Artistic Maps in GIMP

8/20/2019 Artistic Maps in GIMP

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Orientation

*e're basically going to make some animated brushes in GI! and let them do most of the work forus. There are a few tutorials that make use of the normal brushes, but animating the brushes makes thewhole process a lot easier, especially for trees.

" little bit of orientation. GI! has multiple windows, called dockable dialogues. It takes a littlegetting used to, but I actually like this setup better than a normal !hotoshop setup. It's definitely amatter of personal preference though. The most important box is the toolbox, which is the one with thebuttons on it that opens when GI! is first run.

Making a Mountain Brush

*e'll start with mountains. +pen a new image in GI! of x pixels. The first thing we need todo is make this image transparent. lick on olors / olor to "lpha. This will take one color (defaultwhite) and make it transparent. lick +0. 1our white image should be replaced by the gray checkerpatter than represents transparency in GI!.

2ow we're going to make our first mountain. 3irst, select the pencil tool from your toolbox, and makesure your color is set to black. Then open the brushes dialog with *indows / 4ockable 4ialogs /5rushes. 6elect the ircle 7 (8x8) brush. 6tart by drawing a basic mountain shape.

2ow we'll want to put in some shadows on one side of the mountain. I usually use the left side, butpick whichever side you want. 4raw in some basic triangular shadows. 1ou want about a third of yourmountain to be shaded.


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2ow, we want our mountain to be opa%ue, so we'll fill in the actual mountain with white. lick thearrows to the top right of the color palette on the toolbox to switch your active color to white, and drawin a white line to seal off the rest of your mountain.

*e want to fill in those areas, so pick the bucket fill tool from the toolbox and fill in your white side.

6witch your active color back to black and do the same on the black side.

3inally, switch back to your paintbrush tool and add a few lines at the base of the mountain. This willhelp ground the piece once it's put in the final map.


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+ur first mountain is done9 1ou can, of course, make your mountain much more complex, but try notto make it too distinctive. *e want all of our mountains to look pretty similar.

+ur next step is to make more mountains. :owever, we need to make them all on the same image. Todo this, we'll need to use layers. ;ayers are like pieces of glass placed over your base image uponwhich you can paint other things. 1ou can make certain layers visible or invisible as needed. To add a

layer, open the layers dialog with *indows / 4ockable 4ialogues / ;ayers. lick on the new layerbutton at the bottom left of the ;ayers dialog. 2ame the new layer ountain edmountain. ake sure that the ountain < layer is highlighted # if you don't see anything happen whenyou're drawing on the image, you have probably highlighted (and are drawing on) the invisible firstlayer.

This is my second mountain. It's different, but not too distinctive.

2ow, repeat the previous step about 7 or ? times, naming subse%uent layers ountain @, ountain ,etc. These simple mountains should only take a few seconds to draw once you get the hang of it.Aemember to make each mountain the same si>e and style, and make sure you throw in a few simple,one peak mountains.

+nce you've got ? or 8 mountains, we're ready to save it. lick on 6ave "s and navigate to yourbrushes folder. This should be in your main GI! directory (in ;inux, this is BCgimp-x.xCbrushes bydefault). 6ave it as ountains Tall.gih (gih is the GI! animated brush extension). This will bring up


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another save dialog. 6pacing (percent) is how far you will have to move the mouse before anotherimage appears, relative to the si>e of the brush. 6et this to . 4escription is the name your brush willhave in the brush dialog. I'll name mine ountains (Tall). ell si>e, number of cells, and dimensionare inherited from your image and shouldn't be changed. Aank determines how many images throughwhich you wish your brush to cycle. 6et this to the number of mountains you drew. ;eave the optionto random # this means it will randomly select one mountain each time it draws one. lick save.

2ow, let's try out our new brush. reate a new image


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Aepeat the procedures above and make ? or 8 hills as well. 6ave it in the same manner as yourmountains brush, but name it ountains (6hort) instead. Test this one out too, and see how you like it.Aemember to refresh the brushes so you can see it in the brush dialog. If you don't like any of themountains, Dust go back, erase the offending layer, make a new mountain, and save it again.

Making a Tree Brush

2ow that we've got mountains down, the next step is trees. reate a new


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2ow fill in the tree's leaves with a nice green color. 6elect the color by clicking on the foregroundcolor in the toolbox and manipulating the sliders to get a color you like. Then use the bucket fill to fillin the leaves. y tree now looks like this.

2ow repeat the steps you used to create multiple mountains to create multiple trees, at least 7 or ?.ake each tree a bit different, and maybe even throw a couple of evergreens in there. I like to have

one stunty little bush-tree Dust for variety.

+nce you have your brush ready, test it out. 1ou should be able to get a nice little forest going.=nfortunately, your trees are as big as your mountains9


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To fix this problem, we're going to change the scale of the brush. 1ou can undo your previous

brushstrokes and change the scale using the scale slide bar of the pencil tool, which should be dockedunder your toolbox. hange the scale down to about


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6ave this in the same directory as your other brushes as :ouse&.gbr. The .gbr extension is for normal(non-animated) GI! brushes. 6et the spacing to , but we'll not really be using this brush in strokeslike the others. Aepeat the process to make another house, facing the other direction. ine looks likethis.

Using Brushes to Make a Map

2ow we can make a map9 6tart with a brand new, white background


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!retty horrible, huhE 5ut it gives an idea where we're going to place things. The first thing I like to

place are the mountains. 6tart by creating a new, transparent layer. 2ame it ountains. ake sure it'sselected, and then pick your mountains brush. =se the scale slider to pick the si>e you want yourmountains, then start filling them in, using your sketch as a template. Aemember that you want to putlow mountains around your high mountains. 6tart with the mountains that will be at the top of theimage and work your way down. 1ou may need to switch between your two mountain brushes,depending on the configuration you chose. :ere's a bit of step-by-step for my map.


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2ext we'll put in the rivers. ake a Aivers transparent layer and draw on it with a normal round brush,using a blue color. Trace your previous river lines, paying attention now to where you've placed yourhills and mountains. Aemember, water flows downhill.


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Aoads come next. ake a Aoads transparent layer and draw some black roads over your sketch. ake

sure they're fairly wide.

2ow go to 6elect-F6elect by olor and choose one of your black lines. ;ittle moving selection linesshould show up around every like you Dust make. 2ow go to 6elect / 6hrink... and choose @ pixels.This will make the selected area shrink by @ pixels from every edge. 2ow choose the bucket fill tool

and fill in all of the selected areas with white. This will make your roads nice, parallel lines with anorganic hand drawn feel.


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2ext we'll put in the trees. hoose your tree brush and scale it to your liking. ake a new transparent

layer called Trees. Aemember to start at the top and work your way down.

reate one more transparent layer called 3eatures. *e'll use it for our houses. 1ou can make manymore brushes, like bridges, wi>ard's towers, or whole pre-drawn towns if you want. I'm trying to keepit simple for this tutorial, though. *e'll place groups of houses where we wanted our towns. 1ou may

need to make your mountain or tree layers invisible to see where you put your towns. "gain, rememberto place the houses to the back in first. !lace the houses one at a time, switching between brushesregularly. 1ou only need a couple of houses for a small village, and no more than -? even for a largetown.


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2ow that our sketch has been converted, go back to the background layer, make sure your backgroundcolor is set to white, and hit trl-" and then 4el to delete it. 2ow we can see our map in all itssplendor.


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Placing Decorative Text

+k, it's not all that splendorous yet. *e can't even tell the name of those %uaint little mountain towns9It needs some text. 6elect the text tool (it looks like a big "). !ick a font from the drop down menuand make sure your active color is set to black. Then click anywhere on the canvas and type the nameof one of your towns. If it is too small or too large, you can change the font si>e in the text toolbox

area. 2ow select the path tool. It looks like a caligraphy pen with a strange shape to its left. =sing thistool, click once on either side of the town you want to label. This should produce a thin line, a path,across the town. 2ow click on the middle of the path and pull up. 1ou should see the path bend into acurve. Try to get this curve to be where you would like the text to appear near your town.

+nce your curve is acceptable, select ;ayer / Text along !ath. This will cause the path you made tocontort into the shape of the name you Dust typed. If the name is too short for the path, it will bescrunched over on the left side of the curve you created. If the name is too long for the path, it willshoot off wildly into the upper left corner at the end. =ndo and remake the path until it looks like youwant it.

+nce your path looks right, click on 6elect / 3rom !ath. This will change the path you made into aselected area. 2ow make a new transparent layer called Text. ake sure that Text is stacked on top ofall the other layers (using the blue arrows at the bottom of the ;ayers dialog). 2ow pick the penciltool, a normal brush, and color in the selected area with black. The area that is not selected is masked,so you will only color in the letters.

Aepeat this step for all your other features # towns, roads, mountain ranges, etc. 1ou won't be able toread the labels very well Dust yet # we'll fix that in our next step. *hen you're done, go back and deleteall the text obDects you made # they'll be listed as layers and you can delete them by highlighting themand hitting the trash can button at the lower right of the layers dialog. y map now looks like this.


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2ot too helpful, huhE *e can't read our labels around all the other Dunk. To fix that, we'll need another

layer. reate another transparent layer named Text 5ackground. =se the blue arrows to place itdirectly under Text (which should be at the top of the list). 2ow select the Text layer and click 6elect/ 6elect by olor and pick the black color from any one of your labels, which should highlight all ofyour text. 2ow click 6elect / Grow and pick & pixels. 1our selection should expand. 3inally, selectthe Text 5ackground layer and pick your pencil with white as the active color. olor in all the selectedareas. 6ince the Text 5ackground layer is under the Text layer, the Text remains, but everything under itis hidden by the white masking. 2ow you can read the text as well as the font allows. I like using apretty but somewhat illegible font with this kind of map because it seems to fit. If I were making a mapthat was geared more towards legibility I would use a nice copperplate, and probably not curve themaround the towns as they are now.


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Coloring your Map

2ow we've got our basic map9 The next step is to color it to our liking. +nce you find the colors youlike the best, you can Dust color your brushes and simplify this step. I'm going to start by coloring mymountains gray. Go to the mountains layer, use 6elect / 6elect by olor to select all the white on thelayer. Then use the pencil tool, selecting a nice gray as the active color, and color in all the selectedareas.


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I'm going to do the same thing with my houses and make them brown.

Parchment

2ow we can make that nice ink-and-watercolor on parchment effect. To start, we'll need to makeparchment. There are a number of very nice tutorials on making parchment effects. I'll walk you

through a simple one. 3irst, pick a color for your parchment. " light tan usually looks good. 6electyour white background layer and bucket fill the layer with your tan color.


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2ow make a new layer and name it Texture. 1ou should position this layer so it is under everything

except the background layer using the blue arrows. 2ow, select 3ilters / Aender / louds /!lasma... This will fill the layer with a randomly generated colored cloud. ake sure to put in somerandom seed (or all your parchment will look the same). "lso, you'll have to fiddle around with theturbulence to find a value you like. I like . +nce you've got your settings in, click +0.

!sychedelic9 *e don't need all those colors in our sober parchment map, though. 0eeping the Texturelayer selected, click on olors / olori>e. "ll those colors should change to blue. 2ow find the6aturation slider in the middle and pull it all the way to the left. This will take out all the color in thelayer. 2ow click +0.


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3or our final step, go back to the ;ayers dialog and find the pull-down menu labeled mode at the top.

Aight now it should say normal. hange it to grain extract, which will transfer the negative of thelight-dark contrast to the underlying colored background. 2ow it looks like we've got some agedparchment. If the contrast of your parchment is too much for you, select the Texture layer and movethe opacity slider in the ;ayers dialog until you're happy. I like around H.

atercolor !""ect

"t this point it's a good idea to save your progress. *e'll be merging layers and destroying informationin this next step, and if you feel like you might want to go back and tweak things, now is the time tosave. 6ave the file as a .xcf, the default GI! proDect file extension. This will preserve your carefullycrafted layers in all their glory.

2ow, we're going to start merging layers. This basically combines two layers on top of one another.3irst select your top layer (this should be the Text layer). Aight click on the layer and choose erge


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3inally, you'll probably want to put in title, compass rose C north arrow, and any other sundries. If themap is being used as a handout for an A!G, however, it may or may not have such extravagances..."nyway, I opted for a north arrow and no title on this one. :ere's the finished product.

#urther $pplications

6pending a bit more time on the map will make it look a lot better. 3or example, spending a couple ofminutes drawing a river winding through the mountains, (or Dust using multiple mountain layers toachieve the same effect) really improves the look of a map.

1ou can make brushes for anything you want. ust tune their randomness and spacing as desired. 3orexample, sand dunes for a desert should be painted with a high spacing. The nicer your brush imageslook, the better your final map will be.

I like using this techni%ue to make a purely black and white image, print it out, and then age it in thedregs of a cup of tea to use as a handout for my games. 6imilarly, making a black and transparentimage, putting it over parchment, and then painting in the watercolors between the black and thebackground makes for a more realistic JwatercoloredK look. $xperiment, and happy mapmaking9

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Artistic Maps in GIMP