i decided last year when i had made my brother's birthday card that for the year ahead i would make all the family's greeting cards in gimp. this friday was my youngest sister's birthday and i finished my task! i've made cards in gimp for every member of my family - and i've shown them all here on gimp chat apart from the two rather boring ones i made for my brothers in law, whose birthdays i never remember until the last minute - their cards looked nice enough, but were made using tutorials. i very nearly gave up on this last card, it seemed impossible both to find and to draw up the right picture of a dancing figure (i wanted a lot of movement in the pic), but in the end i lowered my demands a little and took a picture that wasn't really perfect and i just got the job done . the real surprise was that it looked so good printed - i'm used to having access to good equipment and help from people who really know their thing, this time i had dad's old printer and dad himself, who really knows nothing about printing pictures. the result looked smashing though, near perfect colours.


the gift that came with this card was a voucher for a dancing course, hence the motif. the text inside the dancer silhouette is names of dances from all over the world.

Very nice card! The figure of the dancer has been very well with the text and the white highlight on the edge.

I like how the background looks a bit like lights you'd use on a stage!
And the colors fit good together, very nicely balanced I'd say.
Nice work!

Wow anmal!
That was beautiful!
Smooth and rich with subtle details.
The same colors in different spots (inside and outside of the dancer) was a brilliant idea!

That is stunning and very imaginative.

I love it AnMal. There is so much movement and colour.

Very nice work. Love the idea to place a dance voucher in the card to match the card design.
Wonderful stuff.

yafu: thank you ! i was quite happy with the outline and text myself.
mokonafan: thank you sister ! i did think of stage lights when i made the background, and i spent a lot of time tweaking the colours til they looked good together - the background is a combination of three different layers with different colours and "stage light" patterns and i combined them using layermasks, gradients and the airbrush.

conbagui: thank you! no more right now, but all through the year (well, it's almost a year now anyway) that i've been on gimp chat i have insisited on posting the cards i've made for friends and family here.

akros: wow, thank you ! always nice to hear such words.

k1tesseraena: hey, are you trying to get more christmas gifts this year or anything? "trademark quality work" - i'm blushing. and if you don't think "cardmaker" is a fitting description of me then maybe you can agree with "crazy"?

2-ton: hey, thank you ! to be honest i don't know about "imaginative" (i love playing with silhouettes and this type of layout is starting to feel a bit old with me), but "stunning" sounds good

erisian: thank you ! oooooh, i'm good!

rod: thank you ! we had already agreed to give her the voucher and everyone else seemed to expect me to come up with a fitting card for it - so i did. lazy bunch, my siblings and their partners...

Nice work AnMal, do like how you've got the light rays emiting from the dancer.

no, just Xmas on 24th of each month




welcome to the club, sister

he4rty: thank you!! i made round white dabs with the paintbrush at certain points of the silhouette (on separate layer of course) and then i ran the g'mic light rays filter on it - had to tweak the rays a bit to get better colour and definition, but i'm happy with the result.
k1tesseraena: