...lightlayer.jpg

Layer 9
Finally I added the border around the outside the same colour as the ones on the inside.

Oh, I moved the text layer to the top above the highlight layer.

These are 2 of the different background colours I used.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...smoochsig2.png
This one I used the border colour as a background and applied the canvas to it.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../smoochsig.png
This one has a plain black background.

It didn't work, because all I could see was that his face was missing, and stared at it for ages trying to work out why before I read that line

Great tut Oma, you always come up with so many things I don't know, thanks

[LiliJ]

Ok, finished! Take a gander and see what you think...

[SeNedra]

I just talked to you on the family thread!

And yes I know, that's cos it only shows them if I save it, and then I can't make any changes! Hey, I'll show you the top layer...

[ATTACH]5911[/ATTACH]

And the background...

[ATTACH]5912[/ATTACH]

Does that help?

EDIT: Oma, I prefer the one with the plain blackground! But they both rule.

EDIT2: Have decided! Right, so anyone got any better ideas for the text than "Sam and Jack: seperated but never truly apart"?

Yeah, I see it I like the text, It's true, we know
I never use my own tex, I use no text at all or borrow a part of song.

[jasminaGo]

The new wp version




Lili- I love the sig, it's very...pink

Oma - great tut. Who's next?

[LiliJ]

I know, it wasn't meant to be that pink... Ah well.

LOVE the wp! Very nice and persuasive!

[Bekki]

APA, great postcard Love it!

LiliJ - love your new sig. It's very fluffy and wonderful

Jasmina - very effective wallie Love the little photo thingies

*I'm such a lurker in this thread...hehehe*

You guys are all doing great stuff! Cheers

[Jumble]

The new wp version

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh314/jasminaGo/photoshop/wallpaper/th_201-1.jpg
Oma - great tut, who's next?

Wow, it turned out really terrific (trying not to keep saying 'awesome' ) much better than I envisaged because I couldn't see where to put the text Well done
Can I post it on MOP?

Edit: Does that sound patronising? That's not how I meant it!

[jasminaGo]

Wow, it turned out really terrific (trying not to keep saying 'awesome' ) much better than I envisaged because I couldn't see where to put the text Well done
Can I post it on MOP?

Edit: Does that sound patronising? That's not how I meant it!

Why would that sound patronising It really doesn't, don't worry

And I remade the wally just so that you can put it on the MOP site

[Blacky Kitten]

Aw, a lot of beautiful art work! It's brilliant!

Lili, your links don't work. I want to see your artwork!
Oma, thanks for the tut!