I really like the way metallic text turns out when using Lighting Effects, similar to RobA's Gold Objects tutorial.

I made a tutorial spin-off for doing text. It really gives a realistic metal look.

http://www.mahvin.com/2011/04/gimp-tuto ... ilver.html

http://silent9.com/blog/archiv ... -Gimp.html

very nice tutorial. If you make the gold pattern an actual gimp pattern, would there be any change to the tutorial?

All you would need to do is open the pattern as an image before doing the tutorial.

Mahvin, this is such a nice tutorial; I made it a separate tutorial. - O

quite impressive! Here my result...Pauline is my actual name.. Might help if I turn on anti alias next time for text.

Sweet! You can also use text path selections to trim the font a little bit, if its too wide.

bookmarked that until it imprints on my tiny brain! thanks for that tutorial

Looks more like chocolate to me... but looks very palatable:)

Anyway, it's time e stop faking hard materials and start doing something organic. How about faking the texture of the flesh of an apple?

Before that i will like to see good emulations of not existing metals (i.e."Superman" Kriptonite,"Ka Zar" Vibramium, more to be found in old Flash Gordon and Micky Mouse comix..)

Love the new sig ofnuts.

Nice adaptation!

-Rob A>

Finally got time to try this out....gold using the environment on gold gradient

A little sparkle at the brightest spot would really set that off 2-ton.

I am so bad at using the sparkle filter. I can never manage to get it the way I want it, and can't seem to figure out what the settings will produce.

You can make your own sparkle brush.
Here you go just make sure you paint with both foreground and background colors white.
Paint the sparkles on a new layer so you can set the opacity.


Here are the brush settings


Just in case you can not read that the settings are
Radius - 75.0
Spikes - 4
Hardness - 0.09
Aspect Ratio - 1.6
Angle - 106.2
Spacing - 20

OK, gold with sparkle...made mine a bit different.

I still would like to figure out how to use sparkle better...sometimes I want my sparkle to have really long spikes but not be too bright.

Awesome! Looks like actual gold laying on a sheet of gold.

You can make the radius larger or increase the brush size then put the sparkle on a separate layer and lower the opacity.

Actually, the brighter star is four layers merged together and the lighter one is a single star at regular opacity in this image. I included the brush editor image so you can see the settings I used.

oh, yeah, lightbulb! I can make one with longer spikes, then make one skinnier and with shorter spikes and put it on top for that "neon glow" look. I should have thought of that. I also see that the 4 spike is actually better than my 7 spike. so radius is the size from center to end of spike and the aspect ratio is how fat or thin the spikes are?

Yes and Yes.

You can also angle the smaller spikes/star at 45 degrees and use it centered on top of the longer spikes/star to create twinkling effects.