Psychedelic Background tutorial

[Oregonian]

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one! - Frank Gelett Burgess



I got the information from this tutorial but the tut is so old that gimp and and the menus have changed and I had to change the wording in a few places. Tie-Dyed Cow

Open a new image, any size, and fill the background with white.

Name the Background layer, blur.

Filters > Render > Clouds > Difference Clouds.
Settings:
Detail 3
Check Tileable
X and Y sizes 8.4
Click new seed until you get a mottley image.
Click OK.

Then to Colors > Threshold.
Click OK.



Filters > Blur Gaussian Blur. Blur 2.
Click OK.

Make a new layer named, "plasma," and Render > Clouds > Plasma.
Plasma settings:
Turbulence 1.4
Click the new seed button until you get colors you like.
Click OK.

Then Filters > Artistic > Cubism
Cubism settings:
Tile size: 5.1
Tile saturation: 8.6
Click OK.

Filters > Blur > Gaussian blur. Blur 8.
Click OK.

Set the plasma layer mode to difference. Merge the plasma layer down to the blur layer.

Voila! Psychedelic background.




Cow Font is here.
http://www.dafont.com/critters-1-dc.font

Other cute cow fonts.
http://www.fontspace.com/category/cow

[molly]

She is so cute. I hope she has a name..... good job "O".....

[Oregonian]

Thank you, Molly. Didn't think of naming her, but we could call her Rainbow. She certainly has enough colors.

[PhotoComix]

I got the information from this tutorial but the tut is so old that gimp and has changed so I had to change it in a few places. Tie-Dyed Cow

The original tut didn't give any hint or suggestion on how to use that effect, you did it well

[Oregonian]

Thank you, PhotoComix. Since the name of the tutorial is Tie-Dyed Cows, I figured if I colored a cow with my results, that would work.

[molly]

I think I strayed off coarse a bit......and ended up with a white
cow.

[Oregonian]

That's very cute, Molly.

[molly]

wasn't intentional, believe me. I must have left something out. The first one I did with the real cow didn't do that....
Anyway, I kind of like it too... thanx
This was my first cow....

[PhotoComix]

well it is weird but with a strong character, i too i sort of like it..for sure it is original
your first was more neat..that could be...hum..a grungy psichedelic cow?

[Oregonian]

When you do the threshold step, there is no antialiasing (smoothing) around the black or white edges. You can see a close-up in the inset.



You can smooth up those edges by doing this:

Use the color select tool and select the black in the image.
Select > To Path
Unselect
Fill the black and white image with white.
Select > From Path and fill the selection with black.

You have smoother edges now.
The inset has a zoomed in area of the image.

Do NOT gaussian blur the results by 2. They don't need it now.

Continue the tutorial at the plasma layer.

After you have merged the plasma layer down to the blur layer, you can stroke the path and make the black lines thicker if you want.

I chose the Circle (01) brush and changed the size to 1.50, FG color Black.
Edit > Stroke Path. I chose Stroke with Paint tool and stroked it with the Paintbrush.

You can see the difference in the results. You can use a larger/smaller brush if you wish.


I sent an email to the author of the Tie-Dyed Cows tutorial and gave him a link to the tutorial in here. He said the tutorial is over 10 years old now.

[molly]

Very good info O".......I wondered how you got the strokes around your cow thicker..... thanx

[Oregonian]

Very good info O".......I wondered how you got the strokes around your cow thicker..... thanx

The cow is a very large font size. Don't remember how large so that's why the strokes are thicker. I didn't use the stroke method for it. I came up with the idea later for stroking the background lines.

[sallyanne]

Made this pattern last night. Put it into a dog today.