Cutie Shootout!

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  Step 1

  first you have to scan in your lineart. I used Xsane which allows me to scan it in the lineart format, and also to flip it over and such when I'm done. save your image and open up gimp.

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  Step 2

  to open your image in gimp, right click and find 'open in' and then choose gimp (With windows, it usually has an option called open in gimp' when you first right click- but only if gimp is open) or simply drag onto the toolbox. go to image> mode>indexed and change it to black and white (1 bit) pallete. using the wand tool, select your line art. only use the colour select tool if your image has NO unwanted smudges on it. (and this is unlikley)

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  Step 3

  convert you image to greyscale. create a new layer below your lineart and call it 'flat'. put all the flat colours you want on this. if you use the colours you would usually use on a colour image, the greyscale will atomaticly convert them to grey. to fill in parts, use the paint bucket tool set to 'fill similar colours' with the 'sample merged' button checked and the tolerance at 0% . if it fills areas you don't want it to, look it over for gaps, and fill them using the pencil tool. the paint will now stay in the area. don't do the pupils of the eyes yet.
  if you can't find your lavers window, go to window> dockable dialogs> layers. the button for a new layer is the shiny peice of paper.

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  Step 4

  create a new layer and call it 'eye' pencil on a shadow and a big version of the pupil, with a darker colour than the iris.

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  Step 5

  create a new layer called 'eye' (it should rename it eye #1 or something similar) and do a smaller layer of this shape using a darker colour than the one before it.

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  Step 6

  repeat step 5. then make a new layer (same name, call them different things if you want to be more original. If you like you could call them 'tom' 'dick' and 'harry'!)

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  Step 7

  paint on some eyeshine. this usually means for me two big blobs and then smaller dots using the different size pencils.

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  Step 8

  use the 'blur' tool to blur all the edges on your eye layers. ust to smooth them down. you may want to save it at this point. the native format for gimp is an xcf. it can handle layers. if you want, you could also save it as a psd.

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  Step 9

  you can make changes at any point, that is the beauty of layers. for example, if you want to insert a pattern from an image, as here, open up your image, select all> copy, go back to your art, make a new layer called 'pattern' then select the areas you want it in. go back to your new layer (with the areas still selected) go to edit> paste into then use the anchor button to set it.

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  Step 10

  make a new layer and call it 'hi' (short for 'highlights') choose the direction the light is coming from, and then use a pencil and a paint bucket set to 60% opticity with the forgound colour being white to fill in the highlighted areas.

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  Step 11

  now, to make it look natural without the need to do extra layers of colouring (like on photoshop etc) ue the smudge tool wih the brush 'galaxy big' to smudge all the white areas. it gives a nice, dappled effect. when you've done that, use the colour select tool on the 'flat' layer to select all the transparent areas, then switch back to the 'hi' layer and press delete to get rid of all the stuff that went over the edges when you smudged it. use the rubber tool to get rid of all the rest of the exess.
  hide that layer by clicking the button with the eye. create a new layer named 'lo' (short for 'lowlights') and use the same metods as with the highlights but with black instead of white.

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  Step 12

  to make a simple cityscape, make a new layer and draw the outline of some skyscrapers with the pencil in black or dark grey. select the area below it then use the gradient tool set to 'FG to transparent' to make the colour.

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  Step 13

  make a new brush and set the shape to square, with the size around 50 and the hardness around 0.8-1

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  Step 14

  use this to paint on windows in white (it might be helpful to do this on a new layer). blur the edges.

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  Step 15

  make a new layer and fill it completley with white.

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  Step 16

  turn on the rest of your layers and check over. I noticed I forgot to put on my signiture so I inserted it in the same way as the pattern. I also added some grey to the sky using the FG to transparent gradient set to reverse.

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  Step 17

  to make sure you can post it on things, go to file> save as then put .jpeg at the end of your file name. choose to flatten the image and don't make the quality any less than 75%. now you are done! but keep you xcf for any changes at a later date.

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Olivia H. · Indianapolis, Indiana, US · 32 projects 24th August 2012

I love the tutorial for the greyscale and background! Thanks for the how-to.

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