i cut a mughal painting apart and ran the part with the dancers through the g'mich symmetrizoscope. then i made the lotus using some of my mughal brushes, some of my old patterns and the clone layer tool. up til then i only played around, but then i saw it could be something, so i started adding things that would fit in and made this picture. i'm very happy with it myself, it's something i would really want to have on my wall if i could only make it at that scale.

Love it
The reason i joined this site, is art like this, but it seems to be turning into text after text post
I like text too, but Gimp can do so much more
keep up the great work AnMal

Great work!

I like how you got the dancers to form a continuous ring. It's a neat effect
Too bad it's not bigger, it would make interesting wall art. Maybe one of the upscale algorithms could blow it up.

Very nice AnMal, that would make a very good patch or a quilt.

alc59: thank you very much! i'm really glad you said that, because i've been thinking only i really see the point in pictures like this. i love text effects too but i also love photo manipulation and paintings and collages and all the rest and i hope there will be more of all that here on gimp chat as well. this is a fast moving forum, so i'm sure there will be, soon enough.
merrak: thank you! i think i could upscale to postcard size with tolerable quality, the one posted here is downscaled and the original is about 1400px square, but it's far off from poster size - and it would be so perfect for my wall!
molly: thank you! oh, it would be make a dream of a quilt! i can see it: appliqué work on a green hex work background and then indian quilt stitches along all the seams and maybe a gold thread edge on the outer frame...

I never know how to comment on your work AnMal - I like it all and all I can say is "That's another stunner!"

Wau, that took a lot of work! xD
Very pretty!

I've been totally curious, are you from the middle east or do you just enjoy their culture?

AnMal - Really nice, could see the design on plates.

@Anmal, it's ... just beautiful.

Fantastic AnMal; now your turn to create an actual tut.

Agreed

wow, so many comments that i've missed! thank you everyone, i really hadn't expected to find more comments on this thread.

erisian: oh, just give me a cup of tea every time i make something nice looking and i'll be happy...
mokonafan: i just like the culture (and many other cultures too), i'm 100% homespun scandinavian
he4rty: i actually took part in a plate design contest once and my design for that contest was influenced by mughal paintings and based on a six star just like this one .
k1tesseraena: there were actually just two dancers but they were moving so fast they looked like twelve, that's why .
lylejk & sallyanne: a tutorial?! on what, i wonder? if i made a "how to" on this picture it would be novel length and mostly describe steps that any gimp noob already knows how to do, but if you ask me a specific question like "how did you make the frame?" i will be more than happy to answer it.