question about gimp and making stuff for the manaworld ?

[sango98]

I right now I'm learning to use gimp but i'm not sure if i need all the tutorials or not or if I should just focus on one
plus I'm kinda in a hurry to learn all I need really fast but I'm thinking the best thing to do is take my time anywho I was wondering are all the tutorials needed
or should I just focus on the ones that deal with just drawing and colors ?

This is the site I'm using for tutorials http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/#Beginner

[Nami]

Hi Sango, nice to see you interested

I would reccomend reading as many basic tutorials as you can and just practice drawing the pieces they say in the tutorial, also try and draw simple objects yourself on GIMP.
I would use these steps at first to create a simple piece of art:

-Make a colour palette; about 4-5 colours you will need for your art work, so if you're making a banana for example, you would have 5 shades of yellow, dark to light.

-Start by drawing the outline of your banana using the darkest shade in your palette, this is called the lineart.

-Fill in the banana with a shade from the middle of your palette.

-At this point add details, such as the stalk and the dark lines running through the banana skin.

-Use the darker shades (not same as the one used for the lineart) to shade the area away from the light source. TMW uses a light source from the top left.

-Use the lighter shades to shade the area of the banana closest to the light source.

These are very basic steps to draw a simple object take your time and be patient and you'll learn things as you progress.

When I first started, I used these tutorials, they can be found on the TMW wiki.
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/ ... #Tutorials

Here is a banana I did when I first started to pixel

Banana 3.png (803 Bytes) Viewed 2155 times

Good Luck!

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[sango98]

Nami i'm also gonna try getpaint .net as well so I can do both gimp and paint .
Thanks for the advice nami I will not rush either of them this time .

[Nami]

That's not a problem at all Sango

Nami i'm also gonna try getpaint .net as well so I can do both gimp and paint .

What do you mean? GIMP is probably the best software to do art for TMW, all the artists for TMW I know use it, that way, if you need help it will be easier to help you. You can also "paint" with GIMP too

I forgot to mention in my last post that all icons for TMW must have a transparent background and be 32x32 pixels in size.

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[sango98]

I didn't know gimp was that great and that everyone used it since you say that nami i will just stick with gimp .
I think i'll make it easier on my self and just learn one way and stick with gimp .
hey Nami when you started gimp was it very hard for you at first ?

[Nami]

When I first started GIMP, it was very very hard for the little brain which my body houses. I was always making simple tasks harder and longer, but as I used GIMP more and more, I learnt shortcuts, it's all about patience

Besides, when I first started GIMP, I used just the Pencil and The Eraser tool to pixel art, I still use only them two tools still.

A few tips:
-Have your Pencil and Eraser size on 0.1 pixels large, DO NOT use the paintbrush ever!
-Make sure you have 'Hard Edge' ticked on the Eraser settings.
-Holding the CTRL key and clicking on a pixel will select the colour of that pixel for your brush, very handy.
-Always save your art at different stages too, so you have back-ups in case some evil gremlins appear.

That's basically it for pixelling simple images for icons and such.

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[o11c]

-Always save your art at different stages too, so you have back-ups in case some evil gremlins appear.

If you don't have a cow filesystem (which very few people do, despite its awesomeness), the way *I* would do it would be to do a git commit on every save. You could set up an inotify hook to do this automatically, or just do it on a timer.

[Crush]

-Have your Pencil and Eraser size on 0.1 pixels large

Don't you mean 1.0 pixel?

I also find the hue/saturation/value dialog and the select-by-color tool very handy for tweaking the colors of a finished piece.

When you got a bit more comfortable with GIMP, you should learn how to use multiple layers. It is very handy to create an object on the background where it is supposed to be used while being able to switch the background on and off at any time.

[Nami]

-Have your Pencil and Eraser size on 0.1 pixels large

Don't you mean 1.0 pixel

Ah, yes I did Crush, thank you very much for pointing that out
And I also agree with Crush about the layers too, especially helpful when making slightly more complex pieces other than icons. And yu can use the layers to change the background to red or something as the gray checkered canvas does make to difficult to see pixels at times.

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[sango98]

Thanks guys I will do all the tutorials and practice a lot til I get it right and enjoy making stuff for the manaworld .