------------------------------------------------------------------- ---How to plan and handle a large painting project in GIMP--- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Creating a full-colour painting in GIMP involves a lot of work and takes some experience, both with the program, but also with planning the project in general. Some have asked me about the practical details around creating a large image in GIMP - that is, how to plan it, set up layers and in which order I do things like colouring, shadows and compositioning. This tutorial aims to give an insight into these things. Disclaimer: There are an infinite amount of ways to go about this. This tutorial will of course only show the way I personally go about a large piece. Consider it inspiration and a look into my work process if you like, but remember that there is no "right" way to do it. This is the image we will create in this tutorial: ![]() This is a massive tutorial and you shouldn't expect to work through it in one sitting. Maybe you might want to look on it less as a "tutorial" and more of a "step by step inspiration". It is summarizing about 18 hours of work with this image. I don't expect you to copy my results, but rather I hope that you can learn from seeing my work process and apply it to your own images in the future. Enjoy. Preparations Basics Before attempting a large image like this, it's critical to know GIMP well. I won't go into the details of the various paint tools in this tutorial. I will assume you know the basics of using the airbrush at low opacity, applying smudge and to sketch on the computer, as well as all the other normal operations needed. I have many earlier tutorials covering these topics which should help you set up. I recommend you check these out and do them or at least make sure the techniques they show are familiar to you. You need dynamic brushes set up (This is useful also if you use GIMP2.4 with brush scaling). You should also know basic airbrushing for most subtle artwork you want to do. Brushes/Airbrushing tutorial You must know smudging and colour application. as well as how to use the airbrush fully. The simple training in drawing your hand will help to fine-tune this.Advanced Airbrushing tutorial Sketching in black&white is also important. I will use a slightly different technique to sketch in this tutorial than in the sketching tut, but it's nevertheless useful to learn how to draw people. Sketching tutorial For backgrounds, several of the techniques in the City tutorial are re-used.Draw a sci-fi city It's important to know how to draw people. This tutorial tries to teach drawing faces: Portrait painting For final compositioning, there are several standard tricks to apply interesting lighting to an image. Adding a fantasy mood tutorial All relevant art-making tutorials of mine can be found here. Tool setup The main tools used are the Paintbrush, Airbrush and the Smudge tool. They should all have a low opacity set. Use 50-60% opacity for the Paintbrush and Airbrush, and 30% opacity for the Smudge tool. Lower the Smudge opacity if your colour-blends are too strong. Another useful tool is the Clone tool and its sibling, the Perspective clone tool. These should also be used with around 50% opacity. I will explain them more where they are used. Pre-planning There is of course no way to tell you how to get inspiration and ideas for a large image. In my case it's usually part of some story or scene I have come up with for some other project, like a roleplaying game or a novel. In this case I found an old pencil drawing I did ten-twelve years ago, showing a woman on the edge of a cliff, with soldiers standing behind her, looking worried. I didn't go with exactly that scene, but that was where I got the inspiration from, anyway. - It should be two people discussing war strategy - The warlord, a female, should discuss something with her general. - They should stand under a white tree with leaves raining down on them, a serene contrast to the war-affairs they are discussing. - They should stand on some sort of hill or cliff. - Below the cliff should be an army (this I scratched later) - They should be pointing towards something in the distance, a road or a city or similar. Sketching ![]() My GIMP setup. The image is an A4 at 300 DPI (2480x3508). The resolution is needed for possible future printing. I usually leave the white Background layer be, and add a new transparent layer on top of it for the sketch. ![]() For convenience, put the sketch of the background on a separate layer from the foreground figures, so they can easily be moved around over the background. This sketch is done with the paintbrush (at low opacity) and a simple round brush (the dynamically resizeable one created in the Airbrushing tutorial above). This brush is used for 99% of the image, no more fancy brushes are needed. I aimed for a slightly crouched "samurai-style" pose for the warlord, but as shall be seen later, even the best of sketches don't always catches the errors. Her left arm would eventually come out too short, and this I didn't notice until much later. A word of warning, check your anatomy as carefully as you can at this stage, it's much easier to change before more work is done. ![]() I added the General next to the Warlord. I put him on his own layer, but in retrospect there is really no point in doing that. One shouldn't add new layers unless parts of their content overlap. In the case of the general they don't overlap anywhere, so they could well have been on the same layer. This was first version of his hand, supposed to make him look like he was thinking about something the warlord was pointing out. ![]() The layer structure at this point. All layers are at normal mode with full opacity. https://lh5.googleus...0/warlord05.jpg At this point, work at a full zoom-out, so the full canvas is seen all the time. Don't be tempted to zoom in and work on details. The idea with a sketch is to keep it simple enough for you to change. Don't add more detail than you feel you could easily throw away and redo. It doesn't matter that the image looks sloppy and crappy when zooming in - noone will see the sketch but yourself anyway! ![]() Next version of the general, with arms folded. At this point I uploaded this to GIMPtalk, for feedback, and got many good ideas as well as some well-needed critique on the general's hands. This is a useful lesson: don't be afraid to ask people's opinions. It's easy to go blind for errors when working on an image for long enough, some fresh feedback is always good. ![]() An advantage of this style of sketching is the possibility to test out lighting conditions at an early stage. Add a layer above your sketch and set its mode to "soft light". You can add more layers if you want to compare experiments, like I did. ![]() Using the new light experiment layer, I tried adding light and shadow. This is a test for a low sun, with long shadows. ![]() The sun up on the top right; overcast diffuse sky. ![]() After feedback from GIMPtalk, I adjusted the hand of the warlord a final time, having him hold a map instead. ![]() ![]() Some more light experiments with the "final" sketch. Eventually I went with the light coming from the top left of the image, that is, not as extreme shadows as the one tested here. These light experiment layers can be thrown away or at least hidden in the future, they are just an easy way to play and experiment for yourself. Colouring ![]() Hide the foreground figure layers. We will now concentrate on colouring the background. ![]() Here you see the layers that should be visible. Create a new layer "Colour background" with Normal mode. Lower the opacity of the layer where your background sketch is, so you can still make out everything while making it less obtrusive to the colouring process. You will never draw directly on the sketch layer; this should be hidden or deleted when you have copied all you need to the colour layer. ![]() Work with the paintbrush and airbrush to add washed-out colours, laying out the basic forms only. Try to add some "unexpected" colours in there (like my purple). Especially in nature scenes, adding contrasting colours tends to liven the image, even if they might not show much in the end. At this stage I was still not sure about how the distant hills should really look, so I just hinted at them. ![]() Having established the rough colour layout, it's time to add some more details up close. Since I knew more work had to be done with the distant background later, I decided to put the cliff-top (and the tree) on a separate layer ("Colour, cliff"), to make it easier to add things "behind" it later. I wanted a water-covered cliff-shelf. Water reflects the sky above it, hence I started making "puddles" (that probably could be confused with exposed rock as well, looking at them now ...) Only the paintbrush was used for this. Note how rough the structure of the strokes are. ![]() Gradually working with smaller and smaller brushes blends the "puddles" into the surrounding terrain. Try to not use smudge for ground structure; this will create too smooth a look. Using the paintbrush at low opacity will add texture and unevenness automatically. ![]() Some more detail of the tree. ![]() ![]() ![]() I wanted the tree to look very special, with white pines. So I began by using a splatter brush (a brush just made of several small dots) to make the "leaves" of the tree. Next I extended these by selecting the tree and doing a Motion Blur on them (Filters->Blur->Motion blur in GIMP2.4.x). Using the basic structure created by the motion blur as a base, I then fine-tuned the tree's branches, making them into whispy pine needles. ![]() ![]() (This step is not really needed, but it's a useful technique to know.) Now for some GIMP magic. We want to increase the detail of the ground and tree, and to do this we'll apply a texture. Above are a stone and a tree texture. These are images that I took myself with my cell phone ... ![]() Use File->Open as layer to open these textures as separate layers. You can even hide these layers if you want, they are only there to be sources for the clone tool. Create a new layer above your Colour layer. Set it mode "Grain merge" and name it something like "Colour,Texture". Under GIMP2.4, you have access to the Perspective Clone tool. Set it to 30% opacity or less. Using the handles, adjust the perspective clone tool to apply its magic in the same plane as the stone shelf. Select the layer with e.g. the stone texture and Ctrl-click in it (it needs not be visible). When you have done that, select your "Colour, texture" layer again, size up your brus and start applying stone texture to your image. The perspective clone tool will make it look like the texture becomes smaller as it moves further away from you. ![]() Experiment with the clone tool under various opacities to get a subtle effect. The idea is to make the surface look complex and detailed without it actually looking like a photograph being applied. This is where the low opacity comes in. Also, don't be afraid to sample different parts of the source layer (Ctrl-click in a different place in that layer) and paint over what you previously did on the "Colour, texture" layer. The tree trunk was treated in the same way, except only using the normal Clone tool since there's not much perspective on it. Tweaking the opacity of the entire "Colour, texture" layer will further help to make the texture fit subtly into your image. ![]() At this point I felt ready to try making the distant background. So I turned off the "Colour, cliff layer" and returned to the "Colour, background" layer (the texture layer is active in the above image, I turned that off too later). ![]() I used a large brush and a combination of paintbrush and airbrush to start laying out the structure of the background. ![]() ![]() The first idea I had was of making a rather "bare" mountainside. Using the paintbrush I added thin lines to build "structure" along the ridges. Eventually I decided this looked way too uninteresting though. ![]() ![]() Instead I set out to create a forest slope. I did that on a separate layer "Colour, vegetation". Using some reference pictures for a spruce forest, I sat down and painted away. This is mostly a lot of hard brushwork combined with some re-usage of repeating tree-shapes here and there. ![]() An hour later, this is the result. A nice sprawling forest. Note that I don't bother much about the colour consistency at this point; that will be handled at the post-processing stage later. ![]() Right. Time to get the characters in there. Move the sketch layer(s) for the characters to a point where the background colours are not blocking them and check that their positions look ok towards the background. Next you can hide the backgrounds. ![]() Create a new layer "Colour, Figures". Here you will create the colored characters. ![]() I prefer working with characters on a flat dark background, so I created a makeshift gray layer underneath my character sketches (brighter gray than the sketches, naturally). This grey slab was removed afterwards. Lay out a palette on the grey slab. Pick a few light, mid-tone and dark colours and blend in some "weird" colours too, like green and purple for adding "life". Make sure your Colour picker tool has "Sample merged" checked. This means that you can Ctrl-click and pick up the colour you see, regardless of which layer it's on. This way you can use the palette effectively. Only use the colours laid out in the palette for the character, blending will handle the rest. Using the sketch layer as a guide, starting blocking in the major colour areas of the character. In this case, the warlord has a very detailed armour, so I spent some time on giving each piece a separable shade of colour using the opacity of the airbrush (don't pick any other colours than those in your on-canvas palette, remember). The first version of her hair was brown, that later changed. ![]() Making fabric fall realistically is a matter of training. For silky materials, the airbrush and smudge tools come into their own. I might make a separate tutorial on how to draw fabric at some point, but something like this is not that hard. Once again, the low opacity of the airbrush and smudge is the key; just remember where the fabric is falling from and be careful to make your brush strokes only in one direction all the time. ![]() ![]() ![]() Back to the face and portrait drawing 101 (see the portrait painting tutorial). Start by laying out the rough structure of the face, gradually increasing the level of detail. ![]() I decided on a rather elaborate haircut at this point. Note how there are actually green and purple tones in her skin; it's only a hint, but it adds liveliness to a pale complexion. ![]() ![]() As with all anatomical drawings, it's critical to flip the orientation of the image now and then to catch irregularities. I also added more hair structure. As can be seen here, her arm is too short. This rather clear anatomical flaw unfortunately escaped my attention until much later. It's very easy to go "blind" when working on an image, even flipping and zooming in and out cannot completely remove this problem. ![]() Still working on the flipped image, I started with the general. I wanted him to have a very different colour scheme from the warlord, but just as many details. ![]() The General's face should look grim and experienced. ![]() Flipping the image back, we now have the characters in place. They are both kinda basic-looking still, but what is going to change that is how they fit into the environment, and for that we need to actually put them back into that environment. Hide/Delete the gray background layer. It was only there to help us, there is no need for it anymore. ![]() Re-adding the background we see the disadvantage to making the characters on a gray slab instead of on the background: Here and there the background shines through. ![]() Create a new temporary layer under the "Colour, figures" layer and carefully use gray colour to block in the area under the characters, to make sure nothing shines through. (Note: this could have been done more cleverly, but it's very fast so I didn't bother). Merge this temporary layer with the "Colour, figures" layer when you are done. Basic colouring is now finished. Light & Shadow Now it's time to start really integrating all the elements of the image. This means that they should start affecting each other, things should start casting shadows, be lit up etc. ![]() Create a new layer named "Shadow", with mode "Multiply", above the other layers. ![]() Since I already earlier established that light was to come from the upper left, I start applying shadows using a dark colour and the airbrush set to 20% opacity. With this setup it's very easy to add depth and detail using shadowing. By making some parts of her armour slightly differently shadowed, I tried to enhance the realism. The entire image should have shadows added this way. ![]() Create yet another layer above the shadow layer. This one should be normal-mode and called "Light". Still with the airbrush, alternate between the "Shadow" and "Light" layers to add highlights and shadows to the image. Try not to use pure whites or pure blacks at this stage; they tend to make the image look unrealistic. ![]() I took the chance of using a flowery pattern and applied it to her dress using the Clone tool with mode "pattern". Some smudging is needed to create the illusion of depth, despite the pattern is just a flat thing. I used a new "Texture" layer for this; set to mode "Grain merge". ![]() After having gone over the entire image with shadows and light, this is what we have. ![]() To establish global light in the image (sunlight), I wanted a white gradient to sweep the image from the top left. This was done on a new layer "Global light", where I put a simple FG->Alpha gradient. Here you can see the current layer structure at this point. As can be seen, most layers are just minor adjustments like textures and light effects. Most real "painting" was done on only three layers, for the cliff, the background and the characters. We have a lot of unnecessary layers here, we will soon merge as many as we can get away with. Post processing The image is mostly done, as far as content is concerned. We will now add the final touches. At this point I used a File->Save a copy to save the current state of the image named (in my case) Warlord_allLayers.xcf. It's good to have all the layers available somewhere should they ever be needed later. ![]() Then I went on and purged my layer list as much as I could; merging as many layers as possible and deleting everything no longer needed (including all sketch layers). Not only does this make it easier to keep track of things when post-processing starts, but it also makes the image much, much smaller which can be good if you have a shortage of memory. You could have done this earlier as well if you were sure of your additions at the time. ![]() ![]() To establish the final mood of the image, the Colour Curves tool is very important. Experimenting with the colour balance of the image will make the image's "mood" come out very differently. This part alone can take a lot of time but it's also a lot of fun, because of how easy it is to change things completely. The good part with having the background, cliff and characters on different layers is that you can do this experimenting for each part individually, creating very interesting effects. Eventually I opted for a slightly more "dramatic" composition than the original. ![]() Deciding that I wanted an even more glum tone I made a "glass plate" layer (there are a few more layers in the above image, they are added below). A "glass plate" is what I call a layer whose only function is to add a colour to the things below it. Set the layer to mode "Hue". I gave it a brownish colour, something that I felt fit well with the war theme of the image. Then it's just a matter of changing the opacity of the glass plate layer until the effect is what you want. ![]() On a new layer "Misc Effects" I made a few selections to represent sun rays sifting through the branches of the tree. ![]() Filling those selections with linear gradients is a good way to make beams of light. The image is almost done at this point. Final tweaks and fixes ![]() The first version of the image. Time to save. Always save using File->Save a copy, it's much easier to keep track of the file names that way (since you will always have your .xcf image remaining on-screen). I always save three .jpg versions of the original .xcf, in different sizes. I use Image->Scale image to rescale it. First is a small version, 707x1000 pixels for direct use on a web forum like GIMPtalk (where it cannot be too big or it will stretch the page). Second is a slightly bigger, 848x1200 pixels. This is for DeviantArt. Third is a direct jpg export of the original image size, without any rescaling, 2480x3508 pixels large. This is for printing on DA and elsewhere. At this point the image was put up on the web, to get feedback on it. This is an integral part of creating the image - don't consider your image finished yet! ![]() In the comments on the web, many things where pointed out, among them that the arm was wrong. So I went back to the "Colour, figures" layer and fixed it. Of course, all shadows, lights and so on must also be changed in the same way. ![]() The final image. Click above for the DA original. You can also see and comment on it . here on GIMPtalk. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you read this far, congrats, you are done! Hope this was of use to you and gave you some inspiration to how to go about making your own images. If you have any questions or think some things are unclear, don't be afraid to ask and I'll update this. . Griatch Griatch |
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