Create a Surreal Piece of Art

I am just learning GIMP and this was a great piece to start with. Your detail was very easy to follow and my image turned out awesome. Thanks

I'm glad that my mission was accomplished: to make it simple for beginners :)

Great work on the details Ajit :)

Cool site!!!

Create a Surreal Piece of Art
ajit – Thu, 02/05/2009 - 19:15 Effects

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This tutorial is directed towards beginners and thus will go into significant detail on how to accomplish each step. This tutorial was made specifically for Gimp 2.6.4.

Hello and welcome to my Gimp tutorial. My name is Jacob Philpott and I am a graphic designer.I hope you enjoy my tutorial! In this tutorial I will show you how to create this image from scratch:

~James

I love this tutorial. It's great and with lots of detail.

Thanks people :)

cool tutorial ajit. congrat :)

thanks starlight :)

That was quite a morning inspiration (http://darkgaze.org/downloads/morninginspiration.xcf). Apart from being a good tutorial, its a nice piece of art.

Superb. I am more of an intermediate and this will do well for us too,just to get more ideas.

thanks people :)

I would try if I could.. But my paths tool doesn't work. >.> And I only have Gimp 2.2.13 x]

But the tut looks nice.

Um. Why not download the new Gimp for free and install it. Not a difficult task.

Yes Lateralus138 is definitely right, you should be able to download the latest version on your computer... if you have tried in the past and it doesn't work for some reason, maybe start a help topic in the forum?

Good luck :)

nice, there is a lot of good stuff. The steps are easy to follow and they are very detailed.

Thankie :)

Very nice tutorial, thank you.

Thisis realy very good introduction to Gimp and for me also to making graphics on my nb :) but I have one problem:
When I`m making circle and then when I use blend tool the circle is just infront of path.I don`t know what to do with,it realy don`t look very nice when you have it before path. I wonder if someone could tell me what am I doing wrong. I followed every step, read it at least twice.
Pls write something for solution. Thank you very very:)

Press ctrl-L to open up the layers dialog and make sure the circle layer is below the paths layer

Yes,I`ve got it:)))) Thank you so much:))♥♥♥big big happy smile♥♥♥

yay, tis a great tutorial... such an interesting piece, yet so simple.. i love it!

thanks :)

Simply awesome!
Great tut...

that was excellent work, great details. I've been on GIMP for a while but i have never really done much and that was absolutely great..............................Just on thing^^ i dont have that brush can i get some help???

Very nice but I think I am missing something. From step 3 to four; You stated to select the "Dunes" in brushes, which I did. But, in step 4, your line appears as solid with reflection. Mine still is in "Dune". Also, what "spacing" are you referring to in the brush selection step?

Newbie here, sorry.

You can find the spacing bar on your "Brushes" dialog box in your "Channels, paths and gradients" window down at the bottom by the "Layers" and "Patterns".

Oh, cool, thanks Lateralus. What about the "wet look" of the Path instead of dunes?

Try it. That is what I do. With Graphics programs there are an almost infinite number of possibilities. Experiment. I just think of these tutorials as a way to learn how to use the program and learn techniques. I just do the tutorial once the way it says to be 100% I know how it works and then I do like 3 or 4 more in the next couple days but using different techniques I have learned elsewhere and figured out myself to see what I get and to be sure I know how to do it. I then wait a week and try it again without using the tutorial to see what parts I have forgotten and then focus on those things until it is pounded into my head.

Can I post it on a forum for a tut and give credit to you

@ Visitor-barcboy09 you can't repost the whole tutorial anywhere else, you may translate/re-write it but please don't duplicate the actual tutorial.

Yup, I hear you and that is the way to learn, no doubt. I do exactly what you do, including the requirement to "pound it into my head". Heck, I remember even in college having to re-read a section in my physics text about 15 times before it sunk in.

Still, I would like to know what brush he used in step 2, or other technique to get that solid brush stroke, because the tut says "Dunes" was selected, but it definitely is not the "Dunes" brush (at least in at step 4).

Thanks

Hmm I'm not sure where the problem is, but I definitely used the dunes brush, a brush that should come with Gimp.

Just make sure you match all of the settings to mine, and make the spacing pretty close

Yes it was definately the Dunes brush.

yea imma retarded boy and i do go hard frog is the name and i goto dat C where it gets dumb but this picture is kinda tight

Sweet tutorial, now the only thing I'd improve on is giving the ball a texture, maybe eggshell or something.

Very good tutorial, but for some reason step 13 (gradient map) didn't work form me - still no color. I wonder why...

Ok, I got it. The gradient in the step 13 should be "FG to BG" for the color to show. And I had "Default" selected instead.

hey there FANTASTIC tut.
Its the only tutorial i hav ever read that actually goes into the detail i need.
the only thing i am having problems with is the Gaussian Blur i have NO CLUE what it is, how to do it or where to find it !!

help please

awesome...thank you vRY much....

Great tutorial, hopefully once people try it out they can add their own style and creativity to it. Of course Art is about creativity and originality, so this tutorial should just be a start. Perhaps users should post links to their Abstract Art here, that they developed from this tutorial? Maybe then write another quick post with all the best Abstract Art work?

Da webmaster(s) should make these tutorials available in pdf form so that i can read and share them with friends whilst im away from the internets.

I still don't get how to move the layer beneath the paths layer? what is the paths layer?
:S

Good site, admin.

Beautiful piece of work. I was able to get one nested egg, however, I have been stuck on step 12 forever. I cannot get the duplicated layers to move. My selection tool stays as a cursor and doesn't change form. Not sure what to do. I know I have to stop pulling my hair out.

Nevermind. I finally figured it out. Geeeze...I won't even tell you what I was doing wrong. Embarrassing. Kinda.

Great TUT.

I cant make it work.
Can you please make a video of this ?
Pleease.

I have a problem. After step 3 my path comes out as very fragile, nearly invisible gray patching, not black like yours. Everything else works out well, but the .. thingy that should be black, is gray and very weak.

I think I got this. Looks sweet, but what "Change the layer mode to "Overlay"" means.

^ Im the same again, 3rd post xD

Okay. I got it to overlay (im dummy, was right in front of my eyes) but.

Are you sure that the brush in the picture is right? I tried to do this with a normal, black brush and not the cloud looking one. My picture turnt out to be awesome.

THANK YOU!!!

This looks even cooler if one uses "divide" instead of "overlay."

uhh i dnt get it.

amazing. really good.

Great tutorial!

The outcome is amazing. *thumbsup*

I tried it an here is the result: http://do-2.deviantart.com/art/Surreal-Art-131835197

Comments please :)

Oh yeah.... Perfekt.... Good....

This is AWESOME!!!! I am a new Gimper and the way the tutorial is created it is perfect for guys like me :). Great job in creation and even a better job is explaining it.

Nice tutorial,

I Learned a lot about how to do various new things.
Gimp is a a real powerhouse of a digital creation tool.
Thanks, so very much.

A nice effect comes when use Multiply instead of Overlay in the last step...

BR.

or, maybe, Divide

Very nice picture - awsome tutorial.

Thank you from Germany!

thx, here are the results!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34841115@N02/3976517875/sizes/l/

Jacob, superb tutorial, thanks for the taking the time to make it. I am quite new to Gimp but had no trouble following any of the steps. Very well laid out and has taught me some interesting effects as well as bread and butter stuff such as copy visible.... paste.... make new layer. Once again thank you very much!