Whilst i was playing with my Embroider-Stitcher filter i accidentally came upon a unique painting effect.
1) Open a photograph in GIMP
2) Duplicate it
3) Run Embroider-Stitcher on the top layer
4) Place the top layer in "Subtract" mode

Results

Rod

Interesting effect Rod.

rod: cool effect! the text embroidery script can obviously be used for more than one thing.

Nice one Rod... I have to give that a try some time soon.

@ Rod
you are right is a really peculiar effect, quite original and on the curly hair really unique

Subtraction and addition are 2 modes that for some reason i always ignore here you found a good use

For some reason with this script fade (Edit> Fade ) is disabled
A pity because would speed up the process :
instead then create a dup and work on the dup , just run normally and then edit/fade , that has also the advantage of few color mode not normally available (i.e. replace, color erase )