I've seen very few tutorials for making fabric so I decided to make a more comprehensive one that includes several types of fabrics. For this tutorial you will need to have the G’MIC plug-in installed and can be found here:
http://registry.gimp.org/search/node/gmic You will also need the two carbon fiber patterns I have included. You can get the whole carbon fiber package at deviantart.com.
Step 1.
Open a new image sized at 1024 x 1024.
Step 2.
Go to Filters>Render>Clouds>Solid Noise and set the detail to 1, X to 1, and Y to 4. As you can see you get some really soft looking clouds. This will be the base we'll use for our fabric ripples or folds.
You will need to duplicate this layer 3 times. Name the first layer Clouds, and the second layer Satin. Name the third and fourth layers Linen and Oxford. Tick the eye in front of every layer except the Satin layer, to turn off the visibility. Only the Satin layer should be visible now.
Step 3.
For plain fabric, you can apply different textures like we’ll be doing in a minute, but for Satin we need our fabric to be really shiny. Click on the Satin layer to make it the active layer, then go to Colors>Curves and use the “Max chrome” settings from my Tin Foil tutorial to adjust the curves. You can find the Tin Foil tutorial here:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3466If you don’t already have those chrome settings saved, after you make your changes like in the Curves dialogue below, just tick the little plus sign at the top. When the little box comes up, it will ask you to enter a name for your settings, and then click OK.
Make your Curve settings look like the picture shown here.
After applying the Curve settings, you will notice there are a lot of weird little “artifacts” or swirly lines.
To fix this, go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use 25 for both settings.
Step 4.
We can easily make any color fabric as we go by changing the FG color to whatever you like and create a new transparent layer (one for each color you are using) and drag your color choices over to each layer in turn, to fill it. Change each colored layer mode as explained below, and turn off visibility to whichever layers you are not using at the moment. I’m going to use some basic colors for illustration purposes.
Some colors look best using different layer modes. For the white layer, set the mode to Screen and lower the Opacity to around 75. Since the clouds image layer is already gray, a black layer should be set to Grain Merge.
Red, Blue & Green can be set at either Multiply for a darker color, Grain Merge for a medium color, or Overlay for a brighter color. I’ll use Red here to illustrate.
Personally, I like the Grain Merge mode for Red, Overlay for Blue. For Green, I set the mode to Multiply and reduce the Opacity to around 75. Just play around with these layer modes until you like what you see, adjusting the opacity as needed.
OK. We have our colors, now we need to change the appearance of the fabric to something other than Satin but stay with a shiny look. Let’s start with a nice Linen pattern. Tick the eye in front of the white layer and the Satin layer to turn off their visibility.
Step 5.
Tick the eye in front of your blue layer to make it visible, click on the Linen layer to make it the active layer and tick the eye in front of it to also make it visible. (I’ll be using the blue layer with the mode set to overlay for the next few steps) Go to Filters>GMIC> Patterns>Canvas Texture and enter the values shown in the screenshot below.
Now we have some Linen fabric.
If you want more texture, just crank up the Amplitude setting a bit but not too much.
Step 6.
Turn off the visibility on the Linen layer and click on the Oxford layer. Create a new transparent layer just above it, name it “Beaded Carbon”, and set the layer mode to overlay. Select the bucket fill tool and set the pattern to (you guessed it) beaded carbon. In the bucket tool dialog, be sure to tick both boxes Pattern fill and Fill Whole Selection.
Since your blue layer already visible, you will instantly see your new blue Oxford cloth fabric.
For a finer weave like Pima Pinpoint Oxford, adjust the pattern scale to around 50%. If you don’t already have it, you can find the utility script to scale your patterns here:
http://registry.gimp.org/node/13707 .
Here is the same pattern applied to a transparent layer above a white layer. For this one the carbon layer is set to Grain Merge with the blue color layer above it set to overlay.
And another one with the folds or ripples.
Step 7.
For the next few steps, we do something a little different. Turn off the visibility on all layers and create a new layer and place it under the angled carbon layer. Fill your new layer with a dark blue-gray color like 151544. Name this layer Denim.
Step 8.
Now turn on the visibility for the angled carbon layer. Duplicate the carbon layer one time and set the top layer mode to Overlay and the second one to Screen. Make sure only these tree layers have their visibility turned on, then right click anywhere in the layers dialog and select Merge Visible Layers.
Step 9.
Go to Filters>Noise>Spread and enter 5 for the amount and click OK. Instant Denim!
Now we have fabric that looks similar to Denim when it is brand new.
One of the better denim tutorials around is done by Fencepost and can be found at
http://www.gimptalk.com/index.php?showtopic=3701He uses a scan line pattern instead of the angled carbon and gets a really great washed denim effect like this.
If you want a little different color, just change the first colored layer in step 7 and repeat steps 8 & 9.
I hope you liked this tutorial, if so then you might be interested in my next tutorial. How to make some worn out, frayed looking cloth like the one below or apply the effects to any one of the fabric examples above.
Stay tuned!