Glacier scene

This picture originally started out as an ocean scene. For the sky, I used the airbrush tool with varying pressure to get the blue with highlights in the sky. Then I went over it with the smudge tool to get a smoother effect. At first for the skyline on the glacier, I outlined with a blue. Then alternating between the paintbrush and the smudge tool I smoothed it in to get the highlighted effect. For the seal, I used a transparent layer and made the outline of the seal. I filled in the head using the airbrush and smudge tool. For the face i used paintbrush with a small circle for the nose, whiskers, and eyes.

River Landscape

In this picture I started out by painting the blue sky so i filled the page with the blue. Then after doing that I colored the grass in on the bottom of the screen using a little bit of a darker green. After I used the confetti tool with a lighter green to make the grass more realistic. Next I used the airbrush tool to create the clouds then the smudging tool to make them more realistic. To make the sun I painted a yellow circle then smudged in some orange for a more realistic look. To make the trees I used the slanted brush for the trunks and the vine tool on the branches to make it look like leaves. I then added a small river will some rocks. I added some white around the rocks to make it look like the water was running.

Sunset Skyscrapers

The inspiration for this picture came from my hometown of Bradley. I've lived across from a paper mill for about 13 years, and it's always been bothersome whether it be the sight or the smell of it. However, at dusk when the sun sets, the colors are just amazing. There is the usual, yet classic, yellows and oranges, and sometimes even bright pinks and purples, making the sky look as if it were actually painted. I've kind of thought of it as sort of a blend between machine and nature, and a beautiful one at that.
The picture itself was actually quite easy to make; but, while I was drawing, I'd be unsatisfied with the way I smudged something, or whether or not an object seemed out of place. I first started out by using a gradient for a background, I thought that a sort of bright orange slowly blending into pitch black would serve as a good background for a dusk setting. The black bottom which takes up about 1/5 of the screen and that all the building are connected to was just made with the rectangle tool and the free select tool (to carve out various shapes) . I also used the rectangle tool to create the smokestacks, as well as the the antenna on the wide building and the power lines running horizontally through the bottom section of the picture. The smoke took me the longest time to do, because it was the part where I was never satisfied with either the blend of the black and the orange, or the puffiness of the smoke itself. I basically started out with the paint tool and tried to the get soon-to-be smoke as close to the top of the smokestacks as I could, then I simply smudged the edges to my liking. I decided on mixing in some orange into the smoke on the sides and top, to give it the appearance of the sun shining on it and making even something as bad as mill smoke look beautiful. The birds in the right-hand corner of the drawing were made using the galaxy tool and smudging each dot carefully until they looked as though they had wings. As for the small building next to them, rectangle tool and calligraphic brush. Nuff said.

A Good Day

To do this picture I started with the sky color and used the fill tool to get a background. I then painted the brighter green over the blue and then used the blur tool on the horizon line to give it a feel of distance. After that i chose the darker green color of the grass and used the "galaxy small" brush and pained over the bright green and then used the smudge tool to bled it together. I used the circle brushes of various sizes to form the river and the lake. I used 3 different colors and smudged them all together to get the feel of depth of the water. I again used the blur tool to make the lake in the background seem distant. I also smudged the bank of the bigger pond into the pond itself. The tree was difficult. I used the ink tool and had to find the right angle of the brush. i started with one angle and drew the trunk of the tree. I then had to pick a green and change the angle multiple times in order to get the look of a pine tree. I used the same tool to draw the shadow below the tree and to draw the reflection in the water. For the reflection i had to carefully smudge in order to keep the tree's reflection visible while making the water part of it. For the clouds i first used a small circle brush and just drew some random swirls and smudged them. For the gray highlights i used the airbrush on a low pressure and used a fade out stroke, which makes one stroke start dark and fade gradually, I then smudged the gray into the white where i thought it looked good.

A few pictures.

I've been using my laptop to make these, which means I've been stuck using a scratchpad the whole time. Anywhom, this is what I have done so far.



Gray picture with bench: This is the 1st picture I made from scratch using GIMP. Basically, what I did was a bunch of layering. I 1st put in an all gray background with the bucket fill. Then I took the paintbrush and drew the trees, making the trunks the thickest and the branches smaller and smaller as they reached out. [Which was super fun using a laptop's touchpad....] Then once I had the trees in the back done, I took the airbrush and set the pressure to a very low level, somewhere around 2. I sprayed for a while until I got a misty look. Then I did the large tree in a similar fashion as the others. I used the confetti brush to make it look like leaves or teeny branches in the tree. For the ground I just sprayed in some black and smudged. For the bench, I used the shift key to make straight lines. To shade it, I used the dodge and burn tool. I burned where I wanted the shading to be, so as to not mess up the lines I made with smudging or painting over the bench. I think that's about it. :]



Clouds and blue sky: This was pretty simple. I used the blend tool to do the background, but I chose my own colors. I picked a dark then light blue, then decided how much of each I was going to use. Then I put in big splashes of white and smudged it to make the general shape of the clouds. Then I took the airbrush and put it on a very light setting to darken up the clouds and give them more texture. I also took the paintbrush tool and outlined the clouds with a white color. Then I took the airbrush to blend the colors together. For the ground, I just used the pencil sketch paintbrush head to make it look somewhat like african scrub.

In this picture i used many different colors, as well as the smudge tool often. To create the clouds i used the airbrush tool to make white shapes in the sky. Then I used the smudge tool to make them appear more like clouds. To make the water I used the paintbrush tool to put one large, initial layer down. Then I painted stripes across the first layer and each time I made the shade of blue a bit lighter. once I got to the sand i painted a thin line across the border of water and sand and smudged it to create a feel of the waves crashing into shore. To create the sand i put a gold layer down. After that, I put a lighter layer down and smudged it in.