Cool reptile effect (NOT DIALUP FRIENDLY)
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maxtothemax |
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Jun 11, 2009 |
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Special Effects |
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In this tutorial, I will show you how to make a picture of a snake. The snake will have a cool scaly texture to it. For simplicity's sake, the snake will not have a head, and the body will not taper. No source pictures will be used. The tutorial is best viewed with a 1200*800 screen or better, since that's what resolution the screenshots are.
In order to follow the tutorial, you need to have the "stained-glass" plug-in, which can be found as part of this package: http://registry.gimp.org/node/97
If anyone knows of an easier way to do this, please let me know! :)
CREATING THE SCALES
To start with, we'll create an image. Make it nice and big, because we need some extra room to play with. I chose 1280 by 800.
Next, use the stained-glass plugin. The default cell size of 18 is okay.
In the toolbox, pick the select-by-color tool, and set the threshold to 0. Click on a black pixel in the picture.
Invert your selection and fill it with white.
In the toolbox, select the gradient tool. Enable the "invert gradient" option, and set the shape to "Shaped (spherical.)" Then, apply the gradient to the selected white area.
Zoom out and admire your scale texture. Not bad, eh?
CREATING THE DISPLACEMENT MAP
In order for the final picture to look any good, the scale texture must be distorted a bit to match the curvature of the snake.
Create a new layer and make it white. Then, select the "path" tool.
Create a path with the general shape of the snake. Remember, the path will be stroked with a very thick brush, about double the thickness of the actual snake, so don't go into too much detail.
Click the "stroke path" button. Set the line width to 150 pixels, set the cap style to rounded, and MAKE SURE TO DISABLE ANTI-ALIASING!
In the toolbox, pick the "fuzzy select" tool and select the black area we just made.
Next, pick the gradient tool. Don't change any of its settings from before, just apply it to the selection.
Bring up the "path" dialog, and select the path we made before. Adjust it a bit to make it follow the contour of the actual snake.
This adjustment is something of a black art-- just keep in mind that dark areas in the displacement map will tend to stretch the scales out more. Since snakes have wider scales on their underbellies, wherever there's belly, there should be a dark area. If this confuses you, you might want to read through the next few steps without following along, so you can see what we will be working towards.
Create a new layer and make it white.
Stroke the path. Be sure to set the line width to 75 instead of 150! Reduce the opacity on the current layer such that you can make sure this new stroked line doesn't go outside the old, big stroked line. If it goes outside in any place, undo it, readjust the path, and try again.
Turn the opacity back up. Use the fuzzy select tool to select this new black area, then delete it so that the selection becomes transparent.
Merge the top layer down and stretch the contrast.
APPLYING THE DISPLACEMENT MAP
For a moment, switch to the background and hide the top layer.
Choose the "displace" plugin. For both displace maps, pick the top layer. Choose "polar" instead of the default "Cartesian." Set "pinch" to 2.0 and "whirl" to 6.0.
Un-hide the top layer and set its mode to "darken only." Then use the fuzzy select tool on the top layer to select the negative space around the snake.
Return to the bottom layer and, keeping the same selected area, fill the whole selection with white. Merge the layers and you're done!
In the final product, I chose to add a branch to the picture.
You can use this trick on more advanced objects, like I did with this one:
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Icons from famfamfam.com Server time: 2009-12-30 10:56:02 PM
Very impressive! Good stuff. and very detailed