this is a work under construction, but i'm showing it anyway because i'm so happy about how beautiful the actual knotwork turned out when i translated it from an old rough pencil sketch i found in one of my sketch pads and into a coloured and textured gimp image. i think this is going to be just lovely once i'm finished!


i also hoped i might get some tips on how to improve the quality on this image- i'm haunted by ugly jagged edges and i really don't see how to fix them. i use paths, not selections (even when i've scaled details). still, as you can see, i get those ugly sawtooth edges here and there. this image is half size and i think the sawtoothing may be a little less evident here than in my original xcf.

apart from getting rid of the sawtooths i'm going to change the arms, probably intertwine them a bit with the woman's hair and make simple hands. in my pencil sketch the arms looked allright just as plain black lines but the sketch was rather rough and when i smoothed it up a little and added colour i realised the arms looked too much stick figure.

Love love love love it.

I'm a big big fan of Celtic art and one of my favourite artists is Courtney Davis. Wish I could help you with this but I haven't yet done much successful knotwork. Keep at it.

It is very beautiful

its a very symbolic picture, i love that !

like an extra layer: art and philosophy

I love it. It looks professional.

erisian0]: hehe, i detect a certain enthusiasm in your reply . thank you! i am actually (among all the other million things i seem to be at the same time) a celt wannabee. that's what the "real celts" in folk music call people like me, who don't have any at all connection to the celtic countries but gobble down anything that comes from there. so i've done a lot of simple knotwork thing, but this is my first attempt to do it in gimp.
samj0]: thank you very much!

esper0]: thank you! i really did put a lot of thought into this. i found a picture with a similar layout in a book, but that picture was of two men fighting - i spent hours drawing grids and reworking them until i got the heart shapes in the knotwork and put in a man and a woman instead.

oregonian0]: thank you very much! i really wish i could agree with you, but those jagged edges drive me nuts! maybe they're not as visible in this size though.

That looks great! It looks like you put a lot of thought and work into that one. I certainly can't see a reason to make any changes.

I'm interested in Celtic Ogham writing, runes, etc. My signature is a version of Ogham using a font based on, "Beth-Luis-Nion".
http://ogham.lyberty.com/index.html

I really like the colors, and flow of that image.
Very nicely done in my opinion.

Wow; wonderful result AnMal. Was going to pass my delight at your result earlier but got off tracked.

i understand that

have you thought about duplicating the layer, and run a bit of gaussian blur over it, then put the blurred layer behind it, so that it masks the jaggies ?

im not really talking about a glow, just a faint hint of color

i had the same problem when i made the banner...you remember the text in the yellow sun-shape ?
the text was all jaggy
so i put a blured orange-y layer behind it, turned the opacity way down, so that its barely visible but still softens the edges and that worked for me




also, have you seen these tutorials on deviantart ?

http://cryosphinx.deviantart.com/art/Kn ... -150541603

and here is another one for Inkscape:
http://cryosphinx.deviantart.com/art/Kn ... -157172738

thanks all of you people for commenting! i have much more important things to do today but all i long for now is to open that xcf and get to work again .

odinbc: you don't think i should change the arms? to me they just scream stick figure! i had noticed the ogham signature - in the hierarchy of celt wannabism the ogham users score even higher points than the gaelic speakers, so a mere knotwork dabbler like myself should bow her head in respect to you and probably address you as "your highness" .

rod: thanks! i really am happy with the colouring, it took a bit of experimenting to get the colours and the texture to work together.

lylejk: thank you very much, your comments are appreciated whenever they come .

esper: i literally screamed with joy when i saw the tutorials! wooohoo, i'm going to try it, both in gimp and in inkscape (as soon as i get my portable version reinstalled, something happened to it when i had to emergency eject my usb stick). and no, i hadn't thought of putting a blurred layer behind the original layers, sounds like it could be a very simple solution to my problem, so you've been a real help!

some of the important things i were supposed to do today turned out to be unnecessary after all, so instead i had tea downtown with my sister, browsed through the art and design books at the art museum bookstore, took a bike ride in the neighbourhood and - ta-ta! finished my knotwork picture. now it looks good even in full size and there's a new photo store in town where they may be able to print it for me, i'd like to have it printed and framed as a gift for some of my friends.

I didn't even notice the arms weren't quite right in the first one
This one looks way better!

i like the way you changed the arms !




btw, stumbled over this picture today, it reminded me of your work, because of the hair

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q-Feq0ZDhgE/U ... 0/fox2.jpg

Excellent work!

i just found out: there is an Antialias filter

Filter -> Enhance -> Antialias

you can use it to smooth jaggy edges (the picture needs to have an alpha channel)
maybe thats another option to enhance your knotwork

thanks esper, i'll give that a try with my next knotwork image! i'm working on one based on that deviantart tutorial right now and i really like her technique.

Very interesting artwork there...o.o
I like it! It's cute, the edges look a lil rough but I'm not gonna be picky. xD

thank you, mokonafan! you're perfectly right about the edges. i had so much problem with the jagged edges in this picture, it used to be much worse than what you see here. in the end i settled for good enough instead of perfect.

Wow, this is really awesome! The texture is a little too strong for my liking, and there are still jagged edges and stuff, but that's more just Gimp issues, I believe. :/ Well done!