Background story images

[JAP]

Thanks for all the comments
I will start to work on a new job on monday and wont have as much spare time, but i will try to do something now and then.
Here is a picture of the sea i did today.
It didn't come out exactly like i wanted, but pretty ok.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Your "oilifying" technique is getting rather impressive. Would you like to write a tutorial about it in the Wiki?

[JAP]

Your "oilifying" technique is getting rather impressive. Would you like to write a tutorial about it in the Wiki?

Thanks! I dont know if it should be in the Wiki, but i can post a short tutorial here.
If you think it is god enough for the Wiki feel free to put it there (after some grammar corrections perhaps)
Sorry for the language am not so used the write english.

"oilifying" photos using GIMP

1 Chose a picture that has a lot of contrast (it looks god when you play with light and shadows). And if your picture has any large "empty" areas (like a clear blue sky for example) try to use a different sky or add some clouds, or a rainbow, whatever looks god. Because those "empty" areas doesn't look god when you use this style.

2 Change brightness-contrast and color balance until you think you got it right. Try to give the picture a "mode" (if you are deep in a forest the light itself may be a little green). To use the lasso tool and change the setting for areas and objects individually is often a god idea.

3 Use the "oilfilter" (not certain what that is called, i use Swedish language settings) but at a low setting! Mask size 6 is often god.

4 Now you get artistic! Zoom in to 400% and use the blur tool (i use tool size 11 almost al the time). Depending on how you use it you can make contours stronger or weaker and chose what to emphasize. You generally try to follow shapes and colors that are there if you dont have a god reason to change something. Remember to zoom out now and then to see what you are doing. When you are done pretty much the whole picture has been touched by the blur tool.

5 Fine tuning, if you need to do some last changes in color balance and brightness- contrast. A tool you might want to use to is the bleach/burn tool. Its god for highlights and such stuff.

6 You are done! And it looks something like this.

[jdsampayo]

Hello JAP, Could you put a link to the original picture, to try to do it?
That way I can compare my result with yours.

Good job.

[JAP]

Sure, here you go.
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7301/pict1791es0.jpg

[JAP]

Its been a long time, but i tried to make a desert one today.
I used a public domain photo from this site http://photo.itc.nps.gov/storage/images/ ( its from death vally national park).
Any advise on how to improve it is welcome.

Edit removed skull and sword

[Boucman]

remove the skull and sword, they sort of "break the modd" apart from that it looks great

[JAP]

You may very well be right about that Bouchman, when i look at it i now i see that especially the skull stands out way to much.
But before i remove them i want to try a little edit of the skull.
Better right?

[Kestenvarn]

Perhaps, but it would still look better without the two of those.

[JAP]

Alright i am obviously biased since i have put work in them, so i trust you and i changed the first one to be without the skull and sword.

( I dident have a saved version with them on different layers Doh!
So i just "retouched" them out.)

[JAP]

A new one.

[vonHalenbach]

Yeah Great! I like it!

Keep them coming.

[JAP]

Sorry to resurrect such an ancient thread, but i got bored remembered this, made another one and felt it was best to keep them in one place.
And the last thing said was keep them coming
Perhaps useful for UMC or something.

[kitty]

Hmm, this one is a lot closer to a photo than the previous ones (which had quite a nice feeling to them). You could leave out a lot of detail or make the brush strokes stand out a bit more.

Are you aware that lord bob is already doing story art for utbs?

[JAP]

You are right that looks a lot more like a photo than the others but i couldn't quite figure out why,
because it doesn't really have more detail then the shore picture and the brush strokes should be about the same.
But then i remembered that the previous ones had sort of "mode colours" that doesn't really look like natural colours.
So i played around a little and i think it changed the feeling of the picture to the better.
Is it an improvement?

I also made a new one, any comments on that?

Yes i know Lordbob is making the story art for utbs, this is just thought as a generic desert.

I could probably make a sort of "full set" of various generic storyboards, if that sort of thing is wanted.