Thank you AnMal, you make me feel so happy with my humble outcomes as I consider you such a genuine artist.
OMG, thanks for your nice words, you don't need inspiration, you have it inside. I may have a little set of glass ornaments, but it is taking me long time. I'll try to finish them soon.

I do like wood with glass, very pretty!

I finished the set I was doing. It sounds to Christmas hehehe. I add the frames in zip, just in case someone likes to do any variation.

those are beautiful. How do you keep the edges of the glass part from getting smaller when you run the filter? I always seem to have some blank areas between the filtered part and the outlines.

Thanks 2-Ton, it happens sometimes, not always in my case. When it happens I select the gap a little bigger. The frame is set on the upper layer and cover the possible little gaps.

Practicing a bit of glass, and a wooden heart. I did grow the selections and that helps a lot, thanks. I tried some different settings, but it's still hard to figure out how to get what you envision, lol. I used the glass e-maps for all but the heart, but they don't all look like glass at all!

Issabella: I love your Christmas ornaments!
2-ton: I really like your selections! Occasionally I have trouble with the dripping or bleeding like you did on the one. I have yet to figure out why it happens and what to do about it. Maybe someone will know and share their secret.

My shapes are just brushes for practices, and yes, the liquid ones are hard to find good settings for. I made a 'banner' with jewels, another practice with the brl and glass maps. I chose easy to do shapes, i was going try to do actual gimp tools and wilber, but it was too detailed and I wouldn't have time to finish.

Lovely Bling 2-ton

Thank you Pat. I keep the items in PNG if you are interested in them. I learnt this method following the Wallace's thread.
2-Ton I love your banner.

Issabella & 2-ton - pretty glass (and wood) ornaments - so it looks like Xmas must be coming

2-ton - Like you, I find often that the glass for a particular object does not always look like I expected or hoped. Typically I do not use the 'flat bevel' option for glass, as I find the other two round bevels produce more shine and smoother surfaces. Also I found that blending two glass surfaces (say clear glass over coloured glass) can produce a better effect. The image below uses clear glass in burn mode over blue glass. Just try experimenting, that's what I did to find out which options deliver the desired or better outcomes.

Anyway, you have got me on to wood/glass combinations and a star for Xmas seems relevant ...

I never though about applying two different brls with different layer modes! Brill. Love your star, the background inside the wood frame fascinates me, how hard was that to do?

Thanks OMG, wood only applied on the belt, the rest is glass. You are a good observer.

2-ton - thought I would put some pictures and words together to help answer your questions on my BRL blending for glass effect and the background method for the star.

Firstly I use both 'Arakne path shape creator' and various 'Ofnuts path tool' plug-ins to help me build the shapes and paths I need to create the final image. I also work on a large size image (2000 x 2000) and then scale it down later.

So lets start with the work flow for the background to the star, shown in the first composite image below:



1. Starting point – you can see the empty background with a standard GIMP gradient flare which will show though the centre of the star
2. Result of using Dinasset's 'glass frame/gradient flare' option inside a selection enclosed by the wooden frame – set to normal mode
3. Result of creating a new layer from exposing the Dinasset layer in 2 above to GMIC>Testing>Samj>colors>couleurs metalliques – in grain merge mode above the Dinasset layer. This gives the background some texture.
4. Result of creating a new layer using Ofnuts path generation tools from the path defining the inside of the frame to a 50% duplicate of that path positioned in the centre of the background - about 75 paths I think it was. Those multiple paths were then stroked (Ofnuts multi path stroke tool) using a gradient, with brush of hardness 100 set to 5 pixels size. The gradient used was Anmal's 'hard spectrum many shades'. This layer was set to normal mode and provides some depth in the background.

Now for the star itself. The full star shape and interim smaller star shapes for BRL were again created using Ofnuts path generation tools.



1. The full star shape with a hole in the middle was first put through BRLusing Round 2 bevel with a linear contour parameter using the standard 'gem.png' spherical emap. This layer was set to normal mode.
2. I then created 4 interim layers of progressively smaller star shapes, did a BRL with Round 1 and linear contouring using my 'gemclear' emap on each one. These are used to provide depth and shape within the final glass star image
3. I then set all these interim star shapes to 'burn' mode; all these layers are above the blue star from step 1 which is set to not visible in this image just to show the effect
4. The blue star is then made visible and 'voila', a darker, shinier star with more depth!!

I hope this is useful for you.

Lovely work OMG! I love your instructions, also. You really are a master of designing and making such works of art. BTW how did you make gemclear emap? I am never able to get glass clear or nearly clear for a good desirable outcome.

Wow, so complicated and so much work goes into it. Thanks for the details, I have to do work arounds as I don't have all those plug-ins.

So I found a nice pattern with good shapes in it, and used some of your hints. Thanks, omg, for sharing.

2-ton - wow, wow, wow absolutely beautiful; straight to the top of the class

It was only this morning when I posted those 'hints', so that was some very quick response. I love your glass mandala, the colour combo is excellent and obviously pleased Wallace. Hopefully we will see some more mandalas, not just from you but others too. Again, well done.

EDIT - Pat625, oops in my enthusiasm for 2-ton's image I forgot to answer your question. All my colour variations on the original 'gem' emap, including the 'clear' version, were created using GIMP 'colorizer'.

WOW! That is a beauty 2-ton.