GIMP Tutorial
The following is a tutorial for The GIMP. It can be adapted to be used in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, however, if you know the equivalent tools.
So I’ve decided to start a GIMP Tutorial section and thought I’d start off with making a ball of fire. Admittedly it isn’t the most realistic, however it looks very good for the amount of time and the (lack of) effort you can make it in.
Start off with a good-sized image. For this I used 800×600 pixels with a blue (however, I suggest using a black) background (to make it easy to distinguish from everything else). Next make a new layer and select it.
We’re going to start out with a white (HTML Notation ffffff) Circle (19) brush. Draw a blob of really any size but try to make it somewhat circular/eliptical. The more wavy the better.
Next, switch to Yellow (fff600) and this time trace the outside/inside. And now do the same with Red (ff0000). It should look something like the following.
It looks better when there is more yellow/red (individually) than white.
Now we’re going to use Gaussian Blur in Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I used 25×25 with IIR selected, however you can play around with it if you wish. It should look like the following.
Next, get out the Smudge brush (S). This is a lot easier with a Wacom tablet (which I used), but a mouse will do just fine. I used the following settings:
Brush: Circle Fuzzy (19)
Pressure Sensitivity: Hardness and Rate checked (only helps if you’re using a Wacom)
Rate: 14.1
Now go crazy in circular, horizontal and vertical strokes. The colors will mix together, giving it a more realistic look as well as add turbulence to it. Do this as much as you want until you like how it looks. This is my final product.
You can play around and adapt these settings for a variety of uses. For example, I whipped the following wallpaper up quickly and used the fireball as the sun.
