By following this tutorial, you will be able to create a grungestract background using nothing but GIMP’s standard filters; no brushing and no additional scripts or plug-ins. Furthermore, each step of this tutorial will be explained fully, complete with as many screenshots as there needs to be. I would’ve made this into a one-image tutorial, but, because of its length and amount of images, it’d take a long time, and would need to be split into much smaller chunks. Similarly, GT wont accept image based tutorials, so there’d be much less chance of it becoming official.

Now that that short explanation is over, let’s start.

You will be making the following:



The first step is to create a new document. I’ve made the assumption that you all know how to do that, so, on with the rest of the tutorial.

After the rather simple first step, open up the ‘Tool Options’ dialogue. To do this, go to ‘Dialogues’, then click on ‘Tool Options’.

Use the gradient () tool, with the following settings:



Drag about 60 gradients around the canvas, making sure to vary the size and direction of each gradient.

It doesn’t look very sexy right now, but you should get something like this:



Duplicate this layer, by going to ‘Layer, Duplicate Layer’.

To get to the ‘Edge Detect’ tool, go to ‘Filters, Edge-Detect, Edge’. Use the following settings:



You should achieve something ugly like this:



Duplicate this layer, once again.

To get this looking a little better, create a bump map on the layer. To do this, go to ‘Filters, Map, Bump Map’ and use these settings:



You should end up with something like this:



It’s time to create a new separate layer. To do this, open up the ‘Layers’ dialogue by going to ‘Dialogues’ and clicking on ‘Layers’. Click the bottom left () button.

To render some grungy plasma, go to ‘Filters, Render, Clouds, Plasma’ and use the following settings:



Ignore what’s in the greyed out boxes; they don’t matter.

Desaturate the layer, by going to ‘Layer, Colours, Desaturate’.

For your second layer, you’ll have something like this:



On the same layer, use the ‘Displace’ function (Filters, Map, Displace) with these settings:



The displace layers should both be the one below the plasma.

You’ll get something like this:



Use the ‘Bump Map’ tool again, but with these settings:



Make sure that the mapped layer is the bottom one, with the gradients on it.

Your results should be similar to this:



Duplicate the third layer (the one below the plasma) and drag it to the top of the layers then set it to overlay. To do this, there’s a ‘Mode’ dropdown on the ‘Layers’ dialogue. Simply click this and select ‘Overlay’.

You’ll get something like this:



It’s coming along quite nicely now, but it still hasn’t a scratch on the final version.

Create a new layer, and render some randomised plasma clouds. Make sure that turbulence is still at 7. Desaturate this layer.

Create another layer, and repeat the same steps as the last layer. After you desaturate it, use the ‘Cubism’ function (Filters, Artistic, Cubism) with the settings below:



Set this layer to overlay.

Duplicate Layer 6, set it to overlay, and drag it to the top of the layers.

Before the slightly more complicated parts, you should have something like this:



It’s a little too contrasted right now, but, after the next three layers, it’ll be finished, so bare with me.

Create a new layer, and render some plasma with maximum turbulence. Desaturate this layer, and head to GIMPressionist. This is located at ‘Filters, Artistic, GIMPressionist’.

The first thing to do is change the Presets to Line-art-2 To do this, click on ‘Line-art-2, then click ‘Apply’, then ‘Update’. On the next tab, set the paper to canvas2.pgm. The brush should be arrow01.pgm.

Set this layer to ‘Screen’, the same way you do to set it to overlay.

It should look kind of snowy, now, like this:



Create another layer, render some more plasma with the same turbulence as last time, desaturate the layer, then open up GIMPressionist again. Use Line-art-2 and canvas2 again, and the grad01.pgm brush.

Set this layer mode to ‘Multiply’, and bingo-was-almost-his-name-o.

Duplicate Layer 6, drag it to the top, change the opacity to 30% and set the mode to overlay, and bingo-really-was-his-name-o.

We’re done, and once again, the final result:



I hope you’ve learnt something.

Wow. For a brushless backround, thats awesome.

Thanks! Deffinatly try it out later.

I was going to make a 1000x1000 file and make brushes using this tutorial, but that'd take even longer than writing the whole thing down, and I just don't have the time.

nice brushless BG. great tut, should be official!

I do hate to bump this so soon.

I'll probably email Ali soon, and (hopefully) get it officialised.

If you want I would make brushes. I get bored pretty easily because all my friends went on vacation. Need something to do.

Sure, Blaze, that sounds cool. :h:

Pretty sweet. This is probably something I needed for my next sig. Great work.

The brushes will be ready in a couple days. I'll post them up here when done.

Ace!

I iz an idiot I was so sure I posted here >_<.

I can't do brushes very well. Mine made a background around the brush that was the same as your foreground color when using the brush. That suckededed. I reccomend you ask a skilled brush maker (AKA not me) or someone with a decent knowledge of creating brushes to make these, they definately deserve their own brushes.

very nice back ground, but my results werent that great. i will have to retry later

cool :w:

Pretty basic, doesn't look that great but is perfect for a quick background if you aren't making a complex sig.

Great tutorial though!

My result:

my result

love the tut awesome job

very thorough tut
i learn't alot from this

Great Tutorial, I learned a lot of great techniques. Here is my result:



Thanks for taking the time to write this for us.

Regards,

Drew

^^ thats kewl

My Result:

I actually skipped the Clouds-->Plasma part because I liked the raw image before the Clouds-->Plasma. I fiddled with the Layer Settings, Colorized, added a not so decent border, and viola. Liked this tutorial a lot. Got some new ideas.