How to Create Cartoon Clouds in Gimp

Posted by	kasrak
Created	Jan 4, 2007
Category	Fun
Views	68,938
Favourites	2

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This tutorial will teach you how to make fluffy cartoon clouds.

Don't wanna read? Watch the video!

Step 1: Create a New File

Leave the defaults, 480x680 is fine.

Step 2: Set the background color

I set it to a nice, sky blue gradient: #66aebd to #8fe1f3:

Step 3: Create the Cloud

Select the elliptical select tool and set the following settings. Everything is at its default value, except the mode, which is set to Add:

Create a new layer. Now create a couple of circles (hold Shift to create circles) connected to each other using the elliptical tool until you have a selection that looks like this:

Now use to the fill tool to fill your selection with white:

Step 4: Depth and Shadows

Time to add some depth to our clouds. Set your foreground color to a slightly darker and muted blue that you used for the background. I used #618d96. Then select a circular brush with the following settings (make a new one if you can't find one that matches):

Create a new layer above your cloud's layer, use this brush, to add some depth to your cloud. You might want to decrease the opacity of this layer. I set it to 40%:

Finally, just add a very weak drop shadow to your cloud (Script-Fu > Shadow > Drop Shadow). Make sure the cloud's layer it selected, not the depth layer!:

Finished!