So, this is my first GIMP tutorial, as well as (Believe it or not) the first time trying a paint by numbers entirely.
Bare with me on this, I hope that it is at least relatively understandable.

Before I get too far here, I would like to thank everyone who assisted me in getting this together.

What you will need:

A photo, snapshot, art piece, or whatever you wish to try to convert.

A color reduction effect.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6643
the Cartoonizer plugin is pretty good for this ..it will (separately) generate both the outline and the reduced color pallette. But you may still need to manipulate the outline manually to get a satisfactory result.

Some way to resize the image while retaining smooth edges.
http://registry.gimp.org/node/24746
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0c62o ... taller.zip
http://vectormagic.com/home
This only applies if you're starting with a rather small, or highly detailed image .. if you start with a good-sized image or template Gimp's <Image>Scale Image... function will probably be good enough for scaling and you can control the printed size using <Image>Print Size...

Some way to place the numbers.


A printer
Paints and brushes
A steady hand.

This took some trial and error, and please note that the following may not be in any particular order, as all images may be handled differently.

The first thing you will need to find is whatever you wish to turn into a PBN pattern.
For this, I chose an NES controller.


I chose to vectorize the image in Vector magic first, as Vector magic often changes the pallet around and can also add colors,
afterward using the Cartoonizer plugin, I reduced the colors to 11


I then create a copy of the image, and apply an Edge detection effect, to draw the outline.
Convert to grey scale, then adjust the contrast and brightness until you are left with nothing but solid black outlines.



Taking some advice from jontait2, as well as using a texture pack that they supplied, I used the Color Select tool to select the individual colors, blank them out, then bucket fill the required number.
Afterward, applying the outline copy over the number image.


That's it, you are now ready to print this thing out, and paint it.


Which brings me to a few things to note.

When you print out a PBN pattern, make certain that you print it very light, or paste the numbers at a low opacity so that the numbers don't show through the paint.
(Unless you plan to acetone transfer it to canvas)

And, no matter how caught up in the moment that you may get, make sure that you stay calm, focused, and don't rush the paint job...
Something I obviously didn't do.

Have fun!
Thank you again to everyone that went out of their way to make this possible.

Edit: updated with additional details and suggestions from jontait2.

Excellent!

Yes, the Cartoonizer plugin is pretty good for this ..it will (separately) generate both the outline and the reduced color pallette. But you may still need to manipulate the outline manually to get a satisfactory result.

This only applies if you're starting with a rather small image .. if you start with a good-sized image or template Gimp's <Image>Scale Image... function will probably be good enough for scaling and you can control the printed size using <Image>Print Size...

If you create the number patterns on a separate layer from your outline you can then turn the opacity right down to about 20-30% as I did in the demo viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11972#p162132

Went on ahead and tacked most of that to the tutorial.
That last one sounds like a good thing to add as well, though, if it's alright with you, I would like to adjust it a bit so that it would refer to the outline itself, for those that might, or might not be painting over the outline to block out it's visibility.

Fine by me. Have fun.

And done.
Also, sorry to ask this of you, but.
When you quote me, could you please not just snag pieces of the post like that?
It messes with my head...

Fair enough.
Oops, done it again!

Would you mind if I used the NES controller picture for a podcast? I dont want to take it without permission but it would look cool in our logo. Just playing with ideas. Thanks.

I don't think that image was actually NiteShadow's copyright in the first place.
There are quite a few images in the public domain, some free for use - try Google Images "nintendo ns controller" -
including two on wikipedia which are expressly made free-for-use (though one of those requires attribution -see the details).

Ok cool. I just want to make sure because I am using it for a podcast image and may put it on a tshirt. I changed the coloring, etc, so it is none of those exact images, but I want to respect people and their work if they don't want it used. Sooooo I hope that is ok?

Sorry for the bump, but I have made a minor update to this.
Seems that there was a site policy against Sourceforge, which I was unaware of. resulting in the link to Scale2x being removed.
I apologize if anyone was placed at risk as a result of my linking to such.

I have replaced the link, with a copy of Scale2xGUI hosted on my own hosting at Mediafire.
I have also scanned the file for viruses using AVAST, with no detection.

Again, I'm sorry about that oversight, and will try to be more careful in the future.