I wondered if other people might find it helpful if I 'walked through' making a custom font with an abstract-styled face using various filter tools and so I put together this guide.

Overview to creating an abstract or irregular patterned custom font

1: Create an abstract image in Gimp and save it.
2. Create a set of font layers using Font-to-Layers and save it.
3. Add the abstract image as a new layer to your custom font file.
4. Use Custom-Font-Labels to copy the abstract pattern layer to the character shapes and save it.
5. Optionally use Custom-Font-Outlines to add some bling to your custom font and save it.
6. Use and share your custom font.

For the sake of convenience, I have put copies of all the filters into the zipped Custom Font Tools folder. Download and copy the .py extension filters to your user plugin folder and copy the .scm extension ones to your user scripts folder.



Edit: Custom Font Tools - replaced outline tool for one that correctly calls Shine-00b

Filters/Plugins you will need:

Font to Layers by MareroQ
Custom Font Labels v103 by Skinnyhouse
Custom Font Outlines v001 by Skinnyhouse
Shine-001b by Graechan (modified by Skinnyhouse)
Chisel for 2-10-0 Original by Rob Antonishen (modified by Skinnyhouse)

Before you begin you should make your abstract background layer/layers. The size should be larger than the layers that make up the letters of the custom font – I would suggest at least twice as large. So for a size of 500 I would make the background 1000 by 1000 or 1500 by 1500 pixels.

This is the really creative part of the process so let your imagination run riot. You could use an existing image or a canvas filled with random lines, brush strokes, shapes etc. I used the Path tool to stroke randomly drawn points with a black line, before using the Fill tool to colour in the different regions of the canvas. (This part takes the longest to do.)



In Font to Layers (Filters>>Text>>Font to Layers…) choose the font you need and set your required size. Hit ‘Ok’ and let the filter do its work and create the set of layers for your custom font. The colour you use has no bearing on the final result.



I used Sans serif Bold with a size of 500. and took the opportunity to alter the width of the space layer to make it narrower – my usual preference with custom fonts.

The next step is to add your background, as a new layer, to your custom font file.

Open the image in Gimp and then copy and paste the layer into the font file using Edit>>Copy (Ctrl + C in Windows) with the background image active and then Edit>>Paste as>>New Layer in Place with the custom font image active.

Alternatively you can use File>>Open as Layers… (Ctrl+Alt+O in Windows) to open the background image as a layer to the custom font image.

Once done, resize your view of the image in Gimp with Image>>Fit Canvas to Layers followed by View>>Zoom>>Fit Image in Window (Ctrl + O in Windows).

Now you can alter the letter faces of the layers in the custom font by using Custom Font Labels v103 with Filters>>Custom Font Labels v103.



Make sure that the layer you are using for the new letter faces is still visible before you set ‘Create new letter faces from visible layers’ to ‘Yes’ and hit ‘Ok’.

The filter will work its way through all the letter layers, choosing a random position to use for copying onto each letter shape.

Now delete the layer you used to copy the faces from – you no longer need it and it will only increase the size of the custom font file and save the custom font to your preferred location.

The custom font is perfectly usable now so test it out to see if you need to make any adjustments to layer widths (thinking the space layer here).



If you want to alter the flat look of the custom font use Custom Font Outlines v.0.01 to add either a shine or a chiselled effect (or both) from Filters>>Custom Font Outlines v.0.01…



I set the following options to add a shine:
Foreground colour set to black in Gimp
Outline width set to 2
Merge outline with its letter layer set to yes
Use shine when merging set to yes
Shine azimuth set to 315

If you want to play about with the options make a test copy of the custom font file with only a few letters before committing the filter to the full set of characters.

When you are happy with the result, save the custom font under a new name.

The custom font with Shine added.



Custom font size information:
The original plain custom font size: 4615 kb
The coloured custom font size: 13321 kb
The coloured font with shine added: 18568 kb

And finally for those people who prefer guides as PDFs - here is the information zipped in that fomat for you to download.

And I also forgot to include the actual font - split into four parts - so the layers will need re-assembling.

Sorry but GimpChat refuses to upload anything bigger than 1 Mb for me.

Parts 1 and 2:

And parts 3 and 4:

WOW! You really have developed a masterpiece! I love the look of your brightly colored shiny font. I will need to spend some time with this and get my brain organized. I haven't had much Gimp time lately but do not give up on me, I will get to it! I am amazed by your creations. I can not download now as using an iPad. When I get to my computer, I will download and set up so it will be ready to go. I know this took exorbitant amount of work. Thank you for sharing with us!

Thank you so much Skinnyhouse for your useful tutorial and the scripts to be used in the process. But also and specially for your time invested on them. It has been so easy and quick to make a new font.
I only had problem about shine, for any reason it didn't work and I applied shine on each layer.

Pat and Issa you are both very welcome. There will always be a time to hand craft each individual character but this does seem to a way to speed up the process for a lot of useful looking custom fonts. All you need is a good looking font shape really.

Issa if you installed the version of shine that I provided the usual reason for it to not work is not setting the option to 'Merge outline with its letter layer' to 'Yes'. You can check to see if the Shine-v001b filter is installed by looking for it from the menu path Script-Fu>>Effects>>Shine-v001b. If you cannot see it it is not installed in your user Scripts folder. Please let me know.

Thank you so much Skinnyhouse. Here these shots. I have the script installed and yes to "merge to outline" so, I don't know what can be wrong.
Thanks for your help.

I have corrected the error that was stopping the custom font outliner filter from adding shine to the character layers of custom fonts and edited and updated post number 501 with the new version for future use.

My sincere apologies - too many versions in my own plugin folder - I blame it on the heat!

Here is the updated version of outliner if you prefer to download and replace it here.

Thank you for the reply Issa - it confirmed my suspicions.

Some recent possible custom fonts for evaluation - only generated samples - not full fonts.

Thank you so much Skinnyhouse. I'll test it with your new script.

It works perfect now, no problem at all. Thanks a lot Skinnyhouse. You did a very nice effective job. Thanks for sharing them!
(nice fonts to come, too)

Here is another font.

Download from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sm3cxvh7mpu8 ... 0cNUa?dl=0

I really love this Regal font, thanks..

I agree, Regal is a beaut of a custom font - good one Blighty.

I have a custom font file that is far too big to upload - most of the time I struggle to upload anything over 1Mb - having said that it has just coped with 1.2Mb so I am doing well.



You can make your own version however quite easily provided that you already have my Custom Labels and Outlines Filters.

Unzip and open up the Custom font attached to this post (Well Rounded Heavy White Base 500) in Gimp. Unzip and open the Own Abstract 2b Scaled ready to use as the new font face.

Edit>>Copy the 'Own Abstract' image and then make the custom font the active image.

Add the 'Own Abstract' as a layer to the font with Edit>>Paste as>>New layer in place

Make all of the pasted layer visible with Image>>Fit Canvas to layers

Now use the CustomFontLabels filter. ( Link viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16631 )

Set option 5 to 'Yes' (Create new letter faces from visible layers) and click Ok.

When that has done its work delete the 'Own Abstract' layer from the custom font layers stack and resize the layers once more with Image>>Fit Canvas to layers.

Now use the CustomFontOutlines filter ( Link viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16665 ) with the following options set:
Layer width to zero
Merge outline with its letter layer to Yes
Use shine when merging to Yes

Click the Ok button and let the filter do its work for a few minutes.

Name and save your new custom font.

Blighty, your font is beautiful. I love it.

Skinnyhouse, I really like your font also. I need to review everything to be able to use your instructions. Very nice.