[Award Winner] Eriond - A Tutorial for GIMP & Wilbur

[arsheesh]

I'm stuck at the mountains/airbrushing part. Can someone explain it to me? This is where I'm at so far: http://i.imgur.com/neG70ur.png I just can't get the mountains to blend in. Should I erase them a bit and make them narrower? How long should the shading take? I feel like with 3% opacity I have to stroke the same tiny area 20 times before I notice a change.

Hi Xuixien. Don't despair, this is the most time consuming part of this tutorial; it's not just you. However there are a couple of ways you can use to help speed up the process.

First, since writing this tutorial I've discovered a handy little trick to cutting down on the amount of erasing needed on the mountain clouds layer. If you take the select by color tool and select any transparent pixels on the mountain clouds layer (i.e. anywhere where there aren't any clouds) this will create a selection of everything but those clouds. Now if you feather the selection (Select > Feather) by say 10-30 px or so, depending on the size of your map, and then click "delete" this will fade the perimeter of our clouds, effectively getting rid of any hard edges. You will still need to do some spot erasing and blending but this trick will save you a lot of time.

Second, beyond just erasing the mountain clouds layer remember to to also airbrush the land clouds layer below it. This will help to make the transition between the two layers appear seamless. In my own workflow I often go back and forth between erasing and airbrushing until I can't tell where one layer ends and the other begins. It looks to me like you've started the air brushing process but have only focused on the area directly beneath the mountain clouds. It's worth pointing out is that as in painting you want to begin with broad brush strokes, gradually building up the height of the areas surrounding the mountains (e.g. the foothills) before moving in with a smaller brush to sort out the finer details of blending. This will help the transition from lowlands to highlands to mountains appear smooth and gradual.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Xuixien]

Hi Xuixien. Don't despair, this is the most time consuming part of this tutorial; it's not just you. However there are a couple of ways you can use to help speed up the process.

First, since writing this tutorial I've discovered a handy little trick to cutting down on the amount of erasing needed on the mountain clouds layer. If you take the select by color tool and select any transparent pixels on the mountain clouds layer (i.e. anywhere where there aren't any clouds) this will create a selection of everything but those clouds. Now if you feather the selection (Select > Feather) by say 10-30 px or so, depending on the size of your map, and then click "delete" this will fade the perimeter of our clouds, effectively getting rid of any hard edges. You will still need to do some spot erasing and blending but this trick will save you a lot of time.

Second, beyond just erasing the mountain clouds layer remember to to also airbrush the land clouds layer below it. This will help to make the transition between the two layers appear seamless. In my own workflow I often go back and forth between erasing and airbrushing until I can't tell where one layer ends and the other begins. It looks to me like you've started the air brushing process but have only focused on the area directly beneath the mountain clouds. It's worth pointing out is that as in painting you want to begin with broad brush strokes, gradually building up the height of the areas surrounding the mountains (e.g. the foothills) before moving in with a smaller brush to sort out the finer details of blending. This will help the transition from lowlands to highlands to mountains appear smooth and gradual.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

How do I select the right brush type (hardness, size, etc)? Is that something that just comes from experience?