Ah well you see. GIMP is not the slightest bit interactive that way, so I was relatively easy to impress

I haven't read the manual. I just started playing. The interface is very intuitive and extremely easy to use.

I'm not really getting what you mean when you ask me if the image is inside my illustration? I drew it all by myself (I sound like an excited kid don't I! LOL!) - three layers three different bevel settings, all the same colour. The pattern is a capital letter 'M' from a font called Royal2 that I picked up off one of the free font sites, just in case I ever needed to do illuminated capital letters.