> I'm working on some illustrations, and am not entirely satisfied with the > fact that they look very artificial and computer-generated. Does anyone > have any suggestions on ways of working with the gimp to produce artwork > that is more "natural" looking? I'm particularly thinking of things like > adding paper texture, making the ink/paint look less perfect or precise, > etc. I guess the look I'm thinking of is more of gouache and watercolour. I'm a big fan of a rough hand-drawn look. One thing I did that I'm halfway happy with is a crosshatch filter I made for GIMP with gimp-perl. It doesn't always create a believable cross-hatch effect. It depends on the subject and the settings. If you're creating stuff from scratch, there's nothing like a graphics tablet. I've got a 6x8 Intuos USB, and I've really enjoyed working with it. The pressure sensitivity is good enough that many of the tools draw much like the real thing, just with a perfect eraser and unlimited undo. I keep a sketchpad online at http://www.nightdrivers.com/~samjones/images/ It's not high art, but I think it shows how tools can behave like pen, pencil or brush.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use Gimp ":auto"; use Gimp::Fu; sub pencil_crosshatch { # Grab the image this routine modifies my ($image,$drawable,$darkness,$trace_threshold,$trace_brush) = @_; # Grab tracable area for later use gimp_by_color_select($drawable,[0,0,0],$trace_threshold,2,0,0,0,0); plug_in_sel2path($image,$drawable); gimp_selection_none($image); # NE Stroke is a layer handling the crosshatch going NE-SW my $ne_stroke = gimp_layer_new($image,$image->width,$image->height, $drawable->type,"NE Stroke",100,0); # Add a layer onto image $image->add_layer($ne_stroke,-1); gimp_palette_set_background([255,255,255]); gimp_edit_fill($ne_stroke,BG_IMAGE_FILL); plug_in_noisify($image,$ne_stroke,0,.5,.5,.5,0); plug_in_mblur($image,$ne_stroke,0,5,135); # NW Stroke is a layer handling the crosshatch going NW-SE my $nw_stroke = gimp_layer_new($image,$image->width,$image->height, $drawable->type,"NW Stroke",100,3); # Add a layer onto image $image->add_layer($nw_stroke,-1); gimp_palette_set_background([255,255,255]); gimp_edit_fill($nw_stroke,BG_IMAGE_FILL); plug_in_noisify($image,$nw_stroke,0,.5,.5,.5,0); plug_in_mblur($image,$nw_stroke,0,5,45); my $cross_layer = $image->merge_down($nw_stroke,1); $cross_layer->set_mode(4); # Use Darkness Parameter gimp_levels($cross_layer,0,32*($darkness-1),255,1,0,255); # Add in traced outline # Trace is a layer handling a traced outline of the image. my $outline = gimp_layer_new($image,$image->width,$image->height, $drawable->type,"traced outline",100,3); # Add a layer onto image $image->add_layer($outline,-1); gimp_palette_set_background([255,255,255]); gimp_edit_fill($outline,BG_IMAGE_FILL); gimp_brushes_set_brush($trace_brush); gimp_path_stroke_current($image); } register "crosshatch","Makes image appear to have been drawn in pencil with" . " crosshatch","pencil crosshatch","Sam Jones","Sam Jones","2001-16-04", "<Image>/Filters/Artistic/Crosshatch","RGB*,GRAY*",[ [PF_SLIDER, "darkness", "Sketch Darkness",1,[1,9,1]], [PF_SLIDER, "trace_threshold", "Trace Threshold",40,[1,255,1]], [PF_BRUSH, "trace_brush", "Trace Brush","9x9cross"] ],\&pencil_crosshatch; exit main();